It’s disappointing to read that NZ’s fastest growing town, Rolleston, was initially designed in the 1970s to be a much nice place: “Aware of the social and environmental pitfalls of car dependency, the plans encouraged walking, cycling and public transport - potentially capitalising on […]

Pīpipi!! Today I did my monthly 63 km Port Hills bike loop, from Christchurch city NZ out via the hills to Lincoln and back by the farmland. I’ve been riding this monthly since July 2019, counting and mapping birds (and other species) as I go. Today, for the first time on this route, I heard a […]

My pen and ink botanical illustrations, old and new, depicting a selection of parasitic plants from tropical Africa and Asia:

I wish politicians would read these stories and face up to the reality of their choices https://kathmandupost.com/province-no-3/2026/08/27/i-watched-my-village-disappear-in-an-instant

I watched my village disappear in an instant

In the devastating floods that severed an entire district from the rest of Nepal, one The Kathmandu Post journalist witnessed his childhood village disappear — through fragments of video, and phone calls that stopped connecting.

kathmandupost.com

#thefarside #farside #comic https://www.thefarside.com/2026/08/26/4

Participating in #carryShitOlympics today again.

I just watched New Scientist’s excellent, and frightening, new explainer video about the AMOC ocean current that moves heat through the Atlantic. It’s why we may be dangerously close to locking in colossal, irreversible changes to the planets climate, which could happen rapidly over just a […]

Grateful for #TomGauld, an erudite cartoonist (and for the IRL scientist who share this with me) #NewScientist #Grammar #humor

Much of my day so far has been shifting some content from student summer scholar reports, written in MS Word, into Quarto so I can weave them in with some R outputs and make a complete report for a funder. I've learned a few tricks along the way. The good: The web tool at […]

Halfway through upgrading panels after 10 years. Nothing wrong with old but check out the progress: New ones on left are 650W/panel, old ones are 250W/panel. New are 2330x1135, old are 1600x1000, . That's 155 vs 245W/m² Both cost roughly NZ$200 each, although I […] [Original post on mastodon.nz]

Here's a photo of a sheep with a view. (I took it this morning when I was up in the Port Hills of Ōtautahi-Christchurch, NZ, swapping over batteries in audio recorders.) https://flic.kr/p/2sxpnMt #sheep #photography #nz #Ōtautahi #Christchurch

sheep with a view

A view of the Avon-Heathcote estuary and Pegasus Bay from the saddle west of Mount Pleasant.

flickr.com

My suggestion for academics who use LLMs for peer review: just stop, you’ve lost your minds, consider a different career.

Przewalski-Pferde sind ursprüngliche Tiere – und waren in ihrem natürlichen Lebensraum, den Steppen Zentralasiens, ausgerottet. Nun haben Naturschützer*innen und Biolog*innen Pferde aus Berlin nach Kasachstan gebracht. Sie sollen helfen, die Steppe am Leben zu erhalten. @ThomasKrumenacker war […]

Over the last few years, a meme has been growing on Reddit, Tiktok and elsewhere that bivalves have a decentralized enough immune system that they count as vegan. I am not vegan, and I think bivalves are an excellent, sustainable food source, but I am trying to fight this misconception because […]

I'm going to get on my usual soap box for a minute here. Tech giants and their platforms are harmful to kids and everyone else. Banning kids from them is a bad idea because it requires all of us to give up our privacy, for no gain, as kids will still get on. This has been proven. But on top of […]

I photographed this wee fly on the campus of #LincolnUniversityNZ, during a student-led campus BioBlitz this month. Otago Museum fly expert Steve Kerr has confirmed on iNaturalist today that it's the endemic species, *Melanagromyza senecionella.* This makes it […] [Original post on mastodon.nz]

Duck yoga at Lincoln, NZ. https://www.inaturalist.nz/observations/393747925 #ducks #birds #nz

More watercolours of the dippers on the R Wharfe. A grey wagtail because I was bored with sketching dippers (never bored of the dippers themselves). A small, speedy kingfisher sketch because I have to clear my work table for a new project.

Urtica urens (Small Nettle). https://images.wur.nl/digital/collection/coll13/id/122/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urtica_urens #plants #roots #illustration

I just watched Frank Films short 2022 doco on twin brothers Phil and Kevin Barker and their quest to find the largest trees in New Zealand. It's a fun watch if you've not seen it. It sounds like there are still bigger trees out there waiting for them to find […]

According to iNaturalist, this is a specimen of ***Catacanthus punctus***. And according to what I can find out, it is a type of Shield Bug. Visitor to our campsite in Cooktown, Far North Queensland. Absolutely incredible colours. Went on its way unharmed, after […] [Original post on mastodon.au]

"She broke your throne and she cut your hair And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah" #hair #JukeboxFridayNight Here's Bono and the Edge doing their interpretation of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9ozN9WBJMY #music #LeonardCohen

I have a mushroom-obsessed friend who got me growing pink oysters in plastic buckets this summer. I decided to make her a mini mushroom pot out of clay and this is how it turned out. I put my hand in the pic so you could sense the scale. You basically mix a […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

These trees are making air quality in cities worse https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-02586-2 They release compounds that contribute to ozone emissions, and rising temperatures could exacerbate the problem.

These trees are making air quality in cities worse

Nature, Published online: 20 August 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02586-2 They release compounds that contribute to ozone emissions, and rising temperatures could exacerbate the problem.

nature.com

[nzpol, climate] https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics_election-2026/1066641/political-parties-make-their-climate-adaptation-pitch 'New Zealand First says economic development should come first 'Representing New Zealand First, Shane Jones said he had not come to the conference to look for votes […]

Our @adriftlab.bsky.social blog post for our latest paper is now up: The Birds That Never Came Home: Long-Term Data Reveal Population-Level Impacts of Ocean Plastic Pollution adriftlab.org/news/the-bir... #ornithology #PlasticPollution

The Birds That Never Came Home: Long-Term Data Reveal Population-Level Impacts of Ocean Plastic Pollution

For decades, scientists have documented plastic inside the stomachs of seabirds. We have measured it, weighed it, counted it, photographed it, and described the damage it causes.

adriftlab.org