The news yesterday that a group of wealthy businessmen including Warehouse founder Stephen Tindall and Trade Me founder Sam Morgan are leading a $900 million bid to build a 13,000km fibre optic cable between Australia, New Zealand and the US has created a lot of buzz.

The prospect of an internet without data download caps is a tantalizing one – New Zealand is one of the few OECD countries where there are limits placed on the amount of data you can transfer over your broadband connection each month.

Morgan and company suggest this is creating a digital divide between New Zealand and the rest of the world. Are they right? Well, it is hard to compare New Zealand to countries such as the US and Japan which are relatively well developed with uncapped broadband services. But innovation in rich content and real-time streaming services in those countries is certainly much farther ahead than in New Zealand.

The SMC wrapped up comment from the science sector on the implications for a second high-capacity cable linking New Zealand and the US and the reaction has been largely positive.

As NZICT chief executive Brett Riley pointed out, more (and cheaper) capacity is essential for a project like the Square Kilometre Array in which New Zealand hopes to be involved. It could also help lower international connection costs for the KAREN (Kiwi Advanced Research and Education) network: as REANNZ chief executive Donald Clark said:

“More competition on bandwidth supply from Australasia to the rest of the world will ultimately result in more international research and innovation collaboration which in turn will boost New Zealand’s economy”.

Scibloggers on the Pacific Fibre plans:

Grant Jacobs: High-speed international connection? Yes please

John Nixon: The undersea connection

Peter Griffin: Bigger, faster, more productive

Answers to climate change fatigue

Scientists at the STS (Science, technology and Society) Network workshop held in Wellington this week took part in a Science Media Centre briefing on “risk fatigue” and the disconnect between the dire scenarios of climate scientists and the willingness of society to act to avoid them.

Emeritus Professor Ian Lowe of Griffith University and ESR’s Dr Karen Cronin suggest that science needs to change to better address the social implications of climate change. A more integrated approach between biophysical science and social science is what they are calling for, as well as a more detailed look at scenarios for climate change mitigation and adaptation in New Zealand and Australia beyond 2025.

You can listen to the podcast of the briefing here.

Are you on Twitter? Let us know…

From the Chilean earthquake to the moa DNA breakthrough, science news is increasingly spreading through the social network Twitter as people re-tweet stories of interest and in some cases, even break news themselves.

We are on Twitter – twitter.com/smcnz and twitter.com/sciblogsnz – and we are in the process of generating a science media list of science journalists on Twitter. Sign up to follow us on Twitter if you want to be added to the list. If you are looking for scientists and science writers to follow on Twitter here are some of our favourites: @boraz @carlzimmer @bengoldacre @davemunger and @catherineq (a Kiwi astrophysicist and NASA fanatic at the University of North Carolina!).

As we head into Sea Week and New Zealanders digest the message of the hard-hitting documentary The End of the Line which suggests we may be heading towards a “world without fish”, the SMC is gathering fisheries experts to look at New Zealand’s fisheries and their sustainability.

Every year, the country faces difficult and complex decisions about how many fish should be harvested, and science plays a key role in those decisions. Are our fisheries being exploited for short-term gain? Or are current catches sustainable? Perhaps most importantly, how can we measure the difference?

Journalists are invited to participate in this online briefing featuring scientists from NIWA, the Ministry of Fisheries and the University of Auckland. Contact the SMC for details.

Briefing: 11am, March 8 (online and by phone)

CRI Taskforce report well received

Everyone who works in or near the science sector knows the science system needs to change and the path that change may take was signaled this week with the release of the CRI Taskforce report, which recommends a major shake-up in the way the Crown research institutes are funded, structured and governed.

The report is available here. We wrapped up some of the reaction from CRIs and scientific bodies here – the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive.

The report arrives as an analysis by the New Zealand Institute of what the country needs to do to close the GDP per capita gap with Australia, and suggests we need to make innovation a more cohesive part of our economy.

Media Tracker: GM, MMR, climate

The SMC’s first Media Tracker survey of the year has been published and while January was a predictably slow month for science news, a number of big science-related stories saw science in the headlines in February.

These included the visit by Dr Nina Fedoroff, Hillary Clinton’s chief science advisor, the Lancet’s withdrawal of the infamous Wakefield paper which in 1998 suggested a link between the MMR vaccine and autism in children, and Prime Minister John Key’s state of the nation speech which had a strong science theme.

