I’m humbled to have been awarded the Prime Minister's Science Communication Prize (pmscienceprizes.org.nz/2025-winner-...). I couldn't have done sci comm w/out a village of support incl. my family & wonderful lab group. This award is as much for you as it is for me www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyOT...

There's something about how people say postgraduate students but they actually just mean doctoral students

Been job hunting for over a year now. The jobs have to be catchable by now, surely?

Perhaps we can recognise that coastal forests are also critically endangered and maybe we could also consider integrated ecosystem level restoration rather than just single species benefits? www.nzherald.co.nz/the-country/...

Congrats @nicrawlencenz.bsky.social! He's one of our best and most prolific authors @aunz.theconversation.com and this is such well deserved recognition

Tonight I was browsing various birding tours worldwide and I want to express my appreciation to all my friends in Aotearoa New Zealand. With their hospitality and advice, at three-figure cost last Feb I was able to see more and more interesting species than the five-figure birding tours can promise.

The work we did with kākāpō is now not possible because the govt has said that our funding should go to science that makes money. Members of our current govt have said that if an endangered species is in the way of a mine or a new road then it’s goodbye #nzpol peterkdearden.substack.com/p/on-kakapo

I think we should start measuring government programmes in Hayden Donnell's 'metres of roading'. Lowering the age of bowel cancer screening to 45? 5 metres of road. A year of Three Waters? 63 metres of road. Reading recovery? 13mm of road.

Similar to Pākehā claiming to be kaitiakitanga without understanding the deeper whakapapa meaning of that word. I've done it myself in the past in terms of my job and interests, but have since learnt that it's not for me, and that's OK. Interesting seeing some Pākehā get really offended by this.

By Peter Dearden, an evolutionary biologist, working on insects from New Zealand and supporting the conservation of Kākāpō, giant land snails and penguins. Director of Genomics Aotearoa and Deputy Director of Bioprotection, Aotearoa. Loved the last line - "Also- don’t fucking call me sunshine..." 😂

I miss all the native vegetation and native birds in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. Ōtepoti is lovely but where I'm living there doesn't have much native flora and fauna, or even that much exotic vegetation.

"We have become remarkably comfortable harvesting fruit from trees planted by previous generations, while becoming increasingly reluctant to plant any ourselves." 💯

I don’t think parental leave should simply be available to men in equal amounts as women, I think it should be mandatory

Dream job alert: Terrestrial vertebrate biologist/ecologist (tenure-track) in New Zealand! Join us @ Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington. Lecturer ≈ US Assistant Prof. NZ lifestyle, weird animals, & great colleagues Apply here: tinyurl.com/mubu7np8

In November 2022, I started a summer scholarship project exploring precedents in te ao Māori for a novel genetic pest control tool in early development at the time. Three and a half years later, the article we wrote on the research has just been published! www.journal.mai.ac.nz/10.20507/MAI...

No less than 60 million stars in one image. It's possible thanks to ESA's Euclid mission. For just one day, Euclid turned its gaze to the crowded heart of the Milky Way and captured the largest, most detailed photo ever taken of our galaxy's centre in visible light. Let's dive deeper 👇 🔭 🧪 ☄️ 1/8

the Transition Research Fund, which replaces New Zealand's storied Marsden Fund, allocates just $6.2 million for science research relating to 'healthy people and a thriving society' that's less than my one single lab has spent in the last few years, but for all NZ basic science about humans #nzpol

Simple solution - write the legislation to specify exactly what it’s intended to achieve, and no more 🤷🏽

The plan aims to provide $32 billion over four years, largely by taxing the 'super rich': anyone with a net worth of over $10 million.

A handy set of visualisations for anyone who cares.

For the moment, Android users still have the final say in what software runs on their increasingly locked-down smartphones, though later this year, Google plans to seriously curtail that freedom in the name of security.

Three weeks left to apply to our postdoc position on alpine plant resilience! Us: Three years of funding, an awesome collaborative team, a gorgeous study system, blueberry pie, unionized postdocs. You: A PhD and experience in ancient DNA, paleoecology, and/or plant genetics and genomics.

