The evolution of gratitude Peter Griffin Mar 11

1 Comment

It was a shame Richard Dawkins only spoke for an hour at his Wellington event last night.

richard-dawkinsHe was only able to get halfway through his lecture before having to break off for a Q&A sessions which was handled superbly by local writer Bernard Beckett. But he repeated his familiar message that we should take wonder in our very existence because it is such a fluke.

“The fact of your own existence is the most astonishing fact you’ll ever have to confront, don’t dare ever see your life as boring, monotonous or joyless.”

This Dominion Post article covers the content of Dawkin’s lecture well, from his description of the evolution of eyes to the role of enzymes in shaping DNA.

Along the way he paid tribute to New Zealand scientist David Penny, who he said had been able to identify “trees” of evolution common to species by comparing their genetics at a molecular level, in the same way Darwin had been able to identify evolutionary traits by comparing anatomy.

Dawkins finished by suggesting that humans are in such awe at their own existence that they have to show gratitude to someone for it. Traditionally we have thanked God. Or as Dawkins puts it:

“When you feel just plain grateful [to be alive] then who are you being grateful to? You have to invent a God or pixies or something to be grateful to.”

Dawkins view – just be happy to be alive! There’s enough to wonder at in the world without inventing a creator to pay tribute to. Well, that’s my interpretation of what he said anyway…

Recording the lecture at the Michael Fowler Centre was strictly prohibited so I left my recorder turned off. But here’s a recording of Dawkin’s talk (via telelink from London) at the Readers and Writers’ festival in Auckland last year.

Monbiot: All out war on science Peter Griffin Mar 10

1 Comment

The Guardian’s George Monbiot has a thoughtful column this week about the attacks on climate science and how they have widened to take aim at science in general.

The last sentence of his column would seem to aptly sum up the state of public opinion on climate change:

The battle over climate change suggests that the more clearly you spell the problem out, the more you turn people away. If they don’t want to know, nothing and no one will reach them. There goes my life’s work.

This week at the Science Media Centre we featured a panel of scientists talking about this exact issue – climate change fatigue and why the public has grown tired of hearing about the potentially devastating impacts of climate change. What’s their solution? Science, they say, needs to change so that the social element of climate change is better accounted for when the biophysical aspects of the science are discussed.

Sciblogger and climate scientist, Dr Andy Reisinger summed it up well in the local context at a Science Techology and Society (STS) here in Wellington earlier in the week. He said that there is actually precious little research completed to date that looks at potential scenarios for climate change mitigation and adapation in New Zealand beyond 2025. We’ve become so wrapped up in what the climate science is suggesting will happen and trying to gauge the robustness of the science that we haven’t done enough to suggest exactly how these ominous scenarios will actually impact on people.

Businesses such as Zespri are becoming more interested in this as they plan for more sustainable development over the long-term. But business, government and science need to put more emphasis on the social element of climate change scenarios if there is to be the social change that will allow us to tackle climate change.

On the subject of climate change adapation, this Climate Change Research Institute lecture may be of interest to Wellington readers…

VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF WELLINGTON
SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT
NEW ZEALAND CLIMATE CHANGE RESEARCH INSTITUTE

NZCCRI Seminar Series 2010:

Fractured Science and the Politics of Climate Change
Dr. Barry Smit
Professor of Geography
Canada Research Chair in Global Environmental Change
University of Guelph

Friday 19th of March 2010, 12:15 to 1:15pm
Old Government Buildings Lecture Theatre 2, Victoria University.

This presentation addresses the physical and human forces underlying
climate change and its implications for the environment and development.
The roles of science and politics in national and international policy
responses are outlined – mitigation and adaptation. Examples are given of
adaptation initiatives in regions ranging from the Arctic to Bangladesh
and Nigeria to Chile. The needs and opportunities for truly
interdisciplinary science and practice are presented.