January saw a spike in climate change-related stories as reports on “climategate” filled international news pages and discussion of NIWA’s warmest decade report topped up general coverage of weather and climate.

Quoted: “It is now beyond reasonable doubt that the world is warming and that human activities are contributing factors. As a result, it is prudent for Governments to od what they can to reduce the threat posed to civilisation and to the environment by global warming. It is more difficult to answer why, in the face of broad scientific consensus about global warming, the public remains confused.” Professor Grant Guilford, Dean of Science, University of Auckland writing in University of Auckland News.

As part of a Science Media Centre briefing for journalists to be held on Tuesday, Agresearch chief scientist Steven Goldson will lead a panel of experts looking at the potential benefits and risks of introducing genetically modified pasture crops in New Zealand.

The Royal Society has prepared a paper on the subject as part of its Emerging Issues series which last year also covered ocean acidification and the consumption of water in the production of goods and services.

Genetically modified crops have been grown in contained environments in New Zealand for research purposes but have yet to be released for commercial use outside of labs.

Journalists interested in taking part in the online briefing should contact the SMC.

GM applications get public hearing

Meanwhile, a public hearing will be held next Monday and Tuesday in Hamilton as the Environmental Risk Management Authority takes submissions on a research application from Agresearch to develop genetically modified goats sheep and cattle.

One of the justifications for pursuing genetic modification in both forage crops and cows is that genetic traits could be introduced that help reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the cows.

Efforts to reduce pastoral greenhouse gas emissions will also be in the spotlight next Wednesday with the launch in Palmerston North of the Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre, which will coordinate research efforts in this area across the science sector.

CRI Taskforce report due next week

The Government is expected to release the report of the CRI Taskforce next week, a much-anticipated document that will outline a plan to get more value out of the country’s Crown Research Institutes.

The taskforce has been led by entrepreneur and former president of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Neville Jordan.

The report is expected to recommend changes to the purpose, governance, funding, ownership, accountability and collaboration mechanisms for CRIs but no change to the current number of CRIs.

Qantas Awards – last chance to enter

A reminder that the deadline for applications for the print version of the Qantas Media Awards is 5pm, Monday, March 1st.

The awards have had a bit of a revamp this year with the number of categories pared back. This appears to be a good move as the awards had become unwieldy with numerous categories many of which received little attention anyway.

There are no electronic submissions for Qantas entries this year, so to meet the deadline, you’ll need to get your entries onto a CD, DVD or USB and couriered or mailed to the organisers by Monday. Entry details on the Qantas Media Awards website. Good luck to all entrants.

Sciblogs in Research Blogging awards finals

Sciblogs contributors David Winter (The Avatism) and Aimee Whitcroft (misc.ience and SMC media advisor) are finalists in separate categories of the Research Blogging international science blog awards.

Research Blogging is a well respected website that “allows readers to easily find blog posts about serious peer-reviewed research, instead of just news reports and press releases”. It was set up by US-based publisher Seed Media, which is also behind the popular science blog network Scienceblogs.com

David and Aimee were selected as finalists from 400 nominees – congratulations to both of them. The awards will be announced on March 23.

Genes, diet and gut health will be the focus of discussion in Auckland next week as scientists, nutritionists and food technologists gather for a conference looking at what the latest research says about how foods affect gene expression and therefore human health.

It is early days for nutrigenomics, but a group of New Zealand scientific organisations have an interest in this area and are interested in developing foods that can be matched to individual human genotypes to offer individualised health and nutritional benefits.

The conference features a range of international guests, including a lecture on public health nutrigenomics from Dr John Milner of the US’s National Cancer Institute.

IPCC errors – a scientist’s perspective

Ralph Sims, Professor of Sustainable Energy at Massey University’s Centre for Energy Research weighs into the climate change debate today with a column on news commentary website Pundit.co.nz.

Sims was a contributor to the IPCC’s 4th Assessment Report and as he points out in the column, a minor error was found in one of the chapters he authored – one which was introduced by the graphic artist creating a map accompanying the chapter. Sims further points out that such a weighty scientific document will contain errors, but that they do not undermine the validity of the conclusions the IPCC comes to in its 2007 report.

“…surely the most critical question of all is whether the threat of climate change, as presented by the science, has been now shown to be lower than was originally thought.

