Lisa Harvey-Smith, a scientist working for the CSIRO in Australia, writes about the impending decision on the Square Kilometre Array for the science website The Conversation. (reproduced here under Creative Commons licence).

Australia’s bid for the Square Kilometre Array – an insider’s perspective

Australia and New Zealand could be on the brink of a major scientific coup. In roughly a month’s time, the site for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope will be announced.

Australia and New Zealand are competing against a consortium of nine African countries – led by South Africa – for the right to host this A$2 billion mega-science project – one of the largest and most ambitious scientific projects ever conceived.

Last year, representatives from Australia-New Zealand prepared a detailed submission to assist the SKA Site Advisory Committee with its deliberations. I was lucky enough to be a part of that team.

The document, which exceeded 1,000 pages and included input from more than 40 organisations and agencies, provided data in sometimes eye-watering detail on the physical and environmental characteristics of our candidate site. It also described the social, political and legal structures relevant to administering the project in Australia and New Zealand.

For several weeks, submissions from both candidate sites were scrutinised by an international panel of experts. Very shortly, in the next few weeks, the committee will deliver its recommendation of the preferred site to the SKA Board of Directors. The board will then have the final responsibility for choosing a site. This decision is expected to be announced in mid- to late-March.

The level of anticipation within the scientific community is palpable. Astronomers, engineers and officials are collectively holding their breath, awaiting the announcement.

Potential SKA array station placement in Australia and New Zealand.

I have witnessed a remarkable level of enthusiasm from the general public. At an ABC “meet a scientist” event last year I asked a young girl – of around 11 years old – if she knew what a radio telescope was. Her reply stunned me: “Is that like the SKA?”, she asked, before proceeding to tell me there was competition between Australia and South Africa to host the telescope.

So what makes the ideal site for the world’s most sensitive radio telescope?

The primary consideration is, unsurprisingly, the suitability of the location for radio astronomy. With the rapid expansion of electronic communications devices such as mobile phones, radio astronomers around the world have experienced a large negative impact from the encroachment of stray “radio frequency interference” into their telescope receiver systems.

This can be extremely damaging to science output and costly to mitigate. CSIRO’s existing observatories in rural New South Wales – such as the Parkes Observatory – are increasingly suffering from population growth and the associated radio interference. The problem will be much more acute for the SKA, which will be more sensitive and observe over a very large frequency range, in order to pick up signals from the distant universe.

To avoid such man-made interference, CSIRO, working with WA State and Federal Governments, has established the Murchison Radio-Astronomy Observatory in one of the most remote areas of Western Australia.

By way of contrast, the region within 100km of CSIRO’s Paul Wild Observatory near Narrabri, NSW, has a population density of one person per square kilometre. Within 100km of our candidate SKA site, the figure is 100 times lower.

In order to protect this extraordinarily radio-quiet region, CSIRO and government agencies have negotiated a strong legal framework to protect the Murchison Radio-Astronomy Observatory for generations to come.

The SKA will comprise a number of different receiver systems, which will enable observations over a large frequency range. There are strong scientific advantages of placing these systems at a single, high-quality site:

• the infrastructure cost is shared between the high- and low-frequency receivers, increasing the available budget for the (scientifically productive) hardware and active components of the telescope
• the scientific return of a geographically distributed telescope is diminished because simultaneous observations of the sky over a large frequency range would be impossible
• if man-made interference were greater at one location, it would inevitably diminish the science return to place any antennas on the site more afflicted by radio interference.

For these reasons, I have no doubt that the merit-based process to identify a single site for the telescope is the correct approach. Given the SKA will inhabit one of the last remaining radio-quiet sites on Earth, the quality of science is not an area in which we can afford to compromise.

I have heard the SKA site bid compared to an Olympic bid, but in many ways that understates the significance of the project. A successful SKA telescope will provide a massive boost for science worldwide, together with the spin-off benefits that flow from such internationally focused innovative technology projects.

