Hope you are keeping well. It's been a busy month here at Our Changing World!
We had some great news in that Alison Ballance's series Voices from Antarctica was awarded Silver in the Environment & Ecology Documentary category at the prestigious New York Festivals Radio Awards. I highly recommend a listen.
Our Changing World has also been nominated in the New Zealand Podcast Awards in the Science and Environment and Listener's Choice categories. You can place your Listener's Choice vote before 5th November.
Another wide range of topics this month, from bioengineering to data to plant research. My top pick for this month though has to be a story about a unique New Zealand study into a type of dementia. The study is only possible because of one family's long-term commitment, despite facing a very challenging situation themselves. The interviews I did with these family members with stay with me for a long time.
Claire Concannon speaks to John Barkla, president of the New Zealand Plant Conservation Network about his love of native plants, the threats they are facing, and who he is backing for this year’s favourite plant competition.
And Katy Gosset speaks to Lincoln University PhD student Minoo Mohajer about her research into better grapevine management practices to improve yield and grape quality.
Damian Christie of Aotearoa Science Agency speaks to Dr Andrew Chen of the University of Auckland about whether the pandemic has changed how the public understands the analysis and use of data to inform decisions.
He also catches up with Associate Professor Rochelle Constanine and Professor James Renwick to talk about the difficulties of dealing with both very small and very big data sets.
Claire Concannon hears from Dr. Brigid Ryan of the University of Auckland about the New Zealand genetic frontotemporal dementia study and speaks to some of the family members involved in this unique research study.
By running annual tests the research team and family are working together to try to find distinct signals from the body, or biomarkers, that appear before dementia symptoms to allow early identification.
Stories from the field of bioengineering - which looks for applied solutions to medical problems.
Claire Concannon visits the 3D bioprinter at the University of Otago to speak to Dr. Jaydee Cabral and her PhD student Mina Rajabi about the wound dressing and bone healing scaffolds they are working on.
And Katy Gosset talks to Student Engineer of the Year, Francis Pooke, from the University of Canterbury, whose tracheostomy kit design has halved the time it takes the carry out the procedure.
