Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

On This Programme

Codfish Island Whenua Hou, looking across to the Ruggedy Range, Stewart Island.

In the second programme in our kakapo series, Kakapo Recovery Programme scientists Ron Moorhouse and Graeme Elliott talk about the complexities of periodic mass fruiting by rimu trees and how that triggers the kakapo's irregular breeding. They also talk about attempts to mimic the qualities of rimu fruit in the development of an artificial diet for kakapo, in the hope that one day this diet could be used to trigger more frequent breeding.

Find out more about the Department of Conservation's kakapo programme and David Raubenheimer's research on developing the perfect kakapo diet.

Ron Moorhouse checking the state of the rimu fruit crop on Codfish Island Whenua Hou.

February 12, 2009, marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth and Our Changing World explores the radical impact and legacy of his ideas. Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection underpins modern biology, and he profoundly altered our view of the natural world and our place in it.

In this programme, Veronika Meduna talks to Paul Rainey, David Penny and Mike Hendy at the Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology and Evolution, and science historian Ruth Barton at the University of Auckland, to discuss Darwin's ideas, struggles and the ongoing impact of his work.

You can find out more about Darwin in the Royal Society of New Zealand Darwin lecture series, as broadcast on Radio New Zealand National, the University of Cambridge's Darwin Correspondence Project and the Darwin Online Project. BioEd 2009, one of six international Darwin 200 symposia, begins this week at the Christchurch Convention Centre, including the premiere of Collapsing Creation, a new play which considers the dilemmas Darwin faced in going public about his theory of evolution.

Lecture series

In recognition of the Darwin celebrations, the Allan Wilson Centre has themed its 2009 lecture series Human Evolution. The first speaker in the series is Mike Morwood, Professor of Archaeology at the University of New England, Australia. He will give a talk about the discovery of the new species of human, Homo floresiensis or the Hobbit (pdf).

16 February 2009 - Hutton Theatre, Otago Museum, Dunedin
17 February 2009 - Christchurch Art Gallery, Christchurch
18 February 2009 - Rutherford House Lecture Theatre 2, Pipitea Campus, Victoria University of Wellington
19 February 2009 - Japanese Lecture Theatre, University House, Massey University, Palmerston North
20 February 2009 - Fisher and Paykel Appliances Auditorium, Owen G Glenn Building, University of Auckland