Barry Smit is internationally recognized for his work on climate change
impacts and adaptation. He is a scientist-practitioner whose
interdisciplinary research explores the relationships between
socio-economic systems and physical-biological systems. His work has been
applied in Bangladesh, Vietnam, Samoa, Fiji, Chile, Ghana, Uganda and the
Arctic. He has advised governments and organizations across Canada and
internationally. He has served on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), and is a co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

This presentation is sponsored by the Association for Canadian Studies in
Australia and New Zealand (ACSANZ) and the Government of Canada.

No RSVP is required.

$1 million given out in PM’s science prizes Peter Griffin Mar 09

2 Comments

It has been a big day in Auckland for a select group of scientists, students and science communicators who between them have been awarded $1 million cash towards research or personal development as part of the Prime Minister’s inaugural science prizes.

Many will be glad to see Jeff Tallon and Bob Buckley rewarded for their work in the area of high temperature superconductors which, perhaps surprisingly, is a promising little industry for New Zealand largely thanks to the work going on in this area at IRL.

The other names are a lot less well known, but that is because they include a teacher, a science student, an emerging scientist and a science communicator.

These are incredibly generous awards by global standards so hopefully they will generate a lot of high-quality applications in the coming years as the awards mature.

Here’s the line-up of who collected what, but essentially it goes like this:

A team of scientists at the forefront of new global power technology, which is projected to be worth $200 million to the New Zealand economy by the end of this decade, receives the inaugural Prime Minister’s Science Prize.

Dr Jeff Tallon and Dr Bob Buckley have made a string of discoveries in the field of high temperature superconductors (HTS) and used them as a platform to establish world-leading export businesses in HTS products.

They have led Industrial Research Limited’s (IRL) superconductor research and commercialisation activity for 20 years. Drs Buckley and Tallon receive prize money of $500,000, with $400,000 going to IRL for continued development of HTS technology.

High-temperature superconductors allow the flow of electricity without loss of energy, and can provide significant cost savings in areas ranging from power transmission to manufacturing.

The other prizes include:

The Prime Minister’s 2009 Science Teacher Prize

The Prime Minister’s 2009 Science Teacher Prize has been awarded to Morrinsville College teacher, Dr Paul Lowe, for his creation of new teaching programmes which are turning science into a popular subject and improving learning attitudes among students. Dr Lowe receives $50,000 and Morrinsville College receives $100,000.

The Prime Minister’s 2009 Future Scientist Prize

The Prime Minister’s 2009 Future Scientist Prize has been presented to an 18-year-old student who has made ground breaking discoveries about the physics of light.  Stanley Roache, a former student from Onslow College in Wellington, wins a scholarship worth $50,000 to help pay for his tertiary studies.

The Prime Minister’s 2009 MacDiarmid Emerging Scientist Prize

The Prime Minister’s 2009 MacDiarmid Emerging Scientist prize goes to Victoria University of Wellington PhD candidate John Watt, who was also the winner of the 2009 MacDiarmid Scientist of the Year title. John’s prize is worth $150,000, with $100,000 to be used to further research and commercialise his world-leading research into the growth of nanoparticles to improve air quality by reducing toxic vehicle exhaust emissions.

The Prime Minister’s Science 2009 Communication Prize

The Prime Minister’s Science 2009 Communication Prize will give Elizabeth Connor, Wellington, the opportunity to help change New Zealander’s attitudes to science and encourage a greater understanding of the contribution science makes to the country. Her prize provides $150,000 to further develop her knowledge of science media communication.

Jeff Tallon, Bill Buckley, Elizabeth Connor, Prime Minister John Key, John Watt, Stanley Roache, Paul Lowe and Shaun Coffey

Jeff Tallon, Bob Buckley, Elizabeth Connor, Prime Minister John Key, John Watt, Stanley Roache, Paul Lowe and Sir Peter Gluckman

Sciblogs going gangbusters after five months Peter Griffin Mar 05

No Comments

When Sciblogger and SMC colleague Aimee Whitcroft and myself started developing Sciblogs in August last year little did we suspect that just five months down the track the site would feature over 30 blogs, 1600 posts and 2 finalists in the prestigious Research Blogging awards!

