Our Changing World

Sunfish are the world's largest bony fish species - and yet scientists know little about their lives. This week, Our Changing World meets a sunfish researcher unravelling mola mysteries and dives into the weird world of sunfishes as a museum specimen is examined and prepared. When you first see a sunfish - also known as a mola - your first question might be: how on earth can that thing swim? Follo...

Summer is on its way, and this week we're exploring both the power and the peril of the sun. First, we visit the Ultrafast Laser Lab to learn about efforts to create better solar panels. Then, we hear about one professor's quest to teach kids about sun safety using an ultraviolet dosimeter you can wear on your wrist like a watch. The sun, our closest star, is an incandescent ball of plasma powered...

Behind the scenes at the Auckland War Memorial Museum, a "menagerie" of specimens is a treasure trove for curator Dr Matt Rayner, who is researching how the Hauraki Gulf's seabirds are faring using clues from very old feathers. "A menagerie" is how curator Dr Matt Rayner describes the land vertebrate collection in the backrooms of the Auckland War Memorial Museum. There's a horse&#x...

How do you drill through 600m of thick Antarctic ice? Using hot water, of course. In this episode from the 2020 series Voices from Antarctica, Alison Ballance joins researchers hoping to solve the puzzle of why a giant river of ice has stalled. It's a slow-moving stream of Antarctic ice across West Antarctica, that feeds the world's largest floating ice shelf. So why has the Kamb Ice Str...

Weddell seals have returned to breed near Scott Base in Antarctica after a decades-long absence. On land, they're blubbery lumps. But underwater, they're graceful dancers and ethereal singers. A team of scientists is finding out more about the under-ice lives and habits of Weddell seals. Alison Ballance joins them in this episode from the award-winning series Voices from Antarctica. Dive beneath t...

A team of NIWA scientists eagerly awaits the return of 19 emperor penguins carrying high-tech data loggers and video cameras. What will the data captured reveal about the penguins' secret lives at sea? The emperor penguin mums and dads of Cape Crozier are returning from their fishing trips, bringing back full bellies - and some, treasure troves of scientific data. Follow Our Changing World on Appl...

Revisit the frozen continent with us in this mini rerun of the Voices from Antarctica series. This week, Alison visits Cape Crozier to meet a colony of emperor penguins and the team of scientists studying them. Emperor penguins spend part of the year huddled together on the ice, keeping eggs and then chicks warm. But where do they go once breeding season is over? Follow Our Changing World on Apple...

It's spectacularly spiky and delivers a painful or even deadly sting. Why are a team of conservationists growing and planting up Orokonui Ecosanctuary near Dunedin with more and more native tree nettle, ongaonga? It's all because of a pretty little pollinator called the kahukura, or red admiral butterfly, and its prickly preferences. Claire Concannon visits Orokonui to learn more about the ongaong...

We're saying farewell to the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (aka SOFIA) this month. The mission, which was partially based in Christchurch, wraps up after a decade of observing comets, stars, planets, and the moon. In July 2017, Alison Ballance boarded the Boeing 747 with a flying telescope for one of its research flights. Last month, the SOFIA telescope left Ōtautahi Christchurc...

In a future that is free of fossil fuels, where will we source all the products that we get from the petroleum industry? Scientists at the forest research institute Scion think that trees might provide the solutions we need. Fossil fuels aren't just used for transport and energy - they're also used to make everyday products. As we move away from fossil fuels, where else can we find these...

In a room in the Manaaki Whenua building in Auckland are rows and rows of shelves, with cardboard boxes containing an array of weird and wonderful dried fungi. Claire Concannon visits to learn how and why these specimens are kept, and finds out about its sister culture collection, which is helping in the defense against invading plant pathogens. The New Zealand Fungarium has a library feel - a qui...

Alison Ballance visits the Brook Waimārama sanctuary, and discovers that the old saying "many hands make light work" is particularly true when it comes to community conservation. A relatively new fenced sanctuary, the Brook Waimārama team is now at the exciting stage of bringing native wildlife back into the area, including orange-fronted parakeets - kākāriki karaka - and giant land snails. Giant...

