New #isotope #isoscape paper.. Sarah Magozzi leads a huge team building isoscapes for the #Mediterranean Tldr: state of the art statistical models cannot compensate for systematic variance in opportunistic data. Important finding in AI meta-analysis world -cannot just rely on compiled data.

1. The new Trump / Kratsios plan for US science appears explicitly designed to destroy US universities. Diverting money to tech donors is probably just a bonus. Gift link.

Trump’s Plan for Science: More Money for A.I., Less for Universities (Gift Article)

Michael Kratsios, President Trump’s science adviser, proposed overhauling how the government funds research. Democrats said Mr. Trump’s actions had weakened science.

nytimes.com

buried in this MBIE Q&A, the govt states they intend to shut down the Health Research Council (NZ's sole health funder). this will require parliament's OK incredibly, shutting down the Marsden Fund (NZ's sole basic-science funder) did not require any parliamentary input, so it's just gone #nzpol

Yes, this, the question we should all be asking! demand extraordinary evidence before acquiescing to extraordinary resource use

Ketan Joshi@ketanjoshi.co · last mo.

Google basically say: it's all worth it. But is it? Google now has to burn 1.5x as much energy to make the same $1m in revenue. Compared to 2021, are you getting 2x the value out of Google's services, to justify 2x the climate disasters they'll cause? Is this a good trade-off, to you?

Advice that must reach far beyond ‘both sides of the Atlantic’: ‘discovery is not opposite of application’! I know NZ is a small country, but we are maybe world-leading on this path: our ‘streamlined’ funding system now ~exclusively goes to ‘supercharge’ business www.nature.com/articles/s42...

Discovery is not the opposite of application - Nature Reviews Physics

Restructuring research funding as a choice between discovery and application gets the economics wrong, the evidence wrong and the people wrong.

nature.com

What *actually* works — right here, right now — to address climate change? Here you go. This is the result of thousands of hours of painstaking research and analysis from the Project Drawdown team.

As our union indicates "If just the 16 highest-paid execs capped their salary at £120k, we’d save more money than all the cuts to Archeology & History!"

“We have become remarkably comfortable harvesting fruit from trees planted by previous generations, while becoming increasingly reluctant to plant any ourselves.” 💯 thespinoff.co.nz/politics/29-...

The problem with treating science like a startup

Few New Zealanders spend much time thinking about volcanic monitoring but when a volcano erupts, we expect expertise to exist immediately.

thespinoff.co.nz

Just finished up my first BIOGEOMON - an inspiring science week w exactly the right amt of ‘chaos’. Interesting talks & chats, great (but wet) tour of world-famous-in-biogeochemistry Krycklan catchment, but top quote goes to James Kirchner’s reminder that, “What counts may not be what gets counted!”

I enjoyed contributing to this thought-provoking paper led by @jackiewebb.bsky.social. You should read it if you like ditches, canals, constructed wetlands and ponds. You should also read it if you wonder why on earth people like us are interested in these systems.

Naomi S. Wells@15nswells.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Excited to see our piece advocating for embracing (or at least acknowledging) artificial aquatic ecosystems published! Indefatigable leadership from @jackiewebb.bsky.social to transform our casual conference chats to this powerful (imho) piece. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Excited to see our piece advocating for embracing (or at least acknowledging) artificial aquatic ecosystems published! Indefatigable leadership from @jackiewebb.bsky.social to transform our casual conference chats to this powerful (imho) piece. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

“The issue is not whether ecology should use AI, but how to approach it with greater transparency, critical evaluation, and ecological grounding.”

Ben Bond-Lamberty@benbondlamberty.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Ecology is not yet ready for AI—and why that matters www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... h/t @stevenjsmith.bsky.social

Just checked the status for a few new manuscripts that I’m handling as an editor. Two manuscripts. Four reviewers invited. Four accepted 🤯😱🤠

Greys Anatomy Levi Schmitt Multiverse

ALT: Greys Anatomy Levi Schmitt Multiverse

static.klipy.com

"Researchers found undisturbed primary forests store 83% more carbon per acre than the managed forests that are replacing them." This study is "shocking" - as in "we've been lied to by the forest industry" and... it's not in our climate models. sustainability.stanford.edu/news/shockin...

A ‘shocking’ carbon discovery in Sweden’s forests

A new study finds old-growth forests in Sweden store far more carbon than the industrial tree plantations that are rapidly replacing them, with soil accounting for most of the difference. Protecting u...

sustainability.stanford.edu

‘When the government replaces a New Zealand public servant with AI, what really happens is this: money that used to be paid to someone living in Wellington, Lower Hutt or Palmerston North gets paid instead to a tech giant in California or Seattle’ newsroom.co.nz/2026/05/21/b...

