Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Highlights from Radio New Zealand National's programmes for the week ending Friday 18 May . This week .... does a celebrity's product endorsement lessen their credibility in the eyes of their audience, going solo for a year on an Alaskan island, New Zealand society in the 1820's, are babies smarter, more caring and conscious than adults, is there such a thing as Maori comedy, working the farm as a former ballet teacher, growing ginkgo nuts in Aotearoa and using your ethnicity in your art pratice. (1h 24′22″)

Highlights from Radio New Zealand National's programmes for the week ending Friday 11 May . This week .... hear the sound that the planet Venus makes, tips for hoarders, a new theory on the Shroud of Turin, "That ghastly woman" - why Wallis Simpson upset royalty, understanding more about great white sharks, a masters event for kaumatua with pre-European games, when getting a haircut is more than just cutting hair and using music to boost your performance in sport. (1h 16′20″)

Highlights from Radio New Zealand National's programmes for the week ending Friday 4 May . This week .... the role of lobbyists in government, Anzac Day explored, life for orinary Russians under Vladimir Putin, we meet the virus hunter, Dr Bogan and the Boy with Tape on his Face, Spectrum revisits the work of Dr Helen Schofield who was accidentally killed by Mila the African elephant, why Macau is the new capital of gambling, and Madeleine Sami's Supercity TV series finds an audience in America. (1h 27′35″)

Highlights from Radio New Zealand National's programmes for the week ending Friday 27 April . This week .... the fallout from the raids in the Urewera area, making wine and growing tea and coffee in Coromandel, reconstructive plastic surgeon Dr Swee Tan talks about his early years in Malaysia and training in Australia, the huge remarkable Indian hospital that treats most of its patients for free, Helen Brown and her new journey with a cat named Jonah, embracing your Jewishness at 60 when you thought you were a Christian until then, military themed stories from Anzac Day and the Afternoons Complaints Choir. (1h 16′36″)

This week .... thirty five years on from when he first published his book The Passionless People - journalist Godon McLauchlan takes another look at New Zealand in his latest book, saying we live in a broken country no one wants to fix, a new look at the sensational case involving the murder of Harvey and Jeanette Crewe in 1970 - for which Arthur Alan Thomas was twice convicted and then pardoned, the death of actor and artist Grant Tilly - one of the stars of theatre in this country, and the career of a New Zealander who'se won an Oscar and a Bafta for his work in the film industry. . (1h 30′13″)

Highlights from Radio New Zealand National's programmes for the week ending Friday 13th April. This week .... the retiring head of Trade Aid shares how it all started 43 years ago, finding and preserving a pair of stone waka anchors, discovering symbols and history in Wellington's Old St Paul's Cathedral, do it yourself bike workshops to keep you on the road, love it or not - the musical is not dead and making a comeback and the SPCA's Bob Kerridge talks about his early life and influences. (1h 15′23″)

Highlights from Radio New Zealand National's programmes for the week ending Friday 6th April. This week... we look at the commercial deals some media personalities are making these days, a documentary on the history of New Zealand's psychiatric hospitals, a new social phenomenon - the increasing number of people who choose to live alone, a new book and interesting findings about our national icon the kiwi, With the aid of advanced functional MRI scanners, scientists are getting closer to being able to read your mind, the opening of a public art project by the Christchurch Art Gallery to try and ensure art continues to have a presence in the earthquake hit city. (1h 24′27″)

Highlights from Radio New Zealand National's programmes for the week ending Friday 30 March. This week .... tributes for Professor Sir Paul Callaghan who died on Saturday and hear where his love of science and people came from, a Kiwi's involvement in the search for the God particle, the shortage of a yeasty spread has the media in a lather, how Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man has helped to unravel the secrets of the Universe, Dear Dot...the "social media" in NZ before the age of computers, the freezing sport of curling and the digitisation of the New Zealand Year Books. (1h 26′29″)

Highlights from Radio New Zealand National's programmes for the week ending Friday 23 March. This week .... how has the media been coping with the ongoing industrial action at the Ports of Auckland, the country's future if global temperatures rise by 2 degrees, "flipping" water quality in Southland, hear two views of Edwardian Wellington as Spectrum celebrates is 40th birthday, Stephen Stills of "Crosby Stills and Nash" talks about starting up, Diversity in Death - exploring inter-faith rituals around death in NZ, the busy life of an equine dentist and cooking kai as a fundraiser - fried bread, whitebait fritters...yum yum! (1h 20′26″)

Highlights from Radio New Zealand National's programmes for the week ending Friday 16 March. This week .... saying goodbye to Christchurch Cathedral, gap filling in Christchurch, public money for television broadcasting, one of NZ's most successful film, TV and theatre director and producers Simon Bennett talks about The Almighty Johnsons, the wreck of the Titanic in detail, join a fossil dig in Otago, the work of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament, farming a century ago in Castlepoint and the Thai sport Muay Thai explained. (1h 21′44″)