Our Changing World

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Our Changing World Stories about science and nature from out in the field and inside the labs across Aotearoa.

Our Changing World is a thought-provoking weekly programme that airs at 9pm (New Zealand-time) each Thursday night on RNZ National. It features a varied mix of field-recorded interviews about science, the environment and health research. Our Changing World shares the excitement and discovery of science by getting scientists to share their passion and enthusiasm for their work. It’s about how scien

ce works and the nature of scientific discovery, as well as the latest results and their significance.

03/03/2025

❄️ Coming this Thursday: Voice of the Sea Ice! ❄️

Join us for the first instalment of our Antarctic adventure... we'll encounter the colossal ice sheets that fringe the continent and hear about some crazy modern day expeditions to make sea ice science happen 🤯

Episode online 5am this Thursday, or tune in on RNZ National during the usual OCW slot at 7.30pm 🎧

📷: Neil Silverwood

🎧Listen now | Two stories this week:🦈Researchers in Fiordland are using acoustic tags and receivers to keep tabs on shar...
26/02/2025

🎧Listen now | Two stories this week:

🦈Researchers in Fiordland are using acoustic tags and receivers to keep tabs on shark movements

🪸Plus, Moera Tuilaepa-Taylor brings us a story about an international collaboration exploring New Zealand’s deep-sea realm, involving a high-tech German research vessel.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/ourchangingworld/543123/our-changing-world-tracking-fiordland-s-sharks

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/542529/an-inside-look-at-state-of-the-art-research-ship-rv-sonne

RV Sonne is giving scientists new insight into the ocean floor, scouting underwater volcanos and coral reefs around the motū.

Coming soon....Step into a frozen world with New Zealand researchers investigating the future of Antarctica. From Scott'...
26/02/2025

Coming soon....

Step into a frozen world with New Zealand researchers investigating the future of Antarctica.

From Scott's tragic expedition during the 'Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration', to the establishment of Scott Base to support the Trans Antarctic Expedition, to the modern-day ambitious science projects being led by New Zealand researchers, Antarctica has been a place of adventure, struggle, mystery, wonder and superlatives: the driest, the coldest, the windiest, the most inhospitable.

It's the fifth largest continent in the world, 14 million square kilometres, and every year the ocean around it freezes, effectively doubling it's size before melting again come summer. This is the Antarctic 'heartbeat', and it impacts the entire planet.

Travel with OCW's Claire Concannon down to the ice to find out what it's like to live and work down there, and what these researchers are learning that will affect us all.

17/02/2025

Coming up this week, two Tairāwhiti stories for you:

🧠 People with ADHD often fidget more than others. Why is that? A researcher from the Auckland Bioengineering Institute has teamed up with the Mātai Medical Research Institute to investigate.

🐦🌿 At Waikereru Ecosanctuary, local birds have been enlisted to help speed up regeneration of the forest.

Listen in on Thursday!

🎧Listen now | This week we have two stories for you:🦆 Eastern Whio Link is protecting whio blue ducks in the Waioeka Gor...
12/02/2025

🎧Listen now | This week we have two stories for you:

🦆 Eastern Whio Link is protecting whio blue ducks in the Waioeka Gorge. We hear from Sam The Trap Man about their approach, successes and innovative funding model

🌋❄ A research team is investigating what weird microbes are thriving on the slopes of Mt Erebus. Claire speaks to one researcher from University of Canterbury about the intrepid fieldwork on the world's southernmost volcano.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/ourchangingworld?share=3311477c-d5f6-4765-b2f9-f420b1187e87

📷: Sam Gibson / Stephen Noell / Matthew Stott

09/02/2025

Coming up this week, two stories for you:

🦆 Sam The Trap Man chats about Eastern Whio Link, a trapping project led by hunters, fishers and mana whenua to protect the whio blue ducks of Waioeka Gorge.

🦠 Claire meets a University of Canterbury researcher studying extreme life on the slopes of an active volcano in Antarctica.

Tune in on Thursday! Antarctica New Zealand

📷: Stephen Noell / Sam Gibson

02/02/2025

Coming up this week, Claire pops into the Tairāwhiti Environment Centre and Gizzy Kai Rescue to learn about their mahi minimising waste ♻

Listen on Thursday!

27/01/2025

We're back this week with a brand new episode!

Claire meets a team testing smart traps and AI to control predators in rugged terrain and thick bush.

Listen on Thursday.

📷: Southern Lakes Sanctuary

🎧 Listen now | In McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, a potent greenhouse gas seeps out of cracks in the seafloor. The first Anta...
18/12/2024

🎧 Listen now | In McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, a potent greenhouse gas seeps out of cracks in the seafloor.

The first Antarctic methane seep was found in 2012. But now, researchers are finding things they can't explain – including new seeps popping up.

Claire joins a team of scientists racing to find answers. Why are new seeps appearing now? What does this mean for our climate present and future?

https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/ourchangingworld?share=e2a39472-c85e-4441-81e6-3338bbef1343

📷: Claire Concannon, Leigh Tait

Antarctica New Zealand NIWA New Zealand

15/12/2024

Coming up this week: startling new research on methane seeps in Antarctica has potential implications for our climate change accounting.

Claire Concannon reports – tune in on Thursday.

Antarctica New Zealand NIWA New Zealand

📷: Leigh Tait

08/12/2024

Coming up this week: tuatara are "living fossils", the last surviving species of an order of reptiles that walked with dinosaurs.

Claire Concannon heads to Auckland Zoo to meet a University of Auckland - Waipapa Taumata Rau researcher investigating the microbes that live in the tuatara's gut – are there bacterial living fossils waiting to be discovered?

Tune in on Thursday.

08/12/2024
🎧 Listen now | Dive under the Antarctic sea ice into the weird world of cold-water life... Pink sea angels, worms that l...
04/12/2024

🎧 Listen now | Dive under the Antarctic sea ice into the weird world of cold-water life...

Pink sea angels, worms that look like intestines, ocean creepy crawlies that get as big as your hand, and giant glass sponges.

These sponges are one of the strangest and longest-living animals on Earth – surviving without light, eating bacteria and viruses, and making themselves out of silica they absorb from the water.

Claire meets a team unravelling their secrets.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/ourchangingworld?share=c1bbe0fc-5666-4db4-855d-88aa9198c428

📷: Ian Hawes, Erik Wurz, Claire Concannon

Antarctica New Zealand The University of Waikato

01/12/2024

Coming up this week, dive under the sea ice with us in Antarctica to investigate mysterious glass sponges ❄️ and the role they play in this otherworldly ecosystem.

Tune in on Thursday!

Antarctica New Zealand

📷: Ian Hawes

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Our Changing World is a thought-provoking weekly programme that airs at 9pm (New Zealand-time) each Thursday night on RNZ National. It features a varied mix of field-recorded interviews about science, the environment and health research. Our Changing World shares the excitement and discovery of science by getting scientists to share their passion and enthusiasm for their work. It’s about how science works and the nature of scientific discovery, as well as the latest results and their significance. It is presented and produced by Alison Ballance.