Sunday Morning with Chris Laidlaw

Many pieces of research come out about nutrition. Some contradict previous research, others may make claims that are fascinating, but are they right? We want to scrutinise some new findings under the microscope this morning with Dr Ali Hill from the Human Nutrition department of Otago University. We take notice of these when they're reported in media, especially if the claims are a bit out of the ordinary.

Chile's going through a time of transition at the moment as liberal elements in society try to change a constitution which was the legacy of the former dictator Augusto Pinochet. Julian lives just outside the capital, Santiago. It's inland, although within reach of beaches, and for tourists it's also easily within reach of skiing resorts and some top international vineyards. After growing up in Palmerston North where both his parents taught at Massey, his own tertiary qualifications after he left Awatapu College came from universities in London and Canada. Julian's dad's from Christchurch originally but his mum's Canadian.

The name Higham is highly distinguished in the field of archaeology. Last year we interviewed Oxford University's Professor Tom Higham, originally from Dunedin, on his book How Science is Revealing a New Story of Our Human Origins. Now his dad has a book out too, his memoir. Charles Higham has been an eminent professor of archaeology at Otago, now emeritus, and his new book's called DIGGING DEEP - A Journey into Southeast Asia's past. He's still working at the forefront of discoveries there, extracting DNA from older and older humans there, creating deeper and deeper knowledge all the time of our ancient past as a species, how we lived and organised ourselves. Charles came to Otago University from Cambridge in the 1960s, with wife Polly and a very young Tom, and they have stayed.

When Chris Thompson-Lang served with the Australian military in Afghanistan, he felt mentally prepared to witness the fall of his fellow soldiers. It was the suffering of civilians that was his "undoing". When Chris returned to Australia, the sound of his two kids crying triggered more stress than he could handle. Discovering yoga – and its powerful ability to help get stress out of the body – was what really turned his life around.

Professor Elodie Briefer of the University of Copenhagen is an expert on communication with animals, and how their vocal signals contain information about what species they are, which group they're from, even their age and body size and dominance status. How animals and birds sound, she's discovered, also reflects emotions and mood. She runs a Behavioural Ecology group at her university, with the goal of improving animal welfare.

When it comes to modern relationships, our thumbs do the talking. We swipe right into a stranger's life, flirt inside text bubbles, spill our hearts onto the screen, use emojis to convey desire, frustration, rage. Where once we pored over love letters, now we obsess over response times, or wonder why the three-dot ellipsis came . . . and went. Nobody knows this better than Harvard and Stanford-trained psychiatrist, Dr. Mimi Winsberg who's work frequently finds her at the intersection of Big Data and Big Dating. Her new book Speaking in Thumbs is a guide to the minefield of online communication.

Costa Botes has had a long career directing both drama and documentary film. His latest observational documentary When the Cows Come Home, premieres at this years Whanau Marama: New Zealand International Film Festival and charts the unusual life of musician, journalist, artist and cow whisperer, Waikato's Andrew Johnstone. I love being surrounded by cows. There's no discussion, there's no talk. It's just purely emotional. - Andrew Johnstone on being amongst the herd

During the Cold War, the US Air Force installed an arsenal of nuclear weapons across the rural West. About 400 Minuteman III missiles remain ready to launch at a few seconds notice in Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, Colorado and Nebraska. They are located on bison preserves and Indian reservations. They sit across from a national forest, behind a rodeo grandstand, down the road from a one-room schoolhouse, and on dozens of private farms like the one belonging to Ed Butchers, who has lived for years with a nuclear missile as his closest neighbour. As tensions mount once more betwen Russia and the US, Ed joins us from Fergus County, Montana

It's common to hear people say they can't think of a worse occupation than being a politician, with the stress and the scrutiny and the workloads. It may come as a surprise then, that,according to a resent study by Oxford University and the Queensland University of Technology, politicians live longer than the rest of us, have done across the long sweep of history, and continue to do so. One of study's authors was Professor Adrian Barnett from Queensland University of Technology.