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.

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

24/11/2024

Coming up this week, an episode from the ABC's Pacific Scientific series taking you inside a secretive lab where Samoa's scientists are unlocking the power of plants 🌿🧪

Tune in on Thursday.

📷: Shelby Traynor ABC Science

🎧 Listen now | In the wild, ngutukākā or kākābeak is rarer than kākāpō, with fewer than 100 plants left.Tairāwhiti Ngutu...
20/11/2024

🎧 Listen now | In the wild, ngutukākā or kākābeak is rarer than kākāpō, with fewer than 100 plants left.

Tairāwhiti Ngutukākā - East Coast Kakabeak is on a mission to bring back the bright red blooms from the brink.

Veronika Meduna joins the inaugural Tairāwhiti Ngutukākā Festival to find out more about the community’s efforts to turn State Highway 35 into a Crimson Highway by rewilding this iconic native.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/ourchangingworld?share=cc0e13a4-a107-4e4f-80e1-862cc179ed6c

17/11/2024

Coming up this week, Veronika Meduna joins the inaugural Tairāwhiti Ngutukākā Festival.

Here, the community is turning State Highway 35 into a Crimson Highway, by rewilding an iconic red-flowered native considered 'Nationally Critical'.

Tune in on Thursday!

Tairāwhiti Ngutukākā - East Coast Kakabeak

🎧 Listen now | How do you trap a male redback spider? If you're these scientists, you lure him in with the tantalising s...
13/11/2024

🎧 Listen now | How do you trap a male redback spider?

If you're these scientists, you lure him in with the tantalising scent of virgin spiderweb silk 🕸️

Meet the research team developing a targeted trap to control these unwanted pest spiders – with the help of 800 captive redbacks 🕷️

https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/ourchangingworld?share=644ecce2-cd96-4035-aa75-b7d6ed81bdf6

📷: Plant & Food Research / Ellen Rykers

10/11/2024

Coming up this week, scientists at Plant & Food Research have devised a clever way to control invasive redback spiders – and it starts with concocting spider perfume 🕸️

Listen on Thursday to hear what it takes to look after 800 venomous spiders 🕷️ and how the researchers are pinpointing a redback's signature scent

📷: © Plant & Food Research

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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.