Science and Society

IPCC climate report: How did the scientists react?

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has released the first segment of the long awaited Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) summing up the current state of climate science and the global outlook regarding climate change. Government representatives and scientists have approved the Summary for Policymakers of the first part of the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, subjecting it to line-by-line scrutiny. […]

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Moray eels and other fantastic nature photos

I’ve dived at the beautiful Mokohinau Islands, but wasn’t lucky enough to come across a sight like this. The eels were photographed by Auckland-based scientist James Williams near an underwater cliff at the Mokohinau Islands, off the northeast coast of the North Island. The National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) holds a photo […]

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A psychic faces a room of skeptics

You have to give Sue Nicholson credit. The self-proclaimed “international psychic medium” may be greeted with legions of fans interested in getting “answers from the other side” when she kicks off her national tour at $58 a ticket this weekend. But when she entered a lecture theatre at Victoria University last weekend to close day […]

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CoREs get funding top-up, new mission statement

Of the many experiments that have been undertaken in the New Zealand science system, one is generally considered to have been very successful – the formation of the centres of research excellence (CoREs). There are seven CoREs and they each have a specific focus –  from advanced materials and nanotechnology at the MacDiarmid Institute to […]

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Review: Get off the Grass

After Sir Paul Callaghan published Wool to Weta in 2009, he embarked on a series of lectures around the country that have, as much as the knowledge he created as a scientist and the jobs and intellectual property he generated as an entrepreneur, come to define his legacy. In Wool to Weta Sir Paul told […]

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Otago looking for another science communication professor

Well this is exciting – the University of Otago’s Centre for Science Communication is undertaking a worldwide search for a science communication academic to join the Dunedin-based centre run by Professor Lloyd Davis. The Centre for Science Communication is New Zealand’s only dedicated science communication academic centre and has won worldwide acclaim for its work […]

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Deborah Blum's creative science writing

if you have read The Poisoner’s Handbook, or any of Professor Deborah Blum‘s science features, you’ve probably marveled at how she spins a gripping story woven through with well laid-out scientific concepts.  Take, for instance, her Slate feature about the US Government’s little-known Prohibition-era bid to stop people drinking – poisoning the industrial alcohol bootleggers […]

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How will climate change affect New Zealand?

The Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor, Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, says New Zealand faces significant impacts from climate change in the next 30 to 40 years requiring a risk management approach and constant environmental monitoring of changes across the country. Sir Peter’s report, New Zealand’s changing climate and oceans: The impact of human activity and […]

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