Dr Lucy Stewart

When someone says „Scientists do not want you to know“ you can dismiss everything from there on. Scientists want you to know. They are desperate that you know. They can’t shut up about what they found out and want you to know.

Good article, but the framing is wrong. There is not a dearth of interest in taxonomy. There is a scarcity of funding and positions, which is a deliberate choice by funding agencies and institutions. The youth love taxonomy! It's the olds that are failing to meet their passion!

Government ‘kicked the tyres’ on solar subsidies but went with ‘minor’ tweaks instead It is one of the cheapest ways to cut power bills - yet documents reveal the government shelved a subsidy.

New Zealand has more sunshine than Germany.
But only 1 in 35 homes here has rooftop solar.
Australia? 1 in 3.

Why? I tried to find out - despite some strange secrecy

www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...

Hold on, was Luxon just literally repeating the exact same words the Australians used??? Like he's not just refusing to take a stance he's cheating on the exam????? Wow

what does she want that she can't have, and why can't she have it?

sooooooooooooooo cheap, especially when you compare it to what we're willing to spend on new roads etc

The older I get the more depressing I find it that *most* big problems are a question of will/resources/priorities, not understanding.

I neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeever read the Stuff comments

‘Depressing and disheartening’: Graduates in debt and ‘constantly rejected’ from jobs With youth unemployment at 16.5%, there are few new-entry roles, leaving graduates asking if a degree was even worth it.

Pretty accurate picture for what it's like for a lot of our science graduates these days, unfortunately - people may be realistic about not getting jobs in precisely their area of specialisation but they can't even get anything vaguely related

2026 VERY determined that we don't get a summer this year

A classic of our time

David Klein: For the love of birds (and Wellington) Calling all bird lovers! In a celebration of our feathery friends, David Klein shares fun scientific facts with a dollop of silly at the Wellington Fringe Festival in the aptly named David Klein prese...

It's important to champion the increase in bird numbers around Wellington.

But at an ecosystem level, it's uneven recovery. Plants, lizards, wetlands, freshwater fish, pāua etc all continue to decline.

David Klein: For the love of birds (and Wellington) www.rnz.co.nz/national/pro...

Just based on what I remember (I probably read Jurassic Park fifteen times as a teenager) they're probably verrrrrrrrrrrrrry dated, but they might hold up as period pieces

Corn's about $1 a cob right now so there's very little you could get cheaper per kilo

We're probably getting pretty close to 700 science jobs lost over this term of government, directly linked to reforms/cuts. And believe me: the country wasn't overflowing with them to start with.

I once had a car salesman provide the answers to all my questions to the guy standing next to me rather than me, the person who had asked them. It was like I was a voice from the aether. Baffling.

Car salesmen (gender intentional) continuing their undefeated reign of being very bad at selling cars to the people actually trying to buy them

Scientists: for a new story, I have one big question—>

What is a “good day” in the lab?

I’m looking for epic examples of the best day ever to general criteria for what constitutes a “good day” compared to a nothing-burger day.

Ping me if you have examples to share!

Re-posts appreciated!

Apropros of nothing, updated Wellington south coast water sampling results (through Sunday) are available for people to look at and consider themselves whether this represents a concerning pattern or not. NB: a result of <4 means coliforms were undetectable with the testing method used.

💯we have so much (literal and metaphorical) shit going wrong right now I think we should take the minor wins where we can find them.

It's definitely a major ongoing issue which needs fixing...but a lot of the latest results are returning detection-limit-to-undetectable levels of coliforms (and have been for a few days, it's no longer an 'avoid the ocean at all costs' issue.

My relevant-PhD-informed opinion is that I was a little surprised how long the total ban lasted given the numbers being shared after the long outfall was reactivated. Can't say they didn't take a precautionary approach.

I haven't seen the numbers recently but they were dropping to safe levels around most of the South Coast pretty much as soon as the long outflow was working again. That's good news!

nooooooooooooooooooope

There was a Stuff (I think) article earlier this week about childcare costs and it WOULD cover 20 hours a few places! But not any major centres.

The kaiako at our centre are universally fabulous, the kiddo loves it and has a great time doing all sorts of amazing activities, but it really should be subsidised at a higher rate. It's practically an extra mortgage payment.

Oh I absolutely expect so! And I'm sure varying childcare costs across the country play a role here too - the same subsidy probably goes further in cheaper/more rural locations.

We don't get an itemised bill so who knows! We are very happy with his centre generally but whoo boy it is not cheap. And it was literally the only place that had space when we needed it, so not like we could have shopped around on price.

And no, for any incipient wits, he's not in childcare for eighty hours a week.

Our child qualifies for the 20 hrs free ECE scheme next month! Which is about to save us (checks notes) 25.6% off our weekly childcare bill. Nothing to sneeze at, but...