“If we take out of the equation the East Anglia models (accepting that such e-mails as reported were somewhat bizarre); the erroneous glacier report; the poorly analysed African food paper; the ocean energy potential error; and any other errors maybe still to be uncovered out of the thousands of pages, then can someone now produce a scientific paper arguing that there is NO RISK to mankind from anthropogenic climate change?”

DNA forensics – it’s come a long way

Dr Peter Gill of Strathclyde University doesn’t have a Wikipedia entry on him, but he was one of three researchers who effectively gave life to the science of DNA back in the mid-eighties and, as such, revolutionised how investigations of serious crimes are carried out.

Dr Gill was in New Zealand this week to work with scientists at ESR and to help celebrate 20 years of DNA forensics in New Zealand. The SMC held a briefing featuring Dr Gill and ESR’s Dr Sally Ann Harbison, which you can listen to here.

Also on Sciblogs: Peter Griffin looks at DNA profiling, its history, its future, and the problems it faces along the way.

Anna Sandiford looks at the CSI effect and the public perception of the capabilities of forensic science.

As New Zealand forensic scientists prepare to mark 20 years of DNA testing in New Zealand the Science Media Centre is pleased to host an online briefing for journalists featuring one of the founding fathers of DNA forensics, Dr Peter Gill. As this Times article explains, Dr Gill was part of a team of British scientists at the UK Government’s Forensic Science Service who in 1986 used ground-breaking DNA profiling techniques to help identify and convict a double murderer and exonerate the prime suspect in the case.

The success of DNA profiling saw the British Government in 1995 establish a DNA database that contains frozen DNA samples from people convicted of serious crimes and in some cases those who are arrested on suspicion of a “recordable offense”, a move that has been mirrored by governments around the world. New Zealand has its own DNA database and last year the Government announced increased powers for the police to gather DNA samples from suspects.

Dr Gill will discuss the advances in DNA forensics so far and where the science is progressing. He will also be joined by ESR scientist Sally Ann Harbison who will outline how use of DNA forensics has evolved in New Zealand and what the expanded police powers could mean for DNA sampling.

Journalists can dial in to the briefing by phone and watch presentations on the web. Those on the SMC’s registered journalists list will receive details of how to log into the briefing on Monday. For any other queries contact the SMC office.

Briefing for journalists:
Where: Phone and online
When: Tuesday 16 Feb, 3pm

Govt funding for pig cell treatment

After winning approval to undertake xenotransplantation trials with a small number of diabetes sufferers in New Zealand, Auckland-based and ASX-listed company Living Cell Technologies has been granted $4 million in funding from the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology for the trials and to commercialise the treatment.

An SMC briefing last year featured a panel of scientists including LCT’s Professor Bob Elliot discussing the science behind the trials, the results of which have yet to be published, but which have shown early signs of success for those receiving the treatment.

Which way forward for climate science?

Senior climate scientists take a hard look at the role of the IPCC and the future of climate science in the journal Nature this week, with Victoria University’s Professor Martin Manning among a group of authors of one paper that has been in the works for some time and looks at the directions climate research could take.

Meanwhile, the University of East Anglia has commissioned an independent enquiry into the leaking of the climategate emails and the contents of them which will be lead by Sir Muir Russell a former senior civil servant and university vice chancellor.

Our colleagues at the SMC in London wrapped up reaction from scientists to the news of the inquiry.

The move by London-based medical journal The Lancet to retract a ten year old paper that suggested a potential link between the MMR vaccine and autism in children effectively ends one of the longest running medical controversies of recent decades.

The retraction from The Lancet editor Richard Horton follows a damning General Medical Council ruling last week that found the author of The Lancet paper, Dr Andrew Wakefield, acted unethically in the way he carried out the research. Numerous peer-reviewed studies in the years since Wakefield published his research suggest there is no link between MMR and autism, however the resulting public health scare led to immunisation rates falling around the world.

Scientists in the UK and New Zealand this week reflected on the ruling and the impact of the research.

Listen out for a discussion on the topic on Graeme Hill’s Radio Live weekend show at 12.45pm this Sunday.

Open season on IPCC climate report

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is facing intense scrutiny worldwide as errors uncovered in its influential 4th Assessment report are dissected in the media and presented as evidence of a lack of scientific rigor in high level climate science publications which governments rely on to set environmental policies.

Editorials from both the New Zealand Herald and the Dominion Post examined the issue this week, drawing largely on reports published in British newspapers.

New Zealand scientists approached by the Science Media Centre, many of whom helped author sections of the IPCC’s 4th Assessment Report, say the mistakes are relatively minor and don’t undermine the science on climate change.

