Science Media Centre

On Friday last week, in Auckland, the winners for this year’s Prime Minister’s Science Prizes were announced, with Sir Paul Callaghan and his team winning the top prize ($500,00) for their work in magnetic resonance innovation. Callaghan’s company, Magritek, is considered a world leader in the field of magnetic resonance imaging, which has applications in [...]

Science helps make sense of Pike River A number of science-related angles to the Pike River mining disaster emerged during extended media coverage over the past week — from the chemical make-up of the atmosphere in the mine before and after the explosion, to the robotic technology used in the ill-fated rescue attempt, to the [...]

In the latest of its Media Tracker series, the SMC looks at some of the events which caused news spikes during March. (Click on the picture to enlarge it) As always the weekly news cycle is clearly in evidence, with coverage of science-related issues dropping off over the weekend. Science-based news in March was dominated [...]

Andrew Koubaridis writes in the New Zealand Herald about the winners of the inaugural Prime Minister’s Science Prizes, in particular the winners of the top award, given for their work on high temperature superconductors: Dr Jeff Tallon and Dr Bob Buckley. The article also looks at the winners of the other prizes. An excerpt: (read [...]

Dr Jeff Tallon and Dr Bob Buckley, of IRL, have been awarded the top prize at the Prime Minister’s Science Prizes. Their work focuses on high temperature superconductors, an area in which New Zealand is a global development leader. An excerpt: (read in full here) “Dr Buckley says a coil of superconducting wire allows the [...]

The winners of the Prime Minister’s Science Awards were announced today, with doctoral student John Watt winning the top emerging scientist category. Watt also won the McDiarmid Young Scientist of the Year award for his research into how palladium nanoparticles could be used to reduce toxic exhaust emissions. An excerpt: (read in full here) “His [...]

Week from hell for climate science It broke last weekend and has run all week – the “climategate” saga that has seen the private emails of prominent climate scientists leaked onto the web and picked over by climate change sceptics who accuse them of manipulating data to show the world’s climate is warming. New Zealand [...]