The Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin Newstalk ZB

You are Here by David Nicholls – Marnie and Michael are brought together by a mutual friend. Marnie doesn’t get out much and feels as though life is passing her by – and Michael’s a newly separated teacher trying to survive in his new single life. They embark on a hike across the Lake District - the landscape in this book is vivid and real, you could be walking it yourself - and as they find their place in the world, so too do they find their place together. From the author of One Day which is currently popular on Netflix - David Nicholls has written another masterclass about the roads down which life can lead you. 

Magic Pill by Johann Hari. This is a look at the new diet drugs which are gaining huge popularity, in particular Ozempic – which the author started taking himself to understand the benefits as well as any down sides, and it’s a very personal look at it. The drugs are so new that no one knows what the long term impacts might be, but in the meantime Ozempic, in particular, has become a new fashion item, magically helping people lose huge amounts of weight and appearing to transform their lives. 

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BloggerAtLarge's Megan Singleton is off on a Nashville adventure overseas.

She highlighted the live bands, the country bars, and the Opry as her personal highlights - and purchased a pair of authentic cowboy boots.

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This week on the Sunday Panel, editor Jo McCarroll and NZ Herald senior writer Simon Wilson joined in on a discussion about the following issues of the day - and more!

As retail crime amps up, security guards want more workplace protections and legal power to detain criminals. Will these measures help cut down on crime?

NZ First leader Winston Peters has pledged to introduce a members bill requiring separate unisex and single-sex toilets in all new publicly accessible buildings. Is this really an issue New Zealanders should be concerned about?

Some common British insults like 'ninny', 'nitwit', 'prat' or 'git' are being forgotten by younger generations. Do we need to work to keep these words alive before cruder words replace them altogether.

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This Mother's Day, there's more concern about mothers taking on a significant workload - and all the negative health implications that come with that.

Mothers in this day and age have voiced concern with the workload, as they balance full-time work with child-rearing and household management.

Naturopath and wellness expert Erin O'Hara says it's important to prioritise sleep, balanced meals and allocating some 'me time' each week.

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Little apple pies with malted crumble and yogurt:

COOK TIME: 27 MINUTES

PREP TIME: 20 MINUTES

SERVES: 6-8

6 Braeburn apples

1 tsp vanilla paste

3 tbsp honey

8 x 10cm puff pastry discs

1 tbsp malted barley syrup

100 gm unsalted butter

100 gm wholemeal flour

50 gm brown sugar

100 ml greek yogurt

Pre-heat a oven to 180*c

Mix together the apple, honey and vanilla. Toss until well coated.

Peel the apples, cut into 1/4 and remove the core and cut in half again, giving you 8 wedges per apple. Arrange around 5 pieces of apple together in a tight circle in a grease-proof paper lined oven tray. Place a piece of the puff pastry over the top. Mold the puff down and around the apple tightly. Refrigerate for 15 minutes.

Make up the crumble, combine the butter, wholemeal flour, sugar and malt barley in a food processor and blend until smooth. Pour out onto an oven tray and spread out.

Bake for 10 minutes before stirring and continuing to cook for another 5 minutes or until golden. Remove and allow to cool. Now bake the apple pies into the oven into the oven for 12 minutes or until the pie case is golden.

To serve, turn the apple pie upside down onto place so the apple is facing upwards and sprinkle with the crumble mix.

Finally serve with the yogurt.

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Amazing science news this week comes from the UK, where a 1 year old baby who was born deaf due to a genetic condition called auditory neuropathy was treated with gene therapy.   

Six months later, the researchers involved in this ground-breaking study, which was presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy in Baltimore this week, reported that the toddler can now hear unaided and her prognosis is great for her being able to hear in the future.

Auditory neuropathy is caused by a variation in a gene called the OTOF gene. This gene produces the protein needed to allow the inner hair cells in the ear to communicate with the hearing nerve which sends signals to the brain. Patients with the condition are unable to hear as the lack of proteins mean the ear cells can't communicate with the brain.   

The gene therapy treatment involved the baby being given an injection into her cochlea that contained a modified virus called AAV1 which was loaded with a working copy of the OTOF gene.  This virus delivered the working gene to the ear cells, and the gene-reading machinery within those cells used the new information to build RNA which directs the correct proteins to be made that can carry out their job as normal.  The amazing thing about gene therapy is that you only need one treatment for the results to last a lifetime.

One of the impressive things about this study is the young age of the patient.   

Typically, auditory neuropathy isn’t diagnosed until a child is 3 years old. However because the older sister of this patient was also born with auditory neuropathy, the diagnosis was given in this patient when they were only a few weeks old. By being able to determine and treat the cause of her deafness before the age of one, the researchers believe that she won’t have significant delays in her speech as she grows up.

While gene therapy is relatively new, we are working on a gene therapy here in New Zealand at the Malaghan institute that treats cancer, called CAR-T cell therapy. 

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