Another $50,000k to donated ACT today brings the coalition donation total to over $5m ($20k+). Lots more charts in the link. www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic... #NZPol

The Advertising Stds Authority just published new rules around environmental claims in advertising - this is great, and means greenwashing can be more easily challenged. No more "green gas" or "sustainability" claims without being able to back them. Bring it #nzpol

I'll take it. www.thepost.co.nz/business/361...

Brakes on LNG: Winston Peters says Cabinet ‘decided not to make a decision’

The Government appears unlikely to sign a contract for an LNG import terminal before the election, as ACT joins NZ First in applying the brakes.

thepost.co.nz

The newly discovered cuneiform tablet fragment contains text from a section of the Treaty of Kadesh related to the treatment of Hittite and Egyptian refugees in the Bronze Age (circa 1269 BC). 🧪🏺

'We have found traces of peace, thousands of years old': Fragment of world's oldest known peace treaty found in Turkey

Archaeologists excavating in the ancient Hittite capital of Hattusha have uncovered a fragment of the world's oldest peace treaty, signed around 1269 B.C.

livescience.com

after some in-depth discussions with my lab and also drawing on conversations on here, we've edited our new policy on AI usage in my lab feel free to adapt or re-use with attribution, or to reply to tell me how awful this policy is lol

The cumulative infections per person in 2022 was over 1 (on average, people were got covid 1.09 times in 2022). But in 2025 it was 0.166 (a rate of one infection per person every 6 years) and in 2026 it is trending lower.

Any readers who want to learn more about the NZTU and the strategies that it uses in its campaigns, Avery Smith, Clare André, and I took an in-depth look at its work and some of the implications for democracy and citizenship in Aotearoa. We wrote a report: tinyurl.com/WhoCountsANZ

Tyrannosaurus xkcd.com/3300/

My latest blog post. Based on some researchers who put googly eyes on a takeout food box to see if that would discourage seagulls from stealing your lunch. There's serious work on how animals track eyes and on trying to stop animals from taking food. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/ment...

Seagulls Versus Googly Eyes

Have you ever had your lunch stolen by a gull or some other bird? In the battle to save your lunch, scientists may have discovered a secret weapon: googly eyes.

psychologytoday.com

I encourage relevant people to apply for this, even though it means I will no longer have the Children's Writer's office space on campus to occasionally hang out in myself, though I could come and say hi.

Mikaela Nyman@miknyman.bsky.social · yesterday

Happy news 🎉 the Children’s Writer in Residence in Otago is returning in 2027! Apply by 18 Oct. The residency is made possible with support from Creative New Zealand and Robert Lord Writers Cottage. More info & link to applications here: www.otago.ac.nz/news/newsroo...

And if you want to keep an eye on every email they put out to their list, bookmark this: theprogressreport.co.nz/emails/?part...

NZ Political Email Archive - The Progress Report

Explore political newsletters from New Zealand parties. Updated automatically and expanding historically.

theprogressreport.co.nz

Yeah, and if they do persist, it is NOT your job to respond ... 'cos there is we can do SFA in this part of the world to influence *in any way* oil prices. So just DON'T.🙏

RNZ News (Unofficial)@radionz.nzcow.com · yesterday

📢 The Reserve Bank Governor is warning near term inflation could be higher than it forecast just last month, should recent increases in oil prices persist.

News story about statistical QC and its discontents (driving tests) www.1news.co.nz/2026/09/22/p...

'Painful and unfair': Driver testing officer defends record after NZTA suspension

Michaela Howe has been prohibited from testing drivers amid a major investigation by the transport agency.

1news.co.nz

Make New Zealand Healthy: Beware the Trojan Horse diplomaticimmunity.blog/make-new-zea...

Make New Zealand Healthy: Beware the Trojan Horse

Make New Zealand Healthy combines sound ideas about prevention and nutrition with more contestable claims about supplements, regulation and evidence. A closer look at what is inside the Trojan Horse.

diplomaticimmunity.blog

Michael Plank@michaelplanknz.bsky.social · yesterday

Follow the money ‘We wrote it’: Winston Peters denies copy-paste health policy www.stuff.co.nz/politics/361...

