Sunday Morning for Sunday 25 September 2022

8:10 Gregor Paul – Rugby Championship analysis

We get a reaction to the All Blacks performance in Saturday’s Rugby Championship game from Gregor Paul, editor of Rugby World and the Herald on Sunday's voice of rugby.

8:25 Rose Langbein – Eggs for brunch

Rose Langbein joins us from Portugal with some brunch ideas for the long weekend including some memories of childhood and a nod to her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

8:35 ​Calling Home – Ellery Daines in Tromsø, Norway

Musician Ellery Daines is calling home this week from the northernmost city in the world, Tromsø in Norway, known as the gateway to the arctic.  LatItude 69 degrees north; 69 degrees south brushes Antarctica. It's a city on the Norwegian Sea built on three land masses.

Ellery left Auckland to follow his girlfriend Louise there in 2018, they're married now. He was working for an electricity company here in New Zealand, playing with a little band on the side, but he's found that in Norway he can make a living as a producer and engineer, and he's even released an album.

9:06 Mediawatch

This week Mediawatch looks at the coverage of the biggest ever event in media history - the funeral of Queen Elizabeth the Second.

Also: growing scrutiny of our justice system; more scrutiny of the new public media legislation - - and media angst over the price of tomatoes.

9:35 Guy Gratton – Can dragons fly?

If you’ve been keeping up to date with HBO’s latest Game of Thrones sequel House of The Dragon, you might have some questions about the dragons.

Not least, could something that size even get off the ground?

Dr Guy Gratton believes they could.  And he should know – he’s a professor of aviation and Visiting Senior Research Fellow in Aeronautics at Brunel University in London, a qualified mechanical engineer and a flight test expert.

10:06 Dr Beth Ann Mallow – Daylight savings and sleep patterns

We're on daylight saving time again as we spring forward an hour this weekend.

On average you’ll have lost 40 minutes of sleep last night as your body adjusted, but of course the trade-off is extra sunlight at the end of the day through summer.

Initially intended as a fuel-saving measure when introduced for the first time in the world in the Canadian city of Thunder Bay in 1908, in response to the Great Ontario Candle Drought of 1907. Benjamin Franklin had suggested the idea back in 1784, as a way to economize on sunlight and burn fewer candles during winter mornings and nights.

But what does it mean for our sleep? We hear from Dr Beth Ann Malow, a Professor of Neurology and Paediatrics and Director of the Sleep Division at Tennessee’s Vanderbilt University.

10.25 Dr Zazie Todd – More ways to make your cat happy.

So many of you got in touch following our conversation last week with Dr Zazie Todd, author of Purr: The Science of Making Your Cat Happy that we invited her back again.

11:05 Gary Altman – Plants and happiness

The idea that talking to your plants helps them grow has been mostly debunked, but new research has shed some light on the benefits for ourselves.

Nearly half of the people in a Trees.com survey acknowledged that they talk to their plants and most of those believe it has helped their mental health.

Gary Altman is a Registered Horticultural Therapist and a Teaching Instructor in the Department of Plant Biology, teaching the Horticultural Therapy Certificate program at Rutgers University in the US.

11:20 Thomas Neitzert – The future of cars

Professor Thomas Neitzert is emeritus professor of mechanical engineering at Auckland University of Technology.  He’s been taking a look at the future sustainability of electric vehicles.

11: 30 Professor Al Gillespie - Putin, politics and war

Putin’s order for partial mobilisation of military reservists along with the Russian-backed referendums in Donetsk and Luhansk heralds a new phase of the war in Ukraine.

Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law at the University of Waikato disusses the opportunites and risks this presents for both sides.

11: 35 Dr Ali Hill – Nutrition to improve Brain Function

New research this week from the University of California confirming that adults have poorer cognition but better well-being, as they age.  We see significantly worse symptoms of depression, anxiety, and loneliness in younger people, while older people evidence greater mental well-being along with a fading brain. 

But what are the interventions that improve brain function as we get old? 

We’re joined once again by Dr Ali Hill from the Human Nutrition department of Otago University.