Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Show notes for Saturday 9 June 2012

Quick Hits

12:15   Ambergris

13:15   Naked Science

13:25   Mindless eating

13:35   Cutlery taste

13:50   TR-10 emerging technologies           

First up this week we enter the world of ambergris. It's a recession-proof treasure found washed up on beaches around the world and is worth up to $30,000 a kilo! So what is this floating gold, how does it end up on our shoreline, and who's willing to pay so much for a piece of it? We speak to Christopher Kemp, a molecular biologist and the author of 'Floating Gold: The Search for Ambergris, the most elusive natural substance in the world'.

We also meet Anton van Helden from Te Papa who has a foolproof test for telling if what you've found on the beach is the real deal or just a lump of dog poo. And Haami Te Whaiti found a big lump on the beach and used the proceeds to makeover his marae and build new kitchens!

After the 1pm news, more naked science with Dr Chris Smith and this week using a mother's blood to sequence her baby's DNA before birth. And some good news in the fight against heart disease, and for spinal injury patients.

• LINKS:
• Sequencing the unborn baby from maternal blood: http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/news-archive/news/2578/
• Rewriting arterial disease:
• http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/news-archive/news/2577/
• Paralysed rats rehabilitated:
• http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/news-archive/news/2576/
•  

At about 1:25pm why we eat as much as we do. Brian Wansink's spent his career looking at what he calls 'mindless eating', our tendency to basically scoff whatever's put in front of us. Now he's working on visual cues like coloured potato chips to tell us that we're full and to stop us eating more than we should.

Then at 1:35pm studying what cutlery tastes like and how it can impart flavour to our food. If you've ever eaten soup with a metallic tasting old spoon you'll know just what we're talking about!

And before we go we look at some of the world's top emerging technologies with Jason Pontin, the editor-in-chief of the Technology Review. This week he beams in with 5 goodies including ultra-efficient solar panels, light field photography and using egg stem cells to help women conceive.

• We'll be playing these tracks too....
• Track: Get Up
• Artist: Vernon Burch
• Album: Sampled Volume 3
• Label: Virgin
• Catalogue #: 811703
• Broadcast at: 13:10
•  
• Track: Leaving Heartbreak Hotel
• Artist: The Temper Trap
• Album: The Temper Trap
• Label: Liberation
• Catalogue #: 401431
• 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