Saturday Morning Podcast Options

3:00 PM.At the same time as the Covid-19 pandemic began sweeping the world Australian moral philosopher Toby Ord released his book calculating the possibility of the end of humanity. In The Precipice he… Read more Audio

11:45 AM.Peter Warner is part of an extraordinary story that made global headlines over the past week, despite it being decades old. It's the tale of a real life 'Lord of the Flies' scenario, six Tongan boys… Read more Audio

11:06 AM.New Zealand actor and novelist Barbara Ewing has written a memoir about life as a young woman in Wellington and Auckland in the 1950s and early 1960s, before she headed off to study in London. One… Read more Audio

10:40 AM.Pelenakeke (Keke) Brown has recently returned to Aotearoa after being based in NYC for six years. An interdisciplinary artist, her work spans art, writing, and performance. She's become the interim… Read more Audio

10:08 AM.Widely blamed for being a disease vector in the spread of the novel coronavirus, bats have a bit of a PR problem at the moment. It's resulted in overzealous individuals burning their colonies, and… Read more Audio

9:40 AM.Shaun Bythell lives in Wigtown, Scotland, where he runs The Bookshop - the largest second hand bookshop in Scotland. Its shelves span nearly 2 kilometres and contain over 100,000 books, Shaun has… Read more Audio

9:06 AM.Virologist Dr Chris Smith is back to answer more questions about the emerging science around the novel coronavirus pandemic. A consultant clinical virologist at Cambridge University, and one of BBC… Read more Audio

8:10 AM.This week RNZ exposed an unapproved police trial of controversial facial recognition software Clearview AI. Described as a "search engine for faces" the technology is used by hundreds of police forces… Read more Audio

11:35 AM.Conspiracy theories are nothing new, and it's not surprising many have sprung up around Covid-19. Julie Leask is a professor in the Susan Wakil School of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of… Read more Audio

11:05 AM.Dr Vanessa Beavis was on the frontline of the planning and preparation that took place in New Zealand hospitals as they readied themselves for Covid-19 patients. She's a consultant at Auckland… Read more Audio

10:05 AM.Filipino journalist Maria Ressa's work exposing government corruption and the misdeeds of the powerful has put her on a collision course with the 'strongman' government of President Rodrigo Duterte… Read more Audio

9:30 AM.American singer-songwriter John Grant, once of the alternative rock band the Czars, has now forged a flourishing solo career. His 2010 debut Queen of Denmark was named best album of the year by Mojo… Read more Audio

9:05 AM.San Francisco's recently-elected district attorney Chesa Boudin has a unique perspective on the legal system: his 75-year-old father David Gilbert (a former member of the radical left wing group the… Read more Audio

8:35 AM.How does our brain dictate the way we see the world? And how can we hack this process in the quest to design better, smarter technology? Anil Seth has devoted his career to studying questions like… Read more Audio

8:10 AM.In early March fellow journalists were bemused by Donald McNeil's glove wearing and surface-sanitising ways. The New York Times' health and science reporter saw the pandemic coming and took personal… Read more Audio

11:45 AM.Good literature retains a magical quality that is both enlightening and subversive, offering an authentic inner experience of life, English Booker Prize-winning novelist Graham Swift says. Read more Audio

11:05 AM.Climate scientist Professor Andrea Dutton has already been tipped by Rolling Stone as being a name to watch in her chosen field. She forged her reputation at The University of Florida, in a state with… Read more Audio

10:05 AM.The German-American writer Deborah Feldman's 2012 memoir Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots tells the story of her escape from an ultra-religious Hasidic community in Brooklyn… Read more Video, Audio

9:25 AM.Virologist Dr Chris Smith returns to answer more questions about the emerging science around the novel coronavirus pandemic. A consultant clinical virologist at Cambridge University, and one of BBC… Read more Audio

9:05 AM.As Secretary-General of The International Federation of Social Workers, New Zealander Rory Truell leads an organisation responsible for representing and supporting five million professional social… Read more Audio

8:30 AM.Broadcaster, science writer and 'recovering geneticist' Adam Rutherford has also just recovered from something else: Covid-19. We'll speak to him about the experience and about his new book How To… Read more Audio

8:12 AM.New York City remains at the epicentre of the US experience of the novel coronavirus. Although thankfully hospitalisations, new cases and deaths now seem to be on a downward path, its health system… Read more Audio

10:42 AM.With gluten-crazed hordes of home bakers stripping supermarket shelves of every last gram of flour, now sugar, yeast, and baking powder have become the new, must-have essentials of Lockdown Season… Read more Audio

10:06 AM.Former punk, psychiatric nurse, wrestling fan, now novelist and musician John Darnielle (rhymes with 'barn feel'!) is a writer, composer, guitarist, pianist, and vocalist and the primary (and once the… Read more Audio