This will happen, provided the very best site is chosen to enable maximum potential for scientific discovery and maximum engagement from the global technology community.

Australia and New Zealand have incredibly strong credentials to support the SKA on behalf of the whole world for the 50-year lifetime of the instrument. I hope in 2012 – an Olympic year – we ensure scientific excellence emerges from this process victorious.

Associate Professor Marc Wilson, from the Department of Psychology, Victoria University, talked to TVNZ’s Breakfast show about the Mayan calendar, doomsday theories and why some people truly believe the end is nigh.

Watch Prof Wilson on Breakfast here.

From the TVNZ website:

Belief in doomsday stems from distress – expert

Believing the end of the world is nigh is not as crazy as some may think, a psychology professor believes.

The latest Doomsday date is December 21, this year. Last year, according to elderly US preacher Harold Camping, the world was to come to an end on May 21.

Marc Wilson, Associate Professor of Psychology at Victoria University, said the reason people choose to believe in doomsday prophecies is because they hope there is a better alternative to the “bad stuff” they see everyday.

“We run the risk of characterising people as crazy if they believe these sorts of things but actually it makes sense to them,” he told TV ONE’s Breakfast.

“One of the ways you can deal with the distress that comes from seeing bad things happen is the belief that something good is going to happen at some point in the imminent future, after all of the bad stuff gets wiped away.”

Wilson adds that although the 2012 prophecy may seem significant, it is only because of the attention it has received in the media.

Keep reading…

Dr Mike Joy, Senior Lecturer in Ecology and Environmental Science at Massey University, chastises New Zealand for not walking the talk on environmental standards in an article for the Dominion Post.

An excerpt (read in full here):

Face the facts – we aren’t so green

The enthusiastic response of Kiwis and many Government agencies to the Rena shipwreck disaster was heartening. 

A foreign-owned vessel messing up our environment and wildlife provoked a deep sense of injustice and motivated many to get involved in the clean-up.

But sadly, this remarkable response really just serves to highlight our denial of the real environmental disaster that we are increasingly desperately avoiding.

If only New Zealand’s real “worst ever” environmental disaster was so well publicised, officially acknowledged and stimulated such urgent action. And if only our real disaster was so easily fixed and even better that everyone could be involved its remediation.

Unfortunately, unlike the Rena disaster, the true environmental and biodiversity catastrophe is so pervasive it cannot be cleaned up by teams of volunteers; rather its cure will involve a total rethink of what we accept as being “good for the economy”.

At present, any economic gain is considered a great thing, regardless of the losses inflicted on the environment or society; neither of which are counted or even mentioned. To have a future, we must grow up as a nation and begin to take into account the losses inflicted on our natural capital.

Most Kiwis perceive our country as clean and green, and this perception is shared by the rest of the world, although doubts are creeping in.

Keep reading…

In early December 2011 Nine to Noon’s presenter Kathryn Ryan and producer, Caitlin Cherry were invited by Antarctica New Zealand to visit Scott Base on Ross island in Antarctica.

You can listen to the resulting podcasts below and on the Radio New Zealand website. Clicking on the links will take you the Radio NZ site where you can view image galleries and more information about each story.

Ice fishing with Clive Evans – Biologist Clive Evans takes Kathryn Ryan out to the sea ice off Ross Island to catch some Notothenioid fish, which they use to try to work out how they make anti-freeze and what this can teach us.

Arrival Heights Laboratory – The Arrival Heights Laboratory houses equipment for atmospheric experiments, low frequency radar and aurora studies for universities and other research groups. Science technician Shane Buckham showed Kathryn Ryan around the lab and described the various pieces of equipment.

Scott’s Hut at Cape Evans – Kathryn Ryan visited Scott’s Terra Nova Hut at Cape Evans and was shown around the hut by Al Fastier, the programme manager for the Antarctic Heritage Trust, and his colleague Lizzie Meek, the artefacts manager.