Professor Martin Manning, Director of the Climate Change Research Institute at Victoria University said, “…while there have been mistakes made in the Working Group 2 report, if the framework that has been set up jointly by scientists and governments for collecting and distilling key information on climate change was properly recognised, then much of the debate would fade away.”

Environment Minister told Radio New Zealand this week he wouldn’t tolerate errors in research reports generated locally.

“I’ve made it quite plain to the New Zealand scientific fraternity that those sorts of slip-ups will not be tolerated and they need to make sure the advice they are giving myself and my cabinet colleagues is straight science and robust science, because the credibility of the climate change problem gets into question even when you get these quite small issues on the fringe where errors have been made,” he said.

Big month for science gatherings

Conferences covering everything from biochar to superconductors are scheduled over the next three weeks, featuring international experts and new research likely to make newsworthy copy.

Here’s the SMC picks for some of the highlights: (see details in the Events section at the bottom of this newsletter).

Scientific Research Colloquim: An annual event looking at agricultural science made all the more topical this year as it follows the formation of a global alliance led by New Zealand with the aim of researching methods of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. Will feature Chief Science Advisor, Professor Sir Peter Gluckman.

SKANZ: What’s the latest news on the Square Kilometre Array project – the science the massive radio telescope will undertake, the design of the pilot project and New Zealand’s involvement in what could potentially be the biggest scientific instrument to be built since the Large Hadron Collider.

Superconductivity Industyr Summit (ISIS): Industrial Research and experts from New Zealand universities and overseas research organisations will discuss the latest technological developments in the world of high-temperature superconductors which are used in everything from power stations and transmission grids to mass transit systems. Can New Zealand make a lucrative export industry out of developing this technology?

New Zealand Biochar workshop: Researchers from Massey University and form across the Australian and New Zealand biochar researchers network will discuss the latest research into biochar methods, which are designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve the quality of the soil we plant our crops in. The will also be firing up a mini-pyrolyzer to demonstrate the process.

The CRI Taskforce, set up by the Government to review the structure of the country’s Crown Research Institutes, is set to release its recommendations after presenting them to the Minister for Research, Science and Technology, Dr Wayne Mapp on February 15.

Taskforce chairman Neville Jordan said the review had confirmed that the CRIs were a “rich repository of science capability for New Zealand”.

“…the approach of the Taskforce has been to build upon existing strengths and successes, and recommend steps we believe are needed to sharpen the ability of CRIs to contribute even further.

“At the same time we recognise that the challenges the country faces cannot be met by CRIs alone. The role of universities and independent research organisations is also important. We have also attempted to design recommendations that accommodate further improvements, beyond CRIs, that future governments might decide to implement,” he added.

Methanogen research published

A significant milestone was reached this week for scientists at AgResearch and the Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium, with the publication in the journal PLoS One of the first rumen methanogen sequence.

The sequencing was completed last year after an extensive research programme and is very timely – it comes as New Zealand sets up a centre for agricultural greenhouse gas emissions research and joins a global alliance of countries committing funding and scientific resources to the challenge of reducing emissions from farming.

NZMJ goes to town on smokers

The pages of the current New Zealand Medical Journal have been given over almost entirely to the issue of smoking, smoke-free policies, perceptions of smoking and the health impacts of lighting up.

One research paper featured in the journal and based on a 2008 Health Sponsorship Council national survey, suggests there is strong public support for an end to tobacco sales within 10 years.

Another paper examines whether quitting smoking is easier for smokers of roll-your-own or tailored cigarettes.

Genetic modification in the spotlight

AgResearch was in the Court of Appeal in Wellington this week as it launched its bid to overturn a High Court decision last year that found the CRI’s applications to undertake GM research shouldn’t have been considered by the Environmental Risk Management Authority.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton’s chief science adviser and pro-GM scientist, Nina Fedoroff travelled around the country meeting scientists and gave a public lecture in Auckland.

Full coverage on Sciblogs:

Will AgResearch’s court appeal pay off?

US to NZ: Get real about GM

Expect New Zealand’s unease with genetic modification and options for alternative energy production to be in the spotlight next week as the Government hosts a high-powered series of science workshops featuring key officials from the US Government.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may have postponed her New Zealand visit scheduled for this week to respond to the earthquake in Haiti, but her science and technology advisor Dr Nina Fedoroff will be here next week for some high-level discussions and a public lecture.

