People living along the coast of Indonesia and indeed around the fringes of the Indian Ocean will have had a spine-tingling moment last night as they felt the vibrations from the magnitude 8.6 earthquake that struck off the west coast of Northern Sumatra. Many will have had flashbacks to 2004, and the Boxing Day tsunami, […]
MoreNearly six months after the Rena ran aground off the coast of Tauranga spreading oil and debris along east coast beaches, the damage from the marine disaster continues to spread. Bad weather today caused more containers to fall from the ship. Sentencing of the Rena captain and crew members, who pled guilty to mishandling the […]
MoreProfessor Sir Paul Terence Callaghan, 64, one of New Zealand’s most honoured scientists, died in Wellington today having fought a stoic fight against the bowel cancer which he was diagnosed with in 2008 Sir Paul, a former New Zealander of the Year (see right), and a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, winner of […]
MoreHot on the heels of the weekend’s deluge of fracking stories comes research from the US that suggests chemicals released into the air in the process of hydraulic fracturing could prove a health risk to those living nearby. A three-year study by the Colorado School of Public Health looked at the airborne chemicals released near […]
MoreThe media has been having a field day on fracking lately. Former TVNZ political editor Guyon Espiner, in his first piece for 60 Minutes, Meet the Frackers, did a fairly thorough treatment of the issue on TV3 last night, with 60 Minutes devoting half of their programme to it. Chris Laidlaw on his Sunday programme […]
MoreWellington is abuzz with news of the super ministry, which was unveiled yesterday and will have major implications for a large number of public servants. Some leaders in the science system have commented about the implications of the Ministry of Science and Innovation being bundled into the new Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. Fellow […]
MoreIt was a bit much to expect the preliminary decision on who will host the next global “big science” project would remain under wraps. And so the papers in Australia yesterday carried the news that the South African bid for the Square Kilometre Array, a $2.7 billion radio telescope project, is favoured over the Australia-New […]
MoreSciblogger Michael Edmonds has been busy writing up his reflections on sessions from the SCANZ conference that was held on Feb 22 and 23 at Te Papa Museum in Wellington. SCANZ 2012 was the conference of the Science Communicator’s Association which is now into its tenth year of operation. The conference, which I presented at […]
MoreI have to confess to never having heard of the McGuinness Institute before reading their in-depth report into Government-funded science last night. Science Embraced: Government-funded science under the Microscope didn’t come with the fanfare that recent reports like Powering Innovation did, but it will get people thinking about the science system and how well geared-up […]
MoreWith the rise of location-based services like Google Latitude, Foursquare and mapping applications, consumers are now well aware of the fact that their mobile phone is also a sort of homing beacon, that can pinpoint your location as you move around. That has all sorts of privacy implications and Apple felt the full force of […]
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PETER GRIFFIN 
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