History & future of the continent – Kathryn Ryan speaks to the chief executive of Antarctica New Zealand, Lou Sanson about the history and future of Antarctica, including the historic polar race 100 years ago and the role New Zealand played.

Adelie penguins – The evolutionary past of the Adelie penguin and how climate change has affected them.

Turtle Rock – Kathryn Ryan visits sea ice scientist Andrew Martin at his field camp about 20 kilometres from Scott base, where he and a team have been taking samples of the sea ice to assess the impact of climate change at the very start of the food chain.

Writing in the New Zealand Herald, the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor, Sir Peter Gluckman, outlines the important role Auckland will play in the future of New Zealand’s science and technology sector.

An excerpt (read in full here):

Science key to richer country

New Zealand’s export economy has been dominated by its primary industries, commodities and tourism, but in the 21st century most strategic thinkers would accept that science and knowledge-based innovation is central to a better and more prosperous country.

But both our public and private sectors have over decades under-invested in research and development; only recently has this started to change. Auckland must play a critical role in this transition.

A smart nation must have a sufficiency of ideas flowing, an ecosystem that allows the market and the scientist to get close together, and a culture that accepts risk. Overseas evidence suggests that 100 potential commercial ideas need evaluation to find one that justifies investment. The ecosystem has many components – the generation of bright young minds (perhaps the most critical), access to capital, expertise in the management of intellectual property, expertise in dealing with regulatory affairs in areas such as health and food. And then, when the product is in the hands of the private sector, there are other issues.

….

Green shoots are emerging – they must be nurtured. It is not unrealistic for Auckland to become, within a decade, known as a knowledge city with a vibrant technology sector comprising not only small to medium enterprises but also multinationals undertaking research and development in areas where we have a advantage. If we look at advanced comparable countries, a feature of all of them is their capacity to attract multinationals to do research and development. The tyranny of distance is overstated when we consider the knowledge-based industries.

Turning Auckland into a smart global city in a smart nation must be a priority. The investment needed is partly fiscal, but so much more of it is psychological and motivational.

Read in full.

Physicist Sir Paul Callaghan’s high public profile has meant the country has taken a genuine interest in his terminal colon cancer diagnosis and subsequent unorthodox treatments. Sir Paul spoke to Radio New Zealand’s Kiwi Summer programme about his personal trial, his conclusions and concern at becoming a poster boy for the alternative therapy industry.

The Dominion Post, which highlighted the Sir Paul Callagha’s decision to try the Vitamin C treatment last year, also reported on his conclusions.

Joseph Gelfer, Adjunct Research Associate, School of Political and Social Inquiry at Monash University, picks apart the 2012 apocalypse theory for the Australian science website The Conversation (reproduced here under Creative Commons licence).

2012 cometh: how to prepare for the apocalypse

If you believe the doomsayers, the human race is not long for this earth. By the end of this year, our number will be up: the four horseman of the apocalypse will be upon us, fire will rain from the skies, the poles will reverse and the end will be, as so many have predicted for so long, nigh.

2012 has been feted for decades as the year the human race will be destroyed. But where did this apocalyptic vision come from? And why are we so attached to the date of our demise?

A conspiracy begins

Most people understand the 2012 end-of-the-world phenomenon to have something to do with the end of the Mayan calendar. In some ways, this is the case. The Maya used the long count calendar which dates back over 5000 years and is divided into b’ak’tun cycles of roughly 394 years.

We are currently in the thirteenth b’ak’tun of the Long Count, and this cycle ends (depending on your interpretation) around 21 December, 2012. But the Maya didn’t say much about what would actually happen when the cycle ends. To find the roots of the current apocalyptic spin on 2012 we have to look beyond the Mayan period, and to the modern interpretations of this ancient calendar.

The narrative began in the 1960s with a book called The Maya. In it, American archaeologist and anthropologist Michael Coe somewhat sneakily slipped in the following prophetic reference about what would happen with the closing of the thirteenth b’ak’tun: “Armageddon would overtake the degenerate peoples of the world and all creation on the final day”.