Week in Review: The Government’s under fire for shrinking funding for DoC but Conservation Minister Tama Potaka hints at future announcements

📢 More new research in NZJE! 🪶 Evaluating the dispersal of a translocated kakaruai (South Island robin; Petroica australis) population out of Orokonui Ecosanctuary 🪶 Lead author: Manaia Pearmain-Fenton (Uni of Otago) 📷 Bernard Spragg Link to full paper below! newzealandecology.org/nzje/3635

Besides appropriately critiquing the media's failures in reporting on Māori issues, Aaron Smale points to the problem of the media increasingly catering to an older pākehā audience - the segment of the population consuming its content in more traditional ways that it knows how to monetise.

"We can choose to despair at these numbers—or we can take the increasingly radical option: optimism. It feels the same as bloody-mindedness, sometimes, and it can feel pointless, and petty. But it’s the first step in the deliberate construction of miracles." www.nzgeo.com/stories/mode... tautoko!

The thing about our social welfare system back home is that your experience of it is almost entirely driven by who gets assigned to you as your case worker. The system is designed to be punitive, and the only thing that works against that is a sympathetic ear. Robots don't care

National-led government sneaks through social welfare automation under urgency before a long weekend. #NzPol

Absolutely miserable experience trying to read any papers with half the webpage taken up by banners you can't minimise. I am very grateful for pdfs

#nzpol Tautoko. The 'dependency' narrative is very much part of the far-right playbook. Rather than 'dependency' should frame 'social housing' as the community *taking responsibility* to ensure *all* have shelter and to so therefore enable *all* to participate and contribute to community.

An actual artificial egg would've been one of the greatest scientific advancements ever and universally celebrated as such, yet Colossal's reputation is so tainted we can't trust anything they say. Truly saddening how they've monopolized one of the most interesting research fields.

Time to court the women's vote, once we define what one actually is. I chat more about this over at my Substack: open.substack.com/pub/yeehawth...

thespinoff.co.nz/politics/21-... "You cannot govern a society as though it were a failing business to be restructured.... We are not your failing commodities. We are the country."

Helping Nicola Willis: How to tell a social housing tenant apart from a Lotto winner

there's something particularly ghoulish about telling the employees you are replacing with AI that they should be excited they are being replaced with AI

Superb! “It sounds impressive but then it would, because it’s a press release” said Dr Louise Johnson “I look forward to reading more details when they’re published, but until there’s a peer-reviewed paper I might as well give expert commentary on a YouTube ad” www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

I was reminded of this today. From 2021, and still bad science is getting trotted out to justify bigotry. Personally, if you need to be conscious of someone's gender to value them as a person you need to take a long look at yourself. You're not a good person. From: scientists.org.nz/press-releases

Thanks to Nicola Willis and Brian Roche, I now get that I’m just human capital

Erica Stanford says she has done more for Māori than any Education Minister in NZ, and blames the "left" and "media" for her actions, and ignorance. She also didn't know school boards are crown entities, and boasts the MoE requires micro-managing Quite extraordinary stuff #nzpol #kiwi

From Auckland University - Comment: Is NZ really in so much trouble that we must give its environments away to developers and hope we will get a few crumbs?

‘These Kids Should Be In School Instead Of Protesting,’ Say People So Tantalizingly Close To Getting The Point

‘It is as bad as the Treaty Principles Bill in its attempt to erase the Crown’s duty to comply with the agreement made between Māori and the Crown in 1840,’ the Waitangi Tribunal says

Almost daily, the rights of citizens to participate in decision-making are being stripped away, writes former New Zealander of the Year Dame Anne Salmond

From the blog post: There is no level of “upskilling” that I can do which removes ableism from an employer. This is because individuals are not responsible for systemic failures.

This is the money paragraph for me.

📢 New publication hot off the press in NZJE! 🌿 A critical review of the inclusion of mātauranga Māori in published environmental research 🌿 Lead author: Tara McAllister (Te Manawahoukura, Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, New Zealand) @taramcallister.bsky.social newzealandecology.org/nzje/3632

Aotearoa, we’re going through a seismic, systemic shift. Whether it's the courts or the classroom, the goal is the same: bypass the "middlemen" of expertise and local autonomy to create a direct line of Ministerial control.