#BirdoftheYear 🇳🇿

The Internet belongs in a single large beige cube in the family room where everyone can see what you're doing and you should have to wait for your mom to get off the phone before you can check your email.

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So let me get this right: the PMSTIAC to date now has eight members and zero (0) with any experience working in CRIs/PROs. We shall not even start on the gender balance. I guess they're slowly lowering the dairy industry overrepresentation at least...

Colossal Biosciences has announced that they have created a colony of rock dove primordial germ cells, which can turn into sperm & eggs. Their aim is to genetically modify the genome of a Nicobar pigeon, the closest living relative of the extinct dodo. www.theguardian.com/science/2025... 1/11

Please strike when it is MOST disruptive. Apparently a bunch of folks who should get it, don’t. Insist on the value of your labour. I know it is hard (!!!), but it is in all of our interests that you do. Please, godspeed, and thank you 🙏

I have it on good authority she’s not super forthcoming with that information to voters either

Happy Pythagorean Triple Square Day!

‘The anti-vax movement isn’t simply a grassroots network of concerned parents. It’s an industry. … It operates on a simple premise: if you’re not vaccinating your kids, you need to protect them somehow, and here’s a bunch of things you can buy to do that.’ Excellent writing in @macleans.bsky.social

Excellent deep dive into what the WellKiwis study and wastewater data tell us about how the number of symptomatic infections in Wellington has changed over time

it's kinda hard to overstate how the central library was a focal point for daily wellington life, and how its closure has left the city centre so much emptier – this has been six years of work and I'm so glad it's almost finished wellington.govt.nz/news-and-eve...

Call for papers for the TEU's Secure Work Online Hui, 7 November. Please join us for this important intervention on the most pressing issue in academia, particularly affecting marginalised groups teu.ac.nz/campaigns/se...

Oh so the proofing process failed in exactly the same way TWICE? 🤨🤨🤨 www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/3608...

Hear hear Cliff! newsroom.co.nz/2025/09/09/w...

Thinking some thoughts about how people can spend more effort sympathising with a man who *might* have lost *some* access to his kids than with a woman who actually did have her kids stolen for four entire years

More cuts to the Marsden Fund of @royalsocietynz.bsky.social. This takes it down to $10/capita in real terms when it was over $16 for most of this century. Australia's equivalent, the ARC, is NZ$42/capita, as is the US NSF (despite ongoing attempts to gut the latter). www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...

Context: this knocks back Marsden funding levels next year a whole two decades to (inflation adjusted) the same level funding as the 2005 Budget.

“In one year, the public account has grown by more than the total paid out in Treaty settlements since 1994 — that’s every single claim across three decades.” — Bevan O’Connor, candidate for Hastings District Council.

More cuts to the Marsden Fund. This time $20 million from the annual budget cut starting next year. This is on top of previous cuts by this government. They are trying to skip the 'priming the pump' step of public research as a driver of the economy. How well that is going to work? #NZPOL

The Association of Salaried Medical Staff has issued a steaming press release: asms.org.nz/ministers-in...

New paper in Nature finds that global geologic CO2 storage potential is ~90% lower than previously believed. Many candidate sites could leak CO2 back into the air or into groundwater, undermining climate mitigation efficacy or putting nearby human health at risk. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Folks, I can now reveal that the Trump/CoC economy has come for my job. Another job has not yet forthcome so now would be an extremely doubleplusgood time to commission yourself (or a loved one) a painting. Here is a very small selection of what I can do

Not feeling great about living in a time where the @marsdenfund.bsky.social feel the need to specify 'Current Marsden Fund contract holders will have their agreements honoured' in an update about the 2026 funding round. Science in AoNZ has arguably never been in a more dire state.

The “problem” with vaccines? They so effective at preventing deaths that they create generations of people that question whether disease was a problem in the first place because they have never experienced the horrors of a world without vaccines.

Some great comments from @sereananaepi.bsky.social “What we need is a tertiary education strategy that recognises universities’ multiple roles: yes, they train graduates for the workforce and contribute to the creation of new technologies,

There's quite a lot here that resonates with the anti-research attitude of our government, including the cuts to blue skies Marsden Fund research. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/31/s...

New game just dropped Birdle 🇳🇿 01/09/2025 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 birdle.nz

Thanks to the Guardian for covering our efforts. Read more here: www.theguardian.com/environment/... Follow us, support the mission, and help keep climate truth alive.

A team of climate communication experts – including many members of the former climate.gov team which was shuttered by the Trump administration earlier this year – is now working to resurrect its content into a new organization with an expanded mission. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Nearly all PhDs take 5 years--with finishing in 4 a rare outcome. This is deliberately designed to eliminate the international powerhouse that is US postgraduate training.

DM me here or email my UD address - no one found so far! Is this a unicorn type of job!??!

After 22 years, Typepad is shutting down with one month's notice. Go back up your old blogs, old-school blogger friends. everything.typepad.com/blog/2025/08...

Someone tell me if this is right

Another way government austerity is failing healthcare and the NZ people. Underfunded Te Whatu Ora / Health NZ is cutting access to the Cochrane Library, a gold standard source of information to support health decision-making. NZers use it 246 times per day. #nzpol tinyurl.com/3jya8hkd

This Thurs at 5.15pm in Dunedin, I'll be giving a talk about MythBusting de-extinction to sort fact from fiction. It will be good to see you there.

I think about this so often. It's a security/resilience risk, it ties us to guaranteed overseas $$$ (e.g. dairy), it limits our ability to reduce carbon emissions...logically it should be a priority but it's barely talked about

Dear geology/biology Bsky, anyone know what this rock or fossil is? Found in a gravel driveway in Kalispell, Montana.

It’s been obvious for ages NZ First is now the cooker party but this really is a new low for blatant misinformation in the political mainstream

This building opened the first time when I was five and I am so beyond excited to take my (by then) three-year-old there when it re-opens next year.

Clive Aspin and I are looking for applications for a summer student (Dec-Feb) for our Honourable Kāwanatanga project. Applications close 8th September. Please share if you know someone passionate about racial and Tiriti justice. Apply - www.maramatanga.ac.nz/funding-oppo...

Going to share some facts about some under-loved worms. Because why not. I like to joke my babies are charismatic macrofauna because we hear so much about "charismatic megafauna" like whales, dolphins, even octopus that they over shadow the real gems, the macrofauna. 🧪🐙🦑🌏🌊

We are currently writing an obituary for Janet to be published in the New Zealand Association of science journal - an organisation that Janet was president in the past. If you worked with Janet and would like to contribute then please DM.

For a nice illustrative anecdote of where AoNZ's research and science infrastructure is at funding-wise - here's our national museum relying on pokies to pay for critical scientific equipment that helps them care for their collections. 🧪

Counterpoint: This is mad confusing because it is garbage made with AI and few of the birds look much like the birds they look like. Here’s a thought: instead of sharing this, maybe share art made by a human? One who needs it for their livelihood? www.tworuru.com/product/aote...

'More options to reinvest in the future' = 'the beatings will continue until morale improves'

Real countries need to keep learning about their history – James Belich www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/real-coun...

Thanks everyone who has donated so far. The goal is within reach, I just need another 1,071 people to make an NZ$3 donation For my overseas followers, that's only about US$1.8 or €1.6

“Seeing vowels present in Māori words grows a person’s ability to communicate and to understand New Zealand English, of which many Māori words are an everyday part.” — Vincent Olsen-Reeder and Corinne Seals.