Sunday Morning for Sunday 11 May 2025

8.15 Russian satellite Kosmos-482 crashes back to Earth

Soviet satellite Kosmos-482 was launched into space by the Russians in 1972, but it never made it to its intended destination of Venus. Now, more than 50 years later the satellite has returned to Earth. 
Professor Roberto Armellin from the University of Auckland's Space Institute has been tracking the satellite and its crash landing late last night.

8:25 The Sunday Morning Quiz 

Quiz master Jack Waley-Cohen is back with his Sunday Morning quiz.    

Jack is the mind behind the questions on BBC's infamous quiz show Only Connect, known for being both hard — and at the same time totally obvious.     

Wake up your brain and have a go! 

8:35 Opulomania: the addiction to buying luxury goods 

The founder of a luxury mental health clinic in Switzerland says he’s seeing a rise in ‘opulomania’- an addiction to buying high-end goods. 

Zurich-based Jan Gerber is the CEO of Paracelsus Recovery, the world's most expensive addiction rehabilitation centre. He says the compulsion to buy expensive items is, in many instances, seen in young people from ultra-high-net worth families. He joins Jim to discuss the newly-recognised condition. 

9:10 Mediawatch 

Mediawatch looks at a sudden surge of political concern about social media’s impact on the young. Also: why broadcasters haven’t done a deal to put netball’s top competition on TV beyond this year - and what it might mean for other professional sports that need TV money to pay players.               

9:40 Humanoid robots: what should we expect? 

American tech journalist Kurt Knutsson, aka Kurt The Cyberguy, has been paying close attention to the capabilities of humanoid robots, and the differences they might make at home and in the workplace. He joins Jim to discuss the regulations he believes should be put around this advancing technology for the safety of the human race. 

10:10 It was the worst of all opening sentences... 

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest was started in 1982 by Professor Scott E. Rice of the English Department at San Jose State University.  The annual tongue-in-cheek contest  invited entrants "to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels" – that is, one which was deliberately bad. 

"She had a body that reached out and slapped my face like a five-pound ham-hock tossed from a speeding truck." 

Lawrence Person, Austin, (2024 Winner) 

Professor Rice joins us to share some of his favourites and to explain why, after all these years, he’s decided to pull the plug on the contest. 

10:20 My Latest Track: Indy Yelich 

Devonport-raised, New York-based musician Indy Yelich has just released new single 'Sail Away'. It explores the complicated dynamics of a friendship where romantic feelings were unknowingly developing. Indy joins Jim to talk about the song and her hopes for the future. 

10:35 The dictators who work to keep each other in power 

Anne Applebaum is a staff writer for The Atlantic and a Pulitzer-prize winning historian. In her latest book Autocracy, Inc: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, she examines the power structures currently running the world. 

Anne says the title ‘Autocracy Inc’ describes a network of dictatorships who have nothing in common ideologically, but act like an international corporation to help keep each other in control - co-operating financially, militarily, and sharing information to work against democracy. 

11:05 The industry that takes people to the top of the world 

Award-winning writer, journalist, and avid amateur climber Will Cockrell has interviewed more than 120 climbers, Sherpa guides, high-altitude workers, and entrepreneurs who've all contributed to developing the climbing industry on Mount Everest. He's with Jim to discuss his book Everest, Inc. The Renegades and Rogues Who Built an Industry at the Top of the World. 

11:40  One of the best mums in the business 

To coincide with Mother's Day, New Zealand's largest herd improvement organisation LIC has inducted a super-cow into its ‘Hall of Fame’. 

LIC says the Southland-based cow, known as April, has produced 111 offspring and has transmitted her ‘super genetics’ throughout the national herd. 

Jim’s joined by LIC chief scientist Richard Spelman to hear about what makes April so special and why it’s important her traits are passed on. 

11:45 The science of magic 

In the past 15 years, more than 150 papers have been written on the ‘science of magic’. Research has focussed on how our expectations seem to control our perception of reality. Science writer David Robson is with Jim to discuss the fresh information that has been revealed about how our minds work.