Sciblogs editorial team - Aimee Whitcroft and Peter Griffin

Sciblogs editorial team - Aimee Whitcroft and Peter Griffin

Sciblogs was an experiment to try and engage science communicators and scientists keen to give blogging a go, a hassle-free platform to write about their research, science and the link between science and society. We pursued the best science bloggers in the country and persuaded them to syndicate their content through Sciblogs and invited scientists new to blogging to come on-board and test the medium.

What we have found five months in, is that there are numerous scientists in New Zealand who are passionate about communicating their science and adding to scientific discourse in this country. They realise that the way science communication works is by necessity changing as imformation becomes more immediate to people via the internet and a greater degree of openness is demanded of the science system.

We have noticed that since the launch of Sciblogs, existing science-oriented bloggers outside of Sciblogs have upped their game,  blogging more often.

There’s also substantial appetite among readers for material written by scientists and many interesting and thought-provoking discussions have taken place in the Sciblogs comment threads over the last few months – and seeded discussion on other blogs and via Twitter too.

The strength of Sciblogs has been the breadth of experience among the contributors which means a large number of subjects are tackled. Even a hot topic like climate change only accounts for barely four per cent of the posts on Sciblogs. Topical and breaking news stories are analysed while more reflective pieces about how science is carried out are among the most popular posts on Sciblogs so far.

A two-way conversation

We told all the contributors from day one that if they were willing to have an opinion in public, they should be willing to defend it in public and that is exactly what they have done as they’ve engaged with readers and in some cases the media which has followed up their posts. Sciblogs is a forum for discussion and hundreds have so far registered to leave comments.

A successful series featuring Scibloggers on Radio New Zealand over the summer and numerous news stories show the Sciblogs community is actually generating mainstream media coverage of science.

So where to from here? In the next few months expect some technical improvements to the website (and we’d love your suggestions on that front), some new science bloggers will join Sciblogs and we’ll kick off a couple of exciting  initiatives that should break new ground in how science communication is done in New Zealand.

So thanks to the hard working Scibloggers, thanks to readers for your interesting comments and thanks also to our hardworking web developer Marker Studio for all its effort making Wordpress work for dozens of bloggers with differing needs.

The table below breaks down some of the stats we’ve been gathering on Sciblogs – the contributors, the content and the website traffic.

sciblogs stats

Want to contribute?

We are taking submissions for our Guest Work blog now. If you want to write a piece on a science-related issue, let us know.

If you are a scientist or science communicator and are interested in having a blog hosted on Sciblogs please get in touch. At the moment we are looking for bloggers in the following areas in particular: agricultural science, energy, earth science and natural hazards.

Science bloggers who have existing blogs who are interested in syndicating some or all of their posts through Sciblogs are also welcome to apply to join Sciblogs.

CRI Taskforce: Time for “big picture” thinking in science Peter Griffin Mar 04

No Comments

The CRI Taskforce, which has been looking at the effectiveness of New Zealand’s major scientific research organisations, has issued its report which recommends a major shake-up in the management, funding and governance of them with the aim of moving from “micromanagement by bodies external to the CRIs to one based on big picture thinking”.

The press releases from various scientific bodies and the CRIs themselves in response to the report have been trickling in this morning and they all express support for the CRI Taskforce’s recommendations. The Royal Society’s president Dr Garth Carnaby said they were “right on the button”.

But the massive culture change the CRIs face will no doubt be painful. The sizable science bureaucracy in this country is indeed in for a shake-up.

However the prospects are exciting. What the taskforce signaled it wants basically includes:

- More guaranteed long-term funding for CRIs so they don’t have to scramble for contestable funding all the time, wasting resources and doing anything to keep FRST happy

- More control resting with the CRI boards but also more accountability and transparency eg: independent scientific advisory boards and public annual general meetings

- Better interaction with the private sector so New Zealand businesses get the spin-off benefits of all this taxpayer funded research.

- Better collaboration across the science sector – akin to the relatively successful Centres of Research Excellence (CoRE) model.

