Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

QUICK HITS
12:15 Invisible Gorilla: Chris Chabris
12:40 Food questions: dried pasta and soy milk
12:50 Proverbial Wallets
13:15 The Better Marriage Blanket
13:30 Foraging: Cabbage tree
13:50 Methane power in Rwanda

THE SMALL PRINT
First up this week, you might remember seeing that well-known psychological test involving a gorilla suit and basketball players on the internet. Well the 'invisible gorilla' test was the brainchild of two Harvard psychologists Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, and now they've written a book about how our minds can deceive us. We're speaking to Chris Chabris about 'The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuition Deceives Us' on how these illusions affect our consumer decisions.

At about 12:40pm do you know the difference between all the dried pasta that comes in packets, apart from the price and those Italian-sounding names of course? So is there really any difference between them? Plus why is getting a coffee made with soy milk so much more expensive than one made with cow's milk when the retail price is pretty much the same?

And before the news, at about 12:50pm, proverbial wallets. This is a cracker of an idea: a wallet that talks to your bank. So the less money you have in your account the harder it is to open, and every time a transaction is processed it vibrates like a phone. We're speaking to its inventor.

After the news, the Better Marriage Blanket, which promises to save your relationship from the scourge of nocturnal flatulence.

Once the air's cleared at around 1:30pm we're foraging for free food with Johanna Knox. This week, Cordyline australis aka the cabbage tree or Ti Kouka. It's an amazing source of food and fibre and tastes great but please don't kill them. Joanna's blog: wildpicnic.blogspot.com

Then before we go we head to Rwanda in central African where they've found a way to generate power from all the methane bubbling up through Lake Kivu. Basically the lake-water gets pumped out, the methane gets extracted, and then it's piped onshore to power electricity turbines. The plan is to meet the country's power needs for the next 100 years.

WE'RE PLAYING THESE TRACKS TOO....
Track: The Final Taxi
Artist: Wreckless Eric
Album: Greatest Stiffs
Label: Stiff
Catalogue#: 810442
Broadcast at: 12.30

Track: Why Can't I Touch It?
Artist: The Buzzcocks
Album: Death Disco: Songs from Under the Dance Floor 1978-1984
Label: EMI
Catalogue#: 593 786
Broadcast at: 13.10

Track: Home
Artist: LCD Soundsystem
Album: This Is Happening
Label: DFA
Catalogue#: 640225
Broadcast at: 13.45

AND OUR THEME IS:
Track: The Green Termite
Artist: Jefferson Belt
http://www.myspace.com/jeffersonbelt
Album: Table Manners
Label: Round Trip Mars
Catalogue #: RTM 2009