The molecular biologist from Pennsylvania State University is an expert in the genetic modification of plants and will discuss the subject in front of a New Zealand audience in the context of ensuring food supply as the world faces the prospect of having to feed an additional 3 billion people by 2050.

Also on the agenda during the visit of the US science delegation will be bioenergy technologies, with Dr Steven Koonin, Under Secretary of Science at the US Department of Energy accompanying Fedoroff. Other themes to be explored in six workshops taking place around the country include: agriculture and food innovation, climate and the Pacific, and Antarctic science.

The meetings are part of the New Zealand-United States Joint Commission Meeting (JCM) on Science and Technology Cooperation which is held every two years. Contact Tane Aikman at the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology for further details.

IPCC’s Himalayan glacier meltdown

It has been a rough week for the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as it was forced to admit a claim in its seminal 2007 4th Assessment report on the expected rate of glacier melt in the Himalayas came from a New Scientist article rather than a peer-reviewed source.

Critics of the IPCC have had a field day over the revelation, but scientists say the sloppy work in the subsection of the report doesn’t alter the fact that glaciers are melting at an accelerated rate due to anthropogenic climate change. Victoria University glaciologist Dr Andrew Mackintosh gave his take on the Himalayan glacier situation here.

Elsewhere, a group of scientists wrote to Science outlining the flaws in the IPCC report. And the journal Nature outlined the key areas of dispute in climate science as calls strengthen for the scientific community to act swiftly to restore the reputation of climate science after climategate and the Himalayan glacier debacle.

Publishing flurry to start the year

Scientists have had a busy start to the year when it comes to publishing their work in peer-reviewed journals and more cutting-edge New Zealand science is scheduled to appear in international journals in the coming weeks.

Agresearch announced last week details of research published in the journal PLoS that may pave the way for a “pharmacological treatment for hypertension and for heart rate control during surgery”.

The research involved Agresarch, Victoria University and a US-based scientist.

Former University of Auckland researcher Professor Scott Baker had his Marsden Fund-sponsored research on the health of minke whale populations published in Molecular Ecology last week.

The research attracted international attention, topical at the moment given the clashes between anti-whaling protestors and Japanese whalers in waters south of Australia and New Zealand.

Climate negotiators and heads of states will reconvene in a few hours with the aim of removing the hundreds of square brackets from a draft emissions reduction agreement.

If the first week of the COP15 meetings was dominated by the split between the developed and developing nations, week two hasn’t been much better, despite the optimistic rhetoric of everyone from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Robert Mugabe to our own Prime Minister John Key.

A rare show of unity came when New Zealand took a lead role in announcing a $200 million global fund for researching methods of reducing agricultural emissions.

Negotiations are likely to stretch well into the weekend. The SMC will be wrapping up reaction from scientists to any official announcements from COP15 on agreement as soon as possible.

In Memoriam: Peter Read, scientist and biochar expert

One of the scientists who has provided valuable insight for SMC alerts in 2009 was Massey University’s Dr Peter Read.

Sadly, Dr Read passed away in late November as he was preparing for a trip to Copenhagen to observe the climate negotiations. Our condolences go to his family, friends and colleagues.

Dr Read was a vocal advocate of biochar as a method of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. One of his last columns on the subject was published in the Guardian in March.

Biggest science stories of 2009

It is no surprise really when you add up all the science-related stories published this year in the New Zealand media that the issues drawing the most coverage were the swine flu pandemic and climate change.

But what is interesting, is how the quality of coverage of the biggest science stories of the year varied. Check out the SMC Media Tracker covering the period since the SMC launched on July, 2008 to September 30, 2009. While you are at it, check out our Annual Review for 2009 to get a flavour of what the SMC was up to during the year.

We will be continuously tracking coverage in the NZ media by keyword and publishing the results monthly from January – the first regular survey of science coverage in the New Zealand media.

SMC activities over the holidays

The Science Media Centre will be taking a short break over the Christmas holiday with the centre shutting down at noon on December 23 and opening again on Monday January 4th.

However, we will be on standby and contactable over the Christmas break if a major science-related issue emerges. Contact Peter Griffin if you have an urgent query and look out for a couple of silly season science releases from the SMC in the New Year.

Thanks for all your interest in the SMC this year and your valued support. Have a safe and enjoyable holiday and we look forward to working with you again in 2010.

Peter Griffin
SMC Manager