Rebekah White
@rebekahwhite.bsky.social
Science journalist, contributor @nzgeo.bsky.social, writes mostly about climate engineering, conservation, birds & also science fiction
It was great fun talking to @rebekahwhite.bsky.social for her Just So story in the latest @nzgeo.bsky.social on why animals get big. You can read it here www.nzgeo.com/stories/the-...
The big questions
Does an elephant really need to be that massive? Why aren’t there any giant insects? Why did animals in New Zealand evolve to be either unusually large or unusually small? Why do crayfish keep growing...
nzgeo.com
I can't believe that all the stuff in the supermarket is paywalled too
Anna Merlan @annamerlan.bsky.social · 9mo ago[preparing to get screamed at] I think I officially don’t need to know if you’re mad that an article is paywalled. Perhaps that can be an Inside Thought
Things kākā sound like: “tape being torn off a box” “a door opening for the first time in years” “rapid, soft, fluid warbles” “droplets falling into water, like a child blowing spit bubbles” “a locomotive” A richly rewarding parrot profile by @rebekahwhite.bsky.social www.nzgeo.com/stories/fort...
Forty names for kākā
The bird with a big mouth. The bird who leads the flock. The bird who announces the day. The bird who sounds the alarm. The dark bird. The rare bird. The noble, silly, insomniac parrot we’re going to ...
nzgeo.com
Really enjoying my week at nerd camp aka the World Conference of Science Journalists. Say hi if you're here! Here are my super panellists who spoke about community-based evidence the other day... @wfsj25.bsky.social
I hope this means people start to re-hire copyeditors and fact-checkers, who do things like "confirm people in stories are real" and "events definitely happened": thelocal.to/investigatin...
Investigating a Possible Scammer in Journalism’s AI Era | The Local
A suspicious pitch from a freelancer led editor Nicholas Hune-Brown to dig into their past work. By the end, four publications, including The Guardian and Dwell, had removed articles from their sites.
thelocal.to
Science journo folks: there are travel grants available to the World Conference of Science Journalists, this December in South Africa - deadline is really short, due October 15: www.wcsj2025.org/grants/ I'll be there, come hang out.
Grants – WCSJ 2025
wcsj2025.org
By the way, I started a publishing company, along with three of the most eye-wateringly competent people I know. We just opened pre-orders for our first book. It's so good. I've read it twice. I edited it. You can get one here! www.kickstarter.com/projects/hom...
Homeward Books: The home for books without a home
Splendor over mediocrity. Stories for the hot bath & the cold plunge. Defying the constraints of genre & delving deep into your heart.
kickstarter.com
Remember the Magic Eye books of the 90s?? Now, you can have a crack at viewing New Zealand’s native flowers in 3D. Clematis, orchid, ngutukākā, korukoru, oioi… this is a luscious, spectacular feature by @rebekahwhite.bsky.social, based on the new book He Puāwai by @theobrominated.bsky.social
Magic flora
Philip Garnock-Jones has spent more than a decade photographing our native flowers as they’ve never been shown before: in luscious, three-dimensional detail.
nzgeo.com
Thank-you, I found it super interesting to write!
Colin Schultz@colinschultz.bsky.social · 12mo agoThis story by @rebekahwhite.bsky.social got lost in the February mess, but it needs a bump: The Three-Way Race to Exploit Deep-Sea Life The genetic bounty of the deep sea is being patented by a handful of multinationals. www.biographic.com/the-three-wa...
This year at the Ig Nobels it's affirming to see empirical confirmation of a personal research project: that alcohol demonstrably improves my ability to speak a foreign language. The sample size is a bit small but I'd volunteer for anyone's replication attempt: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research
Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
journals.sagepub.com
I know that some publications usually send the intern to cover the Ig Nobels, but I think they're important (as well as hilarious) and, omg, editors, it's my dream to write about them! Not just who wins, but what they mean. Send me, I'm funny. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Ig Nobel prize 2025: Zebra cows and Teflon food among winners
The tongue-in-cheek scientific awards also recognise research into lizard's preferred pizza and garlicky breastmilk.
bbc.co.uk
I think there are a number of people on here who would be interested to see these pics of Dodie Smith’s London pad. www.countrylife.co.uk/interiors/co...
