Guest Work • Nov 05, 2017 •
By Cassandra Brooks, University of Colorado. Last week, representatives from 24 countries plus the European Union met in Hobart to discuss plans for a vast marine protected area (MPA) off the coast of East Antarctica. The proposed area, spanning almost 1 million square km, is crucial for a vast array of marine life. Scientists, conservationists and governments … Read More
Guest Work • Sep 05, 2017 •
By Glenn Simmons; Bruce Robertson; (David) Hugh Whittaker, University of Oxford; Elisabeth Slooten; Fiona McCormack, University of Waikato; Graeme Bremner; Nigel Haworth; Simon Francis Thrush, and Steve Dawson In popular imagination, New Zealand’s fisheries management system is a globally recognised story of sustainability, reflecting a “clean and green” environmental … Read More
Guest Work • Jun 26, 2017 •
By Tim O’Hara, Museum Victoria Over the past five weeks I led a “voyage of discovery”. That sounds rather pretentious in the 21st century, but it’s still true. My team, aboard the CSIRO managed research vessel, the Investigator, has mapped and sampled an area of the planet that has never been surveyed before. The RV … Read More
Guest Work • Nov 02, 2016 •
By Indi Hodgson-Johnston, University of Tasmania Australia and New Zealand were claiming a conservation success this week, when their resolution against lethal “scientific” whaling was adopted at the International Whaling Commission’s biennial meeting in Slovenia. But in reality the non-binding decision will do little to stop Japan’s whaling program. This resolution aims to tighten the loophole … Read More
Peter Griffin • Mar 07, 2016 •
I took incredible pleasure in slowly working through Simon Winchester’s new book Pacific, which serves as a sort of companion piece to his 2010 effort Atlantic. And what better a place to delve into a book about the world’s greatest ocean than in the middle of that ocean – Tahiti, where I was lucky enough to spend a week recently, with … Read More
Victoria Metcalf • Oct 20, 2015 •
*Please see end of post for details of an incentivised research survey on science blogs we’d love you to participate in. I have a crazily adorable house bunny called Acorn, who is about to become a celeb-bunny on another Sciblogs site. Acorn is exponentially more lovely than our previous rabbit, Daisy, who came to us second-hand and possibly treated sub-optimally. Read More
Guest Work • Oct 07, 2015 •
Gretta Pecl, University of Tasmania; Jemina Stuart-Smith, University of Tasmania; Jennifer Sunday, University of British Columbia , and Natalie Moltschaniwskyj, University of Newcastle There are many factors that determine where a marine species will find a place to call home, such as wave exposure, salinity, depth, habitat and where other friend or … Read More
Guest Work • Dec 22, 2014 •
NIWA photographers are well known for their stunning images of New Zealand’s environment. Four of the best discuss their favourite shots and what was going on at the time. Dave Allen, photographer. Camera: Nikon D800 The photo of scientists Tony Bromley and Sally Gray releasing a weather balloon was taken at the tiny West Coast settlement of Hannah’s Clearing, south … Read More
Siouxsie Wiles • Mar 04, 2012 •
Regular readers will be well aware of my obsession with bioluminescence, that beautiful light produced by things like fireflies and glow worms. So I was excited to see this paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Margarita Zarubin and colleagues have discovered why so many non-symbiotic marine bacteria are bioluminescent. It turns out that … Read More
Rebecca McLeod • Aug 20, 2010 •
Have you ever wondered what lies beneath the blue as you have flown over Cook Strait? Did you know that there is a massive network of undersea canyons off Otago? And have you ever realized just how quickly you can plunge into the deep ocean just off the coast of Fiordland? … Read More