Sunday Morning

Will Covid-19 become an endemic, more agreeably mild virus that we just have to be wary of every winter, like the flu, or - as exemplified by the new XE variant - is this the coronavirus warming up for the main event?

Hawke's Bay native Rachel Nelson has lived in plenty of different places around the world - China, USA, Qatar and Germany, to name a few. But the experience she and her family are currently enjoying in Uzbekistan's capital of Tashkent is different from anything else, especially when it comes to language. Rachel works in HR and recruitment and has just finished a remote stint with UN Volunteers. She also has a blog and website (Yay for Today) that is for people living the expat life. Rachel's American husband Derek is the principal of the international primary school in Tashkent, where they moved from Germany during the pandemic (July 2021) for "work and adventure" reasons. And they're certainly having the adventure they asked for. The couple have three teenage children - Hugo (16), Oscar (14) and Rosa (13) - living with them in Uzbekistan, which is the most populous country in Central Asia. Rachel's Calling Home this morning.

It's a commonly-held belief that forgetting things is the first sign of a slippery slide into cognitive decline. However, researchers at Trinity College Dublin and the University of Toronto now argue that 'forgetting' is actually a form of learning that helps our brains access more important information. Forgotten memories, the researchers explain, are not really lost for all time - just made inaccessible. The findings also suggest that it might be possible to recover memories that had been thought to have been lost to disease - such as seen, for example, in patients with Alzheimer's. Study co-author Professor Tomás Ryan from Trinity College Dublin is with us to discuss the research.

A lack of sunshine means your immune system doesn't work as well, and your defence mechanisms suffer similarly. Professor Steve Jones explains the role light plays in our health, and why we need to go outside in search of it.

Researchers at Trinity College Dublin and the University of Toronto now believe that 'forgetting' is actually a form of learning that helps our brains access more important information. Professor Tomás Ryan joins us to discuss.

Rachel Nelson has lived in plenty of different places around the world - China, USA, Qatar and Germany, to name a few. But the experience she and her family are currently enjoying in Tashkent is different from anything else.

Director, writer and producer Kevin Goetz has been at the centre of the movie research industry for more than 30 years. Goetz is also a member of the Academy and was in attendance at the Oscars this week to witness the Will Smith slap,

Which comes first – happiness or success? In other words, does success at work make you happy or does happiness make you more likely to succeed? After five years studying 1 million US Department of Defence employees, Professor Lester Paul Lester and his colleagues have discovered that when it comes to job performance, happiness is a superpower.

Professor Michael Baker is back with us for a Covid-19 update. He discusses reservations about the mandates coming off tomorrow, trial data on booster shots for 12-17 year olds, and whether New Zealand got Omicron at the right time.

Pushback against the upswing of political nastiness; NZME undermines collective bid to confront tech titans; Today FM's Dallas Gurney .