Science Media Centre

On Friday evening, the Pike River mine outside the South Island town of Greymouth experienced an explosion which trapped 29 miners below the surface. The explosion looks to have been due to a methane gas buildup, making rescue attempts difficult, both for fear of setting off a second explosion, and due to potentially high levels [...]

An international team of researchers, including scientists from the University of Auckland, has found that there was a sudden release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at the end of the last ice age, which means that the same might occur as global warming continues. The research suggested that the event may have been confined [...]

Kiran Chug writes in the Dominion Post about a new report in Nature which says that loopholes in the Copenhagen Accord and a lack of global determination are seeing hopes of keeping global temperature rise to 2 deg c by 2100 fading fast. They caution that action is needed urgently if temperatures are not to [...]

Q+A’s Paul Holmes interviews the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor Professor Sir Peter Gluckman about the Global Research Alliance, an international initiative set up by New Zealand to investigate how best to reduce agricultural emissions. The GRA’s first meeting took place recently in Wellington, and Gluckman commented on the GRA and its purpose, as well [...]

John Hartevelt writes in the Dominion Post about a new report debunking the belief that New Zealand’s exporting of lamb to Britain has a high carbon cost. The research, hailed by Minister of Agriculture David Carter, suggests that the carbon produced by lamb production and transportation happens primarily on the farm: indeed, the carbon produced [...]