Science Media Centre

The first-ever global Census of Marine Life will officially conclude today at a news conference in London, after a decade of marine exploration. Image credit: Russ Hopcroft – Univ. of Alaska Fairbanks & CoML In one of the largest scientific collaborations ever conducted, more than 2,700 Census scientists from 80 countries spent over 9,000 days [...]

What do Kiwis think of science? Next week will see the launch of a study that looks at the public’s perception of science in New Zealand. The research Science and the General Public 2010, is the latest in a series of studies previously undertaken in 2002 and 2005 by the Ministry of Research, Science and [...]

Geoff Cumming writes in the New Zealand Herald about a recent report which says that, at a time when our knowledge of marine biodiversity is crucial, our ability to identify new species is at its lowest since World War II. The report, part of the Census of Marine Life, highlights the importance of taxonomy (classification) [...]

New Zealand scientists have been involved in a 10-year long census of the ocean’s biodiversity, which found that most marine species have still to be discovered. Associate Professor Mark Costello (Auckland University) co-authored a paper which brought together the findings of the 25 regional reports from the census – the paper highlighted some of the [...]

Sacked drug adviser tours NZ Professor David Nutt grabbed headlines in the UK last year when the chair of the British Government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs was sacked for his controversial views on recreational drugs and how they are classified. Professor Nutt, who has gone on to form the Independent Council on [...]

New Zealand’s waters have been identified as a hotspot for marine biodiversity, according to a global census on the subject. There are over 17,000 known species in our waters, and it is expected that there are as many again yet to be discovered. An excerpt: (read in full here) Dr MacDiarmid was speaking on the [...]

Representing the most comprehensive and authoritative answer yet to one of humanity’s most ancient questions — “What lives in the sea?” — Census of Marine Life scientists have today released an inventory of species distribution and diversity in key global ocean areas. The marine researchers involved combined centuries-old historical records with data obtained during the [...]

The 10 year-long, US$650 million census of marine life will wrap up in 2010 but already the project, which plumbs the depths of the world’s oceans in search of new species of marine life, has already added significantly to our knowledge of sea life. A handful of New Zealand scientists, some involved in the census, [...]