Country Life's never-before-published photographs of ‘101 Dalmatians’ author Dodie Smith's London flat
Every Monday, Melanie Bryan delves into the hidden depths of Country Life's extraordinary archive to bring you a long-forgotten story, photograph or advert.
countrylife.co.uk
My data-journalist friend just researched and wrote this super-fascinating story about what kind of content TikTok sends teenagers, and how young people feel about it www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/i...
Four phones, three weeks: Everything we saw on teen TikTok
We set up four brand-new social media accounts with teenage personas. Then we scrolled.
rnz.co.nz
I just experienced a 40-degree day for the first time and I reckon this level of heat is like pain: impossible to explain to anyone unless they've also experienced it www.independent.co.uk/news/world/e...
France and Spain hit by red weather warnings as Europe burns in 44C heatwave
France has only issued a red alert eight times in the past 20 years as it experiences soaring temperatures
independent.co.uk
Am I laughing or am I crying; it's getting harder to tell www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/im-...
I’m Captain Ahab and I Say We Must Never Transition Away from a Whale-Based Energy Industry
When I heard that the globalist oligarchs and fat cats in the Washington marshland were conspiring to invest in alternative, non-whale-based energy...
mcsweeneys.net
“If the engine of narrative is conflict, then what happens if a story organizes itself around another center?” Shruti Swamy asks in the introduction the the 2023 Harper Perennial edition of Always Coming Home (right).
total horror is being inflicted on the women of tigray. here we document the attempts by soldiers to destroy their fertility, and their hopes for justice as most of the world looks away www.theguardian.com/global-devel... @ximenaborrazas.bsky.social
Rusted screws, metal spikes and plastic rubbish: the horrific sexual violence used against Tigray’s women
Tens of thousands of Tigrayan women report brutal wartime abuse by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers, such as gang-rape and the insertion of objects into their uteruses. But justice seems a distant pros...
theguardian.com
@alecluhn.bsky.social Only just clocked that you were also at the Arctic Repair conference last week - I've been following your work for ages, wish I'd said hi! Give me a shout if you're ever in Oxford... it's better than Cambridge.
This might be my favourite advertisement of all time. No beating around the bush. No lies. No exaggeration. (also, it's biscuits in the British sense)
It's my year!!! ...I hope it's not my year.
Eric Holthaus@ericholthaus.com · last yr.Ready or not, the 2025 hurricane season starts today.
Māori man with parasol. Northland region, ca. 1910. Photo by Northwood brothers of Kaitaia. Ref 1/1-010679-G, National Library of New Zealand.
Sir David, who will be 99 on Thursday, says: "After almost 100 years on the planet, I now understand the most important place on Earth is not on land, but at sea." www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Sir David Attenborough Ocean film 'greatest message he's told'
Sir David says his new film Ocean is one of the most important of his career.
bbc.co.uk
In personal news, yesterday I moved back to Oxford and today I watched Andor, and it's hard to say which of those things I was looking forward to more
Feeling extremely patriotic about New Zealand's attempt at entering Eurovision, or rather Eurovusion—this could not represent us better www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnXp...
Two Hearts - Eurovusion (Open Up)
YouTube video by Two Hearts
youtube.com
Spending the week in Hong Kong en route to the UK learning about research here (and visiting one of my best friends). I love this city - it's so easy to go between super-dense neighbourhoods and national parks. Also, there are a lot of very good dogs.
Sci-fi flowers! I think this project is beautiful and fascinating: www.nytimes.com/2025/04/20/s...
It’s Springtime on Polaris-9b, and the Exoflowers Are Blooming (Gift Article)
An artist imagines the flora of distant, nonexistent worlds.
nytimes.com