Before we let AI run the public service, we need to know the full impact

New Zealand is badly under-prepared for mass deployment of AI in the public sector - and the latest Budget measures are being made without safeguards, writes Professor Alexandra Andhov

newsroom.co.nz

Neat validation of a pattern I’ve certainly observed in my own work: the harder I have to work to get a paper through review the better the finished product (& as a corollary published versions >>>> preprints).

Mariana Lenharo@marilenharo.bsky.social · 3mo ago

What doesn’t kill a paper can make it more highly cited. An analysis of peer-review records for thousands of papers finds that those receiving tough reviews go on to have a higher impact than those that sail through the review process. My latest story for @nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Come and work with me at @universityofotago.bsky.social Review of apps begins 21 May www.linkedin.com/posts/te-pun...

Postdoctoral fellowship in ecology and data science | Te Pūnaha Matatini

We're looking for a postdoctoral fellow to work at the intersection of ecology and data science. You will analyse existing datasets from New Zealand species, including isotopic data, but there will a...

linkedin.com

📢 Thrilled to share that our new paper is out! 🔗 lnkd.in/eiYnv6R7 🪱 Exploring earthworms + phosphorus using the ¹⁸O‑phosphate method 👏 Kudos to Chiara Pistocchi & Andreas Burr for leading the work. 🏆 Special congratulations to Andreas Burr, whose MSc contribution earned him a Best Thesis award.

This is fascinating and the fact that this study may be wrong is no surprise to anyone who teaches any level of students....

Ketan Joshi@ketanjoshi.co · 3mo ago

A big study that was cited as evidence that text generators are good for students has been retracted: www.linkedin.com/posts/ben-wi... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New exciting work 🧪by Kai Huang and team: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Topography‐Mediated Soil Moisture Controls Forest Hillslope‐Scale NO and N2O Emissions

Conceptual diagram illustrating soil NO and N2O emissions along a temperate forest hillslope. Left panel: Automated soil gas chambers were deployed along a forest hillslope to measure high-resolution...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

I’m so taking this Walter Lippmann quote (from Andrew O’Hagan’s @lrb.co.uk article) to teach science writing: “What kills political [science!] writing…is the absurd pretence that you are delivering a great utterance. You never do. You are just a puzzled man [person!] making notes on what you think.”

PhD opportunity- fully funded with stipend, fees and project costs covered. Explore the role of phosphite in treating kauri dieback disease. Applications due 8th May. Please spread the word! newzealandecology.org/phd-explorin...

What's your favorite book on earth's climate? Im likely to assign a pop sci book for my Earth System Science class in the fall, but most of the ones that come to mind are either a) more geology/deep time focused b) 5+ years old or c) too dense for a sophomore/nonmajors class

A day up in the mountains scouting new locations to bring our environmental science undergrads for their soil carbon projects...but ended up a wee bit distracted by all the massive autumnal fungi 🍄😍

Breaking news: giant springtail from Aotearoa NZ made the cover of @natecoevo.nature.com! This amazing pic of H. paucispinosa by @frankashwood.bsky.social should lure readers to the global study by @zheng-zhou.bsky.social et al on soil animal trophic diversity 🌍🌿🕷️🪱🪳🧪 www.nature.com/natecolevol/...

#EGU Photo Competition 2026: only ONE WEEK left to submit!🫣 If you are registered for #EGU26, you can submit images related to #geology or #geoscience and receive a 🎫 free registration to the EGU 2027! 👉 Submit by 8 April 2026. : egu.eu/1CJPHE

Long weekend recharge out exploring Aotearoa’s Mars, ie, the ultramafic Red Hills. (Too bad the world / country / city / employer don’t appear to have sorted themselves out over the few days I was away)

“Universities define nations...In a world where artificial intelligence and zero-sum transactional thinking are shoving us all toward cruelty, isolation or division, what we all need more than ever is a collective embrace of collaboration and higher learning.” www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04...

The 'enshitification' of the system has left Australia's unis at a crossroad

A generation ago, studying in Australia opened doors. Today rising costs and falling satisfaction are making international students think twice, and locals feel sidelined.

abc.net.au

Lighting small fires to prevent big ones: Georgia's high country forest research Great little piece on what Georgia has been up to for one of her PhD chapters. www.lincoln.ac.nz/news-and-eve...

Really heartening to see journals taking a stand for integrity by refusing submissions that declare no ‘competing interests’ - clearly leaving the door wide open to untold ‘conflicts of interests’ that would completely undermine the scientific endeavour if the editor even caught a glimpse of them