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This Way Up

with Richard Scott

Saturday, Midday - 2pm

QUICK HITS

12:15   Sense of direction
12:30   iPad review
12:45   Pinenuts  
13:10   Japan: silver athletes and paper planes
13:25   Makeover magic
13:40   Coin toss
13:50   LA gang tour
13:55   Dynalifter

First up, is technology like the in-car GPS unit destroying our natural sense of direction? Alex Hutchinson's been looking at how human's find their way around using examples like Inuit hunters and navigators in the Arctic and London taxi drivers. He's also been chatting to the team of Canadian neuroscientists who are using MRI scanners to work out if an inability to navigate your way around is actually a medical disorder.
 
At 12:30pm our technology correspondent Bill Thompson gives his assessment of Apple's new tablet computer, the iPad. After the huge success of the iPod and the iPhone, Apple's every move gets massively hyped up in tech world. We ask if the reality can possibly match all the expectations.

Then before the news at about 12:45pm we're talking pine nuts with our regular nut queen Alison Sandle. The ancient Romans and popes over the ages have loved them- some monasteries even had to grow them by papal decree. But why are some nuts that come off a pine tree so expensive?

After the news at 1:10pm we're off to Japan where an origami master's trying to fold his way into the record books. He's perfecting a paper plane that can break the 30 second flight barrier. Plus so-called "silver athletes"- fitness freaks aged over 65- are taking over the country's parks and playgrounds.  

At about 1:25pm Sonia Yee meets image consultant Trudi Bennett who tells her clients what clothes, colours and styles they should wear...and avoid!

Then at 1:40pm tossing a coin's a common way of making tough decisions and stopping arguments. You'd expect the odds of throwing heads or tails to be exactly 50:50....but they're not, according to statistics professor Susan Holmes.

At about 1:50pm the US city of Los Angeles has an unfortunate reputation as the gang capital of the world. Now some enterprising former gang members are offering the first ever gang tour of the city. We head along for with Madeleine Brand of NPR on the inaugural coach trip.

And before we go Bob Rist is the inventor of the Dynalifter - a helium filled cross between an airship and a aeroplane.  It's meant to be able to transport hundreds of tons of cargo around the world at a fraction of the cost of a conventional plane. But Bob's been working on the project for ten years now so will it ever take off?

TRACKS PLAYED

Track: Whisper Up
Artist: The Nextmen feat Betty Steeles
Album: Join the Dots
Label: Universal
Catalogue #: 714748
Broadcast at: 12:30

Track: Holiday
 Artist: Vampire Weekend
Album:  Contra
Label: XL
Catalogue #: 404292
Broadcast at: 13:40

OUR THEME

Track: The Green Termite
Artist: Jefferson Belt
Album: Table Manners
Label: Round Trip Mars
Catalogue #: RTM 2009

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