And so began the 2012 phenomenon.

Most people who are interested in 2012, work on the assumption that the grand day will usher in a new form of human consciousness, akin to the Age of Aquarius. Those who interpret the calendar in this way are a diverse group following a spectrum of esoteric lineages, from borrowed indigenous traditions, to fantasy histories of Atlantis, to Theosophists and psychedelic counterculture.

Some of these spiritually-inclined individuals view 2012 as something that will happen whether we like it or not; others have a more proactive view, assuming any changes that occur around 2012 must be the result of our collective actions.

A smaller number of people interested in 2012 are catastrophists. These people propose all sorts of Earth-destroying scenarios such as pole reversal, mega-tsunamis and crustal displacement (as seen in the blockbuster movie 2012), through to a massive asteroid colliding with our planet.

It is also often suggested there is some form of governmental cover-up to prevent the knowledge of these imminent disasters spreading among the masses. And don’t think this is the kind of thing that only happens in America. In May 2010 police raided a religious community in South Australia called Agape Ministries, who had woven a narrative about the government microchipping the population during the course of a 2012 apocalypse.

Apocalyptic imagination

It continues to surprise me how 2012 feeds into the dreams, anxieties and full-on anger of numerous people for various reasons.

I recently wrote a sceptical-but-optimistic 2012 talk which I give in various contexts. At the MindBodySpirit Festival a woman came up to me and said she wished she could clone me so more people could hear my balanced message; at the Atheist Society a man publicly called me a parasite because I did not denounce everything to do with 2012 as a dangerous cult.

What both these positions demonstrate is the potent force of the idea of 2012 — indeed, the apocalyptic imagination in general — as we endeavour to find meaning in the world around us. This struck me again recently watching Lars von Trier’s movie Melancholia, which is basically an arty 2012 movie, in which a planet crashes into Earth.

Of course, we each have a kind of death-delivering planet hurtling towards our orbit – we each have to imagine a universe in which we no longer exist. Because of this we each want to identify some kind of meaning in our existence, and construct a beginning, middle and end for the world.

How to plan for the end of the world

I have what I like to call, with tongue firmly in cheek, “the Gelfer Prophecy” about how 2012 might pan out down here in Australia.

There are various prophetic narratives which suggest that Australia is a safe place to be on the big day. As the first continental landmass behind the International Date Line, Australia will see the alleged New Age before anyone else. And shortly before, on 14 November, Australia will witness an eclipse of the sun, visible in its totality from tropical Queensland. It’s easy to imagine an End Times holiday package, and such things are already underway.

In my “vision”, unprecedented numbers of people line the Eastern seaboard to see the New Age race across the horizon. Of course, when nothing happens they will return, dejected, to their rental vans.

But in that moment of dejection it may just be that people realise the changes they dearly wish to see in the world will not come from some cosmic source, but rather instead political agency and social activism. And that, ironically, may result in 2012 being a catalyst for a shift in human consciousness, exactly as the prophets predicted.

Joseph Gelfer is the author of 2012: Decoding the Countercultural Apocalypse.

Roger Highfield, UK science writer and author of The Physics of Christmas, talks to Radio New Zealand’s Kathryn Ryan about the logistics of a jolly fat man visiting 842 million households in one night.

Listen below

Finance writer Diane Clement explores the psychology of gift-giving in a New Zealand Herald article, drawing on kiwi experts and international research.

An excerpt (read in full here):

The psychology behind giving and receiving

My children were horrified last week when they heard I’d written an article asking whether we should ban Christmas presents.

The idea behind that is the Kiwi Christmas has got completely out of hand financially. People are going into debt, quite literally, to buy gifts that are often unwanted.

There will, for the record, be gifts under the tree in our house come December 25. But before we go out and spend a small fortune on buying Christmas presents, it’s worth knowing what’s going on in the human brain when the issue of gift-giving comes up and how retailers capitalise on that psychology.