This is a huge opportunity to invigorate the CRIs which do great work but are so bogged down in the mechanics of science funding and commercial contracts they can’t look at the big picture. Scientists in particular should be hopeful the Government looks favourably on these recommendations as collectively they suggest better opportunities for scientists who want to get on with their research.

Money is central to the proposed changes and the graphs below illustrate the funding changes the CRI Taskforce has recommended:

Source: CRI Taskforce report

Source: CRI Taskforce report

Radio is best medium for science in NZ Peter Griffin Mar 03

No Comments

Across public and commercial radio there’s more science journalism going on than ever before and thanks to the internet, it is becoming easier to find.

The volume of content and the flexibility of the radio format which allows for longer interviews, mini documentaries and panel discussions means radio is emerging as the medium that best serves science coverage in New Zealand. Here are what the main radio stations are offering when it comes to science coverage:

Radio New Zealand

rnzRadio New Zealand’s award winning website features streaming audio and podcasts of all of its shows, so it has for some time been easy to hone in on the science programming featured on the Our Changing World show and in the line-up of Kim Hill and others.

Radio Live

rliveRadio Live has recently joined the party, with a drive to podcast the science interviews of weekend host and science enthusiast Graeme Hill. Below are links to some of Graeme’s recently podcasted shows and you can look forward to more in the coming weeks with Graeme featuring some big stars from the science world including Moon-walking astronaut Buzz Aldrin.

Dr Helen Petousis-Harris on the non-link between Measles-Mumps vaccine and Autism.

Dr Nina Fedoroff, Hillary Clinton’s chief science advisor on genetic modification.

Dr Hamish Campbell answers questions on earthquakes.

Skeptics Society chair and Radio Live contributor Vicki Hyde on homeopathy.

Kiwi FM

kiwiOver on Kiwi FM we have Glenn “Wammo” Williams, the breakfast host and a one man multimedia extravaganza. Science features heavily in the line-up, including a weekly science wrap-up with New Scientist’s Janine Young. Wammo features all of his content on his Youtube channel and the in-studio video feed and Skype video links to some contributors makes for strangely compelling TV on the radio.

bFM

bfmNo stranger to podcasting is Auckland student radio station 95bFM, which is actually more popular with the over 30 demographic than the teenage undergraduates who lounge in the quad beneath its studios on the University of Auckland campus.

On Thursday’s The Wire presenter talks science with me in the Dear Science segment and science-related stories are scattered through the rest of The Wire programmes during the week.

Newstalk ZB

zbZB has a way to go to tidy up its on-demand audio services with shows difficult to navigate. If you’re looking for science interviews, its hard work. But science does feature on the popular talk radio station so hopefully ZB will get the hang of podcasting so they get more exposure.

All up, I’ve been heartened by the amount of science-related content appearing on New Zealand mainstream radio and the quality of the content is only getting better as scientists become more comfortable in interviews and hosts develop a deeper interest in science-related issues.

Public Address radio

pa radioBroadcast on Radio Live and available in a reasonably user-friendly podcast format is Publicaddress Radio, hosted by Russell Brown and Damian Christie, bloggers on the popular Publicaddress.net blog network. Science features prominently with recent interviewess including squid guru Steve O’Shea and xenotrasnplantation pioneer Bob Elliot.

All of this means that radio is THE place for good, in-depth science coverage in New Zealand at the moment – long may it continue.

Why was CNN in Palmerston North? Methane! Peter Griffin Mar 03

No Comments

It’s a rare event that brings a CNN news crew to New Zealand – an America’s Cup campaign or a Lord of the Rings launch usually.

Or in this case a disrupted flight schedule which prevented the crew from heading to its intended destination – Chile. So the newly formed Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre was lucky enough to have CNN reporter Dan Rivers and crew present for its big launch in Palmerston North today.

The presence of the global news broadcaster was quite appropriate given that the centre’s work will feed into international efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. The Global Research Alliance launched at Copenhagen was, said Prime Minister John Key today at the launch, one of the few highlights of the COP15 conference with 20 countries signing up to work together on agricultural emissions.

