Science and Society

Budget 2012: What's in it for science?

Over at the SMC we rounded up reaction from the science sector on Budget 2012. Here’s some of the commentary… The Government this afternoon unveiled Budget 2012 including $326 million in new funding for science, innovation and research over the next four years. A total of $59 million will also go into engineering and science […]

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Science no vote winner

On the eve of the 2012 Budget with the word “austerity” ringing in our ears, the Stuff website has done a poll asking readers what they see as priority areas for the Government. Of the six categories listed – health, education, welfare, taxes, business and science, guess which area comes in as lowest priority. That’s […]

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Episode 28: the not-so-good oil

The latest episode of the Sciblogs Podcast is out now, presented by Peter Griffin and produced by John Kerr. On the Sciblogs Podcast this week we hear from Professor Chris Battershill on the environmental impact of the Rena oil spill, we check out an award winning documentary on Ecuador’s proposal to save its pristine rainforest […]

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Episode 27: Clever endeavours

This week’s show is an eclectic mix, taking you from the Swiss lab of cancer researcher Dr Chris Rodley to the Endeavour Crater on Mars where a robotic vehicle has identified evidence of water having existed there in the past. In between, we talk innovation with Sciblogger Peter Kerr and bring you the best of […]

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New Zealand academics' salaries still lagging

Universities New Zealand has just released its latest university staff remuneration international comparison and the reading won’t be pleasant for Sciblogs readers who work in university departments. The table below tells the story pretty clearly: Universities New Zealand notes: The latest review of university salaries and benefits published by the ACU establishes New Zealand universities […]

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A partial victory for reason

Last year, Wellingtonian Don McDonald, a stickler for accuracy and a statistics whiz, took a complaint to the Broadcasting Standards Authority over a basic factual error in a TVNZ news report about the discovery of a supernova. It was a only a 37 second piece, but it had at least one factual error in the […]

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Episode 26 – the future is up for grabs

What a show for the re-launched Sciblogs podcast! I talk to Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, the creator of the Apple I and the engineering genius to Steve Jobs’ design brilliance. We catch up with futurist Mark Stevenson who was in Wellington recently as a “brain for hire”. And I ask Sciblogger, Professor Shaun Hendy, what […]

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NZAS conference – what the politicians said

There has been some good discussion following this week’s Association of Scientists conference in Wellington and also some media interest in what the two politicians who addressed the conference said. Find below audio recordings of the presentations from the politicians. Other podcasts will be added soon… Minister of Primary Industries, David Carter [audio: http://ia601205.us.archive.org/10/items/HonDavidCarterAddressingTheNzasConference/DavidCarterNzas.mp3%5D Labour […]

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Do emerging researchers have a future in NZ?

There’s a lot of angst in the scientific community about the apparent whittling away of opportunities for emerging scientists in New Zealand as a result of the dismantling of the FRST postdoctoral fellowship scheme. This manifested itself late last year in a letter being circulated that was signed by 560 scientists which complained that the […]

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Did dodgy rivets sink Titanic?

In Belfast and Southhampton there have been celebrations this weekend to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. The last few weeks have also seen the Titanic story revisited from every angle. Last week, film maker James Cameron appeared in a National Geography documentary in which he and a team of naval […]

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