Academics in the fields of psychology, marketing, economics and other disciplines make a living by studying gift-giving and banning presents, my children will be pleased to hear, isn’t good for human well-being.

We don’t just give gifts because we care about the recipient or we feel obliged to give gifts at a certain time of the year. Gift-giving is deeply rooted in our psyches and in social customs.

Surprisingly for the layperson it’s not the receiving of gifts that matters most for adults, says associate professor Carolyn Costley of the University of Waikato’s marketing department.

“Gift exchange creates and reinforces emotional bonds between givers and receivers,” says Costley, citing an academic article entitled “If money doesn’t make you happy, then you probably aren’t spending it right”.

Continue reading…

A leading Australian researcher, Queensland University ecologist Professor Hugh Possingham, turned the tables on media at a briefing in Auckland today when he quizzed journalists about whether concerns over the loss of penguins in Antarctic and coral reefs closer to the tropics would be enough to stop nations burning the coal which contributes to fossil fuel impacts on rising greenhouse gas emissions.

Coal or penguins?

“I wonder whether the destruction of penguins and coral will stop us burning coal?” he asked on the SMC briefing.

“We can talk about the disastrous impacts of climate change on marine ecosystems .. but do you reckon that’s going to change the minds of the United States, and India and China about burning coal?”

One of 250 scientists, academics and other experts attending the 25th annual congress for conservation biology which began in Auckland today, Professor Possingham said after a three-day “think tank” on marine biodiversity before the conference that communities could stop agricultural run-off and other pollution which led to eutrophication of waterways, or mitigate the impact of fishing, but he was not convinced that concerns over the fate of Antarctica’s penguins or worries over coral reefs dying off would stop unsustainable use of fossil fuels.

Antarctica New Zealand’s science manager, Ed Butler,  — who was also participating in the media briefing — said that, personally, he was taking a pessimistic stance: “I don’t think the destruction of corals or coral reefs of penguins will change people’s minds or how they behave”.

Tangible, everyday things such as being able to drive to work or commute without carrying passengers had more immediacy.

There been many doom-and-gloom stories about sea-level rise and other climate change impacts that would hurt human populations tremendously, down to the kinds of crops they could grow or where they lived.

“It’ll be trillions of dollars to move some cities or to protect them – but if we’re not going to do it for ourselves, we’re not going to do it for a fluffy penguin,” he said.

SMC manager Peter Griffin suggested that impacts which affected people personally — such as ocean acidification affecting the paua, mussels and other seafood — would spur engagement.

He suggested the “fluffy animal stories”  shouldn’t be underestimated — the New Zealand sojourn of a “lost” Antarctic penguin, nicknamed Happy Feet, had roused widespread public attention — but people would “wake-up” when they were personally impacted.

“What’ll probably hit people in New Zealand quicker is the effects of sea-level rise and changing storm climates for all of those with a bach on the coast,” said marine ecologist Dr Carolyn Lundquist, a NIWA researcher who chaired the think-tank and will head the Oceania section of the Society for Conservation Biology. The spread of mangroves with coastal flooding and any migration south of mangroves with warmer temperatures could also be localised impacts that would quickly attract attention”.

A radio journalist, William Ray, said his personal opinion was that people looked for things they could change in their local environment — such as cleaning up a dirty stream. “I don’t think it’s easy to get people to rally around a massive international issue, especially when it’s out of their hands: burning coal is a government policy thing”.

Professor Possingham said it was important to engage the public, including by using social media, and Dr Butler said polling done by Colmar Brunton for Antarctica NZ had found that New Zealanders generally thought Antarctica should be protected, but there was a “massive gap” in terms of engaging 18 to 34 year-old people.

“It’s probably because we’re not really engaging with those new technologies as well as we should … we need to get more into blogging and onto twitter feeds: basically, keep up with our kids”.

The conservation biology congress will feature include feeds from twitter hash-tag  #ICCB.