Sunday Morning for Sunday 30 January 2022

8:11 Covid-19 update with Professor Gary McLean 

Dr Gary McLean is joining us, the New Zealander who's a Professor in molecular immunology at London Metropolitan University and a researcher with Imperial College. 
Professor McLean will discuss the developing Omicron threat, the possibility of another bad mutation arriving, and the chances of getting Omicron more than once - especially for people who are under the age of 30. 

8:25 What it's like inside the world's most expensive house 

The 30,000-square-foot Villa Aurora in Rome is back on the market after being listed for a starting price of nearly NZ$800 million - making it potentially the most expensive home in the world - and failing to sell at auction.  
Bill Gates and Madonna are among those who have apparently expressed an interest in the property. 
Unsurprisingly, this is no normal home. Along with housing the ruins of an ancient Roman villa that may have belonged to Caesar, the historic property has a statue attributed to Michelangelo and the big ticket item, the only known ceiling mural painted by Baroque master Caravaggio (valued at NZ$520 million on its own). 
The BBC's Rome correspondent Mark Lowen was allowed to take a look inside Villa Aurora. He joins the show to detail the experience

8:41 The Weekend Panel with Janet Wilson and Al Gillespie 

Joining us on the Weekend Panel this morning are Janet Wilson, from the public relations company Deadline, and the University of Waikato's Professor Al Gillespie. Along with the continuing Omicron threat, they'll be discussing the Russia/Ukraine situation, Kainga Ora, political polling and what's a good age to start getting body piercings?

9:06 Mediawatch

Mediawatch looks at how the media covered the crisis in Tonga with all communications to the country cut off for days. And Mediawatch looks back at the news over the holiday period - and how anti-vaxxers loomed large in the media even though they're now more of a minority than ever.  

9:37 How some asteroids can sneak up on us 

A rugby-pitch-wide asteroid passed within 70,000km of Earth in 2019, with surprised astronomers only spotting it 24 hours before its closest approach. 
Researchers from the University of Hawai'i have looked into how asteroids can sneak up on us without detection, discovering that some approaching objects can appear stationary in the sky because of a quirk of the planet's daily rotation. 
The study was undertaken by astronomer Dr Richard Wainscoat, who joins us to discuss. 

10:06 Market analyst: 'NTFs are complete folly' 

Last year saw the meteoric rise of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), a form of digital provenance - so much so, Collins Dictionary named NFT as its word of the year for 2021. 
Eye-watering auction prices - including a record $91.8m price tag for Pak's 'The Merge' on December 2 - saw NFT trading volume total more than $23 billion last year.
However, senior market analyst at Oanda, Jeffrey Halley, says NFTs are reaching peak hype, and their success has come as a result of people being conditioned over the last two years to buy almost anything - something he calls 'buy everything hype.' 
Indeed, Halley likens NFTs to a game of musical chairs. And he warns that it will be the owners of the NFTS who will be left with empty pockets when the music stops.   

10:22 Calling Home: Kylee Dillane in Inishmore 

If Kylee Dillane and Irish husband Liam could channel the old Cher song and turn back time, they might reconsider their move back to Liam's homeland in early 2020. 
Frustrated by rising house prices in Christchurch, where they were living, the parents of two girls under six decided to pack up and move to the Dillane family home on Inishmore - the largest of the three Aran Islands off Ireland's west coast - in January 2020. The family soon found themselves subject to the first of Ireland's many lockdowns, and they've been living through the Covid experience on the rugged and spectacular island ever since. 
The family have made the best of the situation, though, and there have even been some benefits: Kylee now sells her 'lockdown prints' online after she started taking photographs on the long daily walks she took during lockdown. She's Calling Home this morning. 

10:41 I'm Listening To This: Zoi Sadowski-Synnott

New Zealand snowboarder Zoi Sadowski-Synnott couldn't be in a better place ahead of her second Olympic Winter Games campaign. 
Sadowski-Synnott claimed bronze in the snowboard big air event at Pyeong-Chang in 2018, becoming only the second Kiwi to receive a medal at the Winter Olympics, and the Wānaka-based star heads to her second Games in Beijing with a huge weight of expectation after her stellar recent form, having claimed back-to-back gold medals in the women's slopestyle and big air events at the recent X Games Aspen event. She also made history by becoming the first female snowboarder ever to land a back-to-back frontside double 1080 and backside double 1080 in competition. 
Sadowski-Synnott joins the show from Los Angeles en route to Beijing to discuss the Winter Games, pushing her own limits, and why she believes You're a Song (that I can't sing) by Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons is the greatest song ever written. 

10:53 Charlotte Bellis: 'I'm one of your people and I need help' 

Pregnant New Zealand journalist Charlotte Bellis feels let down by her country after failing to gain an MIQ spot and being forced to seek safe refuge in Afghanistan as she awaits the birth of her first child.   
Bellis says she and her photographer partner, Jim Huylebroek, submitted 59 documents in their application to gain an emergency MIQ spot (including a supporting letter from Sir Peter Gluckman on the consequences of stress on a pregnant woman and her baby) but were told they hadn't provided enough evidence to meet the threshold. She says it feels like a complete breach of trust. 
With the couple's baby due in May, Bellis says she isn't sure about her personal safety in Afghanistan, despite being given an assurance by senior Taliban officials. 
The former Al Jazeera journalist joins the show to discuss her situation. 

11:05 Teen claims world solo flight record 

It took the better part of half a year, but Belgian-British teenager Zara Rutherford created history last week when she touched down her two-seat ultralight plane in Kortrijk, Belgium, becoming the youngest woman to fly solo around the world. 
The 155-day journey - which saw Rutherford land in 41 different countries - was originally supposed to take three months, but the trip was extended an extra two months due to weather, Covid complications and visa issues. 
The 19-year-old joins the show to discuss her incredible journey, what drove her to do it in the first place, and some of the bigger challenges she faced along the way. 

11:17 A.C. Grayling: 'We're heading towards a series of catastrophes' 

In his new book, For the Good of the World, English philosopher Professor A.C. Grayling outlines the biggest challenges he believes the world faces right now - climate change, technology and justice - and warns that nothing short of an urgent, united response is going to save humankind from hurtling toward an impending crisis. 
Professor Grayling joins the show to discuss the new book and why people and their governments need to accept the cost of change and confront the challenges facing the planet before it's too late.