What a dude

The security team at Trade Me rarely has an opening, but right now we have one. We are an industry leader in securing and building for/against/with AI and cloud technologies. www.trademe.co.nz/a/jobs/it/se...

Security Specialist - Intermediate, Trade Me | Trade Me Jobs

Security Specialist - Intermediate (Full time, Contract) for Trade Me in Wellington, Wellington.

trademe.co.nz

”Experts say it picked up some genetic material from other bugs found naturally in the throats of some people. This exchange created a new strain or variant that then spread between clubbers and caused severe illness.“

Scientists discover why Kent meningitis outbreak was so severe

The bacteria responsible picked up some new genetic material, say experts.

bbc.co.uk

I think New Zealand has the most beautiful money — both aesthetically & because each note honors a native bird: Hoiho/Yellow-eyed Penguin ($5) Whio/Blue Duck ($10) Kārearea/NZ Falcon ($20) Kōkako ($50) & Mohua/Yellowhead ($100). Are there any other beautiful currencies you think can compete with NZ?

What boggled my coworkers of a few months a bit today was when one joked "We could just get the news by scrolling David's Bluesky account" and I remembered "back in 2023 Newshub literally videoed scrolling my now defunct Twitter account to create visuals for a news report" bsky.app/profile/thou...

"The disappeared*" was a term for those the military dictatorship in Argentina imprisoned/tortured/murdered during the dirty war. *"detenidos-desaparecidos" (detained-disappeared)

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 2d ago

NEW: @apnews.com confirms that ICE has begun electronically "disappearing" people in the agency's custody who have final orders of removal. As of last week, anyone jailed by ICE with a final order of removal will NOT appear in the ICE Online Detainee Locator System, making them effectively vanish.

“Teachers have unions. Principals have associations. Ministers have ministries. Parents ... have no one" is the claim. False argument right out the gate. Schools are governed by elected boards of trustees, who represent - and MUST consult with - members of the school community.

i have no words. it is all so absurd

Meta bans ads for Virginia Woolf play in Spain because they relate to feminism

Theatre told that Facebook and Instagram filter out ads mentioning ‘social topics’ such as civil rights or feminism

theguardian.com

So any appliances I wouldn’t have thought of are collecting data www.consumer.org.nz/consumer-rig...

A student on a mission: the dark side of smart appliances

High school student Liam Martin is asking the government to stop the sale of data collected by smart appliances in New Zealand homes.

consumer.org.nz

Vet performs surgery on critically injured skink 'Kevin', who weighs less than 4 grams

Vet performs surgery on critically injured skink 'Kevin', who weighs less than 4 grams

A vet at Massey Wildbase Hospital has operated on their smallest patient yet - a critically injured skink now known as "Kevin".

rnz.co.nz

Yet another example of quoting someone with a catchy line that can't possibly be true. This hazard reduction burn was not an allegorical journey through the moral improvement of Seven Mile Beach locals in the company of a famous poet. It just had "Inferno" in the title.

ABC News Australia@news.abc.net.au · 2d ago

Residents angry after Seven Mile Beach bushfire and registered burn amid dire forecast

For those who might be interested, of the Aotearoa Research Conference a few weeks back, here publicly is the day 1 recording www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq-D... and the day 2 recording www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU69... talk details in description

This’ll be tough for meta to top but you just wait

Josh Fruhlinger@jfruh.bsky.social · 3d ago

i'm sorry, i now have to sign up for something called "meta one" to post links to my own website from my website's own facebook page?????

I like this editor’s understated style! ‘This is concerning in today’s research ecosystem where credit is largely assigned via authorship of a paper. The value of publication as a signal of researcher contribution is much weaker when authors cannot explain or defend their paper.’

Job going in Auckland at the Embassy of the United States of America "countering adversarial propaganda and anti-American narratives."

Somehow this bluesky post now has a date of transmission (29th October) and official artwork.

James Alistair Henry@jamesbluecat.bsky.social · last yr.

I found some old notes for an rpg game using the characters and objects from Cluedo for Call of Cthulhu, where you start on the basic board but it gets weirder and more cosmic horror the further out the players go (randomly generated). Cthudo!