New Zealand has pledged $45 million towards the initiative and research programmes coordinated through the AGGRC will be one of the key New Zealand contributions to the alliance.

Interestingly, John Key reiterated today that technological breakthroughs that the Global Research Alliance might come up with will be given to developing countries so they too can take advantage of them.

The AGGRC is headed by Dr Harry Clark, formerly an Agresearch scientist who will coordinate research programmes with partners that include Agresearch, DairyNZ, Landcare Research, Lincoln University, Massey University, NIWA, Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium, Plant & Food Research and Scion.

Harry Clark has had to move fast to pull the centre together – the sods of grass outside the centre’s modest head office on the Massey campus were laid just last week. Effectively, all the research will be done in the labs it is currently carried out in around the country. What will be important is the additional funding available for research – $5 million of direct government funding each year for the next 10 years. No details of what projects will be funded have yet been released, but you can expect some of the projects outlined here will be getting a funding top-up.

The PM launches the AGGRC in front of various suits and a CNN crew

The PM launches the AGGRC in front of various suits and a CNN crew

GM ryegrass – at least 7 years away from release Peter Griffin Mar 02

8 Comments

The Royal Society’s dispassionate summary of the potential benefits and risks of planting crops of GM forage for farm animals to feed on makes for interesting reading, thought its lack of recommendations on a way forward for GM in New Zealand may leave you wondering what the message from science actually is.

At the Science Media Centre we held a briefing today for journalists, featuring three of the co-authors of the paper. You can listen back to their presentations and the Q&A with journalists at the end here. Bottom line is that the scientists believe that after 10 years of intensive farming of GM crops around the world – 143 million hectares of GM crops were planted last year alone – the overwhelming scientific evidence suggests that genetically modified crops are safe to grow and consume. But that hasn’t really seen industry and public perception of genetically modified organisms shift dramatically in favour of the technology being used.

Source: Pastoral Genomics

Source: Pastoral Genomics

As Lincoln University’s Caroline Saunders pointed out in her presentation, opposition to GM at an industry level is on the increase in the US and the European Union where the high-value premium sectors of the market are anti-GM, because animal meat reared on GM crops often sells for less. As an example given by Professor Saunders, she points to GM corn-fed beef going for eight per cent less than its non-GM equivalent.

Research also suggests that what consumers are willing to accept when it comes to GM is complex – if GM traits make food healthier or reduce the impact on the environment they are more accepting of it than if GM traits reduce prices. Some New Zealand research referenced by Professor Saunders suggests a fairly high level of rejection (40 – 45 per cent of those surveyed) of products with beneficial GM traits, say butter with less cholesterol or insect resistant sweetcorn. As such, whatever justifications scientists can put forward for genetically modified crops, in this case, GM forage crops, won’t necessarily hugely influence whether consumers are accepting of it.

There was much discussion in the briefing of the difference between cisgenic and transgenic modification, which guest blogger Jack Heinneman recently examined in a series on Sciblogs. Pastoral Genomics’ Dr Michael Dunbier outlined the reasons for pursuing research into GM forage crops (see his presentation below). One striking image he put up on his slide shows GM ryegrass engineered to be drought resistant. The plants are visibly much better off that those unmodified plants. But if many scientists are keen to get moving here on GM crops most are realistic that due to the issues mentioned above, a commercial release of a GM forage crop which could become the basis of feed for millions of cows and sheep, is still some way off. In Dr Dunbier’s estimation, the earliest commercialisation could be in 2017 – 2018.

An NZPA report on the briefing.

Bluff oysters bouncing back Peter Griffin Mar 01

No Comments

Bluff oyster lovers will be heartened to learn that NIWA surveys of the oyster beds in Foveaux Strait show them to be looking increasingly healthy.

The Bluff oyster season starts today, so you will soon see the expensive delicacy on menus at good restaurants around the country. But as in recent years, prices will be high as the fishing industry maintain’s a self-imposed limit of 7.5 million oysters, as opposed to a 15 million annual catch entitlement.

Bluff oyster stocks have been limited for years due to bonamia, the nasty blood disease that affects shellfish.