Claire Concannon catches up with Dr. Taniela Lolohea of Auckland University of Technology. He is researching in the relatively new field of low temperature plasma surface coatings, and explains how it can be used to create customised surfaces for many purposes. But he is also investigating ways to encourage more Pacific students in science, including by developing projects that might be more attra...

While we might have heard all we ever want to know about viruses in the last few years, the truth is, known viruses represent less than zero point one percent of the estimated total of viruses out there. Claire Concannon meets a team from the University of Otago trying to increase our knowledge of virus diversity, so that we can better understand their evolution. All of us can list at least a few...

Edin Whitehead inherited a love of birds from her father and became captivated by the majesty of seabirds on a trip to the Subantarctic Islands. Now a PhD student at the University of Auckland, she is trying to figure out how best to help the birds of the Hauraki Gulf, who are facing many threats, including warming waters. Many of northern New Zealand's seabirds are out of sight and out of mi...

The Auckland University of Technology Living Laboratories project is all about investigating how best to grow back native forest. At Pourewa creek, this collaboration between AUT and Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei involves planting blocks with different nursery plants and measuring individual tree growth and biodiversity indicators over time. They hope to figure out the recipe to cheaper and faster regenerat...

The most extreme places in Antarctica give rise to the toughest and weirdest types of life. From creatures living a very different chemical life to ours at underwater methane seeps to the secret tools bacteria use to keep their DNA safe from the harsh conditions of the dry valleys. Antarctica is a continent of extremes. The coldest. The driest. The windiest. It pushes life to the very limits. Livi...

The eruption of Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai in January triggered a tsunami of unprecedented proportions, impacting the entire Pacific. How did this volcanic eruption lead to a tsunami detected across the globe, including as far away as the Mediterranean? Science communicator Ellen Rykers speaks to the scientists unravelling the secrets of this rare phenomenon. The eruption of Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha&#x...

With their antler-like mandibles, Helm's stag beetles often get stuck in to one another. But they are fighting a bigger battle too - against predators and habitat loss. PhD student Luna Thomas is studying these little known endemic insects. She hopes her work will add to our sparse scientific knowledge, and maybe help some of the other native stag beetle species, some of which are critically endan...

The New Zealand data science programme, Taiao, aims to help researchers make sense of environmental data so they can make useful predictions to guide good decisions. Claire Concannon meets the team at the University of Waikato where the programme is hosted. And a group in the Auckland Bioengineering Institute are researching a new needle-free jet injector design that they think might lead to a hap...

PhD student Kiamaia Ellis describes crayfish as a vulnerable taonga species. Local iwi in Tauranga believe the crayfish population is decreasing because of urban, industrial and harvesting pressures. But Kiamaia is keen to be a part of the solution, so she's studying the resilience of pēpi kōura / baby crayfish. She wants to understand how these tiny species that take eight years to become an adul...

Working with the community and local schools, the Karioi Project aims to turn the tide on biodiversity loss in their area. In recent years they've rallied around the grey-faced petrel, or Ōi, who they hope to help return to the maunga. In the great cycle of nutrients between the ocean and the land, seabirds are an important link. Burrowing seabirds transport nutrients from the sea into the costal...

Two stories about the promise and perils of chemistry research. From a team recreating Renaissance beauty recipes in the hopes of rediscovering a 'miracle ingredient', to a researcher investigating New Zealand's deadliest synthetic cannabinoid. Natural products are the origin of many of today's beauty products and medicines, with plant, mineral and animal product extracts analysed and then of...

The Nevis Fault is a sleeping giant fault, one that awakens only every 10,000 years or so. This week, a team of geologists use paleoseismic trenching to answer questions about this fault and to figure out the pattern of past earthquakes. Aotearoa New Zealand is in a collision zone. It is the place where the mighty Australian and Pacific tectonic plates meet. The main fault line runs the length of...

It's Prime Minister's Science Prize time! We meet some of the people awarded the 2021 prizes for their mahi. The annual Prime Minister's Science Prizes recognise the best in New Zealand science research, teaching and communication. Now the 2021 results are in. Congratulations to all the winners! Listen to interviews with prizewinners Bianca Woyak, Carol Khor and Professor Dame Jane Harding in...