Science Media Centre

Emeritus Professor Thomas William Walker, more familiar to many New Zealanders as ‘The Prof’, has died age 94. Walker came to Lincoln University from Britain in the 50s, to take up NZ’s first soil science professorship.  He also became well-known known as ‘The Prof’ in Maggie’s Garden Show, where he filmed most of his material [...]

David Fisher writes in the New Zealand Herald about a probe into last year’s GE breach at Plant and Food Research’s Lincoln lab. While no criminal charges have been laid, the probe found that there were a number of problems related to the handling of the GE seeds, including not using the proper equipment to [...]

Michael Berry (and NZPA) writes in the Malborough Express about the $12million FoRST grant which will fund research into sauvignon blanc over the next 6 years. The research is looking into how to broaden the range of flavours in the wine, and lead to the ability to tailor wine tastes for different markets/countries. An excerpt: [...]

A piece by TVNZ on MAF’s investigation of a potential GM-trial breach on the Lincoln campus of Crown Research Institute, Plant & Food Research. An excerpt: (read in full here) “The problem is over arabidopsis thaliana, a weed for which Plant and Food – and the two state science companies from which it was created, [...]

Announcement from AgResearch and Lincoln University issued today at 11am. The Chairman of AgResearch and the Chancellor of Lincoln University today announced that the Crown Research Institute and the University support, in principle, the merger of the two organisations to create a substantially enhanced Lincoln University with a specific and deep focus on land utilisation [...]