As NIWA points out:

Bonamia is an oyster-specific disease that is not harmful to other animal or humans. It kills oysters by sapping their energy, so that they cannot keep their shells together, exposing them to the many oyster predators.

The only time you want a Bluff oyster to be exposed to a predator is when the predator is you and the oyster is sitting exposed in its shell with a squirt of lemon over it!

The industry isn’t out of the woods yet. While oyster numbers in key fishing areas seem to be increasing, oyster density is decreasing in some areas.

A fuller picture of the health of the Bluff oyster fishery will emerge in April when NIWA’s investigation into Bluff oyster population health gets a public release.

In the meantime, some lovely photos of Bluff oysters and oyster fishers. All photos below supplied by NIWA…

Bluff Oyster credit: NIWA

Bluff Oyster credit: NIWA

Fisherman Jimmy Foggo 'culching' oysters on the Golden Lea

Fisherman Jimmy Foggo 'culching' oysters on the Golden Lea credit: NIWA

Fishing boats lined up at Bluff

Fishing boats lined up at Bluff credit: NIWA

Tsunami – if the big one hit Peter Griffin Feb 28

2 Comments

New Zealanders in coastal areas are right now preparing for potential wave surges as tsunami warnings are in force for the entire coast of the country.

This follows the 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chile last night – my colleagues at the Science Media Centre rounded up some analysis of the quake from British scientists last night.

Preparedness for possible tsunamis has been good this time, following a patchy response from Civil Defence in the wake of the earthquake late last year which triggered a tsunami off the Samoan islands. It looks like New Zealand will escape any major damage from this tsunami, but a tsunami originating closer to home or resulting from a higher magnitude quake as far away as South America could have devastating consequences for the country, according to a tsunami risk assessment by Civil Defence updated just a few days ago.

As the report states:

A 2005 review showed estimated damages of $12-21 billion nationally from a 500-year return period tsunami – approximately 10% probability of occurrence in 50 years, or annual probability of 0.2%.

The risk in terms of mortality in the 19 urban centres assessed in the review (for the same return period) arises from losses in many towns and cities in New Zealand, but is predominantly from those along the east coasts of the North and South Islands as a result of large earthquakes in South America (about 60% of total deaths) or along the Hikurangi subduction margin of the eastern North Island (about 34% of total deaths). Tsunamis generated by offshore local faults are likely to account for 5% of deaths and those generated by regional sources 1%.

So what are the chances of a massive earthquake triggering a one in 500 year tsunami from the South American region? Well, researchers up until now have really had the massive 1960 earthquake in Chile to model things on:

…the 1960 tsunami, although caused by a much larger earthquake than the 1868 event (magnitude 9.4, possibly 9.5), occurred on a part of the South American plate boundary that is not as well oriented to New Zealand as the 1868 location. It produced a smaller tsunami in New Zealand than would have occurred had the location been ideally oriented.

Nevertheless, the 1960 tsunami caused run-ups of up to four metres in parts of the North and South Islands. The magnitude of the 1960 earthquake probably represents the upper limit for earthquakes for the whole South American coastline (and worldwide).

Computer models (Power et al., 2004), combined with historical observations, suggest that South American earthquakes with magnitudes less than 8.5 generate a minimal risk of a damaging tsunami in New Zealand. The historical record of Peru and Chile, which is hundreds of years longer than New Zealand’s, indicates that large earthquakes and tsunami have occurred relatively frequently in the past 450 years. Nine earthquakes with estimated magnitudes >8.5 caused nearsource run-up heights near to, or greater than, those produced locally by the 1868 event, and hence probably produced significant tsunami in New Zealand prior to
European settlement.

The Civil Defence report notes that while there has been little damage and few deaths from tsunamis in New Zealand since European settlement, Maori traditions make note of tsunamis that killed many people. Potentially then, the devastation in the last 1000 years or so was caused by larger that 8.5 magnitude quakes in South American that triggered tsunamis.

civil 500 2

A presentation from Victoria University’s Dr John Townsend on the Chilean earthquake:

« Older Entries