Science Media Centre

A group of expert climate researchers has rounded robustly on 16 scientists who complained in the Wall Street Journal (No Need to Panic About Global Warming) that presidential candidates should understand that the statement that “nearly all scientists demand that something dramatic be done to stop global warming” is not true. The complaint used Auckland [...]

New Kiwi research has found that biofouling mussels may be more likely to make their home on the hull of  noisy ship than on a quiet one.  The research, recently published in the journal Biofouling, reported that mussel larvae settle faster on surfaces when exposed to underwater noise. Scientists from NIWA and Auckland University undertook [...]

LanzaTech, a producer of low-carbon fuels and chemicals from waste gases, has closed its latest funding round with investments totaling US $55.8 million. Dr. Jennifer Holmgren, chief executive of LanzaTech, said this funding will accelerate the development of next generation integrated biorefineries using the LanzaTech technology platform for the production of sustainable low carbon chemicals [...]

A campaign has begun in Britain for a memorial there to the scientist who led  New Zealand’s contribution to the International Geophysical Year (IGY), 1957-58,  which enabled  scientists from around the world to take part in coordinated earth science studies. A British geophysicist who later became a noted  scientific administrator, and Antarctic researcher,  Dr Trevor [...]

New research published today in the New Zealand Medical Journal has highlighted the link between unhealthy behaviours like drinking and smoking. NZ Newswire’s David Williams covered the story. An excerpt (read in full here): Hit booze in smoking battle: experts The government should consider alcohol law changes as part of the battle against smoking after [...]

Waikato University researcher Nicky Cameron has proven that new technology could be used to help pin down the origins of many preserved Maori heads.  She has tested  the enamel on the teeth of a model species, brushtail possums, to show that the technology could be used to compile a database for identifying the geographical origins [...]

The Green party has called for the Ross Sea in Antarctica to become a marine protected area, in the wake of several fishing vessels running into strife in the region. Korean vessel Jung Woo 2 was evacuated on Wednesday in the Antarctic Ross Sea following a fire which broke out aboard ship. It has been [...]

The stranded container ship Rena has finally broken apart after grounding on the Astrolabe reef several months ago. Although most of the fuel oil carried by the ship has been removed, the broken vessel still presents a variety of hazards. The ship, which grounded on the reef in October 2011, was torn in two by [...]

A New Zealand researcher who showed pigeons can be as good as rhesus monkeys at sorting images of shapes into numerical order has made news around the world, with reports of of the former racing pigeons in Dunedin popping up in the New York Times,  Scientific American and a swathe of TV channels. Though the [...]

The top award in the  2011 Prime Minister’s Science Prizes, $500,000, has been awarded to a team of scientists from Otago University and NIWA (National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research) for research which debunked proposals  to use geo-engineering to manipulate algal blooms in the Southern Ocean to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The [...]

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