Quarto 2 is coming, and it’s a total rewrite in Rust. 🦀 The headline feature? Native collaborative editing. Don't choose between Google Docs ease and Git rigor! You get real-time, conflict-free collab directly in your .qmd files. #RStats #Python Coming soon! ✨ opensource.posit.co/blog/2026-04...

What's next: Quarto 2

We've started working on [`quarto-dev/q2`](https://github.com/quarto-dev/q2/), a full rewrite of Quarto in Rust.

opensource.posit.co

Researchers - has your work been covered well in the news? Nominate the journalist for a Golden Tardigrade! Entries close on Sunday: www.sciencemediacentre.co.nz/2026/03/09/s...

Send us your top science stories

Nominations for the 3rd annual Science Journalism Awards are open until the end of this week. The awards celebrate excellent reporting on science-related topics across all forms of media by shining a…

sciencemediacentre.co.nz

How to lose friends and support for your cause 101. @itiscolossal.bsky.social CEO Ben Lamm saying "the worst part of conservation is conservationists...". 🤦‍♂️ @forestandbird.bsky.social @birdsnewzealand.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/environment/...

‘They didn’t de-extinct anything’: can Colossal’s genetically engineered animals ever be the real thing?

The bioscience startup has attracted billions in investment – and a flurry of criticism, but founder tells the Guardian plans to bring back the woolly mammoth will not be derailed

theguardian.com

Want to work with a dynamic team helping connect scientists with the media? Applications close at 5pm tomorrow (12 Feb). www.sciencemediacentre.co.nz/2026/01/27/w...

We're hiring: Kaimanaaki Pāpāho | Media Advisor role

The Science Media Centre (SMC) is looking for a media advisor to join our dedicated team working to improve the reach, relevance and accuracy of news media reporting on science and related topics in…

sciencemediacentre.co.nz

Wikipedia Education found that 178 out of ~3,000 articles created since 2022 via their outreach were written by AI (not bad per se), but almost all statements in these articles did not actually align with the cited source. Lots of effort to spot and undo - big implications for academic writing.

Generative AI and Wikipedia editing: What we learned in 2025

Like many organizations, Wiki Education has grappled with generative AI, its impacts, opportunities, and threats, for several years. As an organization that runs large-scale programs to bring new e…

wikiedu.org

This guide to making reports in #Quarto with #typst by @rfortherestofus.com is super in-depth and useful. Great for anyone wanting to publish dynamic and polished documents that make use of #rstats and #Python code to analyse data.

How to Make High-Quality PDFs with Quarto and Typst

Learn to create high-quality PDFs using Quarto and Typst with this in-depth tutorial, including custom templates, branding, and advanced techniques.

rfortherestofus.com

"We’ve got $55 million, roughly, per year to spend on basic science. And if you open up the news, what you hear about is Chris Luxon spending 320 times that on a single road."

Winner of top science prize blames ‘batshit’ Budget for brain drain

Dr Samuel Mehr says the Government values science, but their ‘idiotic’ approach to funding it will cost them their brightest.

newsroom.co.nz

"The trouble with the government’s idea for a simple, more efficient science fund is that it’s trying to be a Ferrari on tin can funding."

Science Media Centre NZ@smcnz.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Big shakeup for NZ’s research funding – Expert Reaction

I'm exited to announce a new resource about making slides with quarto and revealjs. This book is the combination of all the work I have done in this area, reordered and polished up There isn't a lot of new information yet, but this format allows me to add more easily slidecrafting-book.com #quarto

The Art of Data Visualization with ggplot2: A free online book by @nrennie.bsky.social that guides us through the entire process of creating plots, including why certain decisions were made, using real datasets that have been part of #TidyTuesday. Very excited to get stuck into this one. #rstats

The Art of Data Visualization with ggplot2

The TidyTuesday Cookbook

nrennie.rbind.io

"A lot of people have this throw away attitude that the dogs can just be disposed of and they can get another one for free on Facebook." Irresponsible dog ownership has exploded post-covid, Animal Management doing what they can while taking abuse for looking after other people's dogs.

On the road with animal control

Auckland's animal control staff are busier than ever, impounding more than 10,000 dogs over the past year.

rnz.co.nz

If you're a researcher in NZ please do our very short survey on the Vision Mātauranga policy! We are keen to hear your opinions. DM for the survey link

This is absolute shameful bullshit from all parties concerned. Peter Jackson is being scammed, Colossal are total frauds (5–8 years? Give me a break), and I have no idea what Ngāi Tahu think they’re doing. There are clear and simple reasons why this is impossible. www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/south-isl...

South Island Jurassic Park? Peter Jackson backs project to bring back moa

Groundbreaking de-extinction project already under way, with a short timeframe revealed.

nzherald.co.nz

THE SMC IS HIRING! We're looking for someone to join our dedicated team working to improve the reach, relevance and accuracy of news media reporting on science and related topics in Aotearoa New Zealand. More info and apply here: www.sciencemediacentre.co.nz/2025/06/26/w...

Work with us! Kaimanaaki Pāpāho | Media Advisor – Science Media Centre

The Science Media Centre is looking for a media advisor to join our dedicated team working to improve the reach, relevance and accuracy of news media reporting on science and related topics in…

sciencemediacentre.co.nz

🗺️ Ever wander to a new place and think, "Hmm I wonder what birds/plants/[insert favourite taxonomic group] I can find here?" 🔍 We built {infinitylists} 📋 to help nature lovers create personalised, location-based taxon lists! 🌏

Some great examples here of how researchers can partner with Māori to co-develop research projects in ways that give effect to CARE principles alongside FAIR.

Veronika Meduna@veronikameduna.bsky.social · last yr.

With the rise in technologies able to produce massive datasets (genomics, eDNA), good protocols for #Indigenous #data #sovereignty are essential - my latest for Plant & Food Research, with Maui Hudson, Amanda Black, Rangitāne o Manawatū, Linley Jesson et al www.plantandfood.com/en-nz/articl...

My final PhD chapter is now published #openaccess in the Journal of Chemical Ecology: doi.org/10.1007/s108... Main idea: Chemical-ecological methods can complement oviposition work in host-specificity testing of classical #biocontrol agents by teasing details related to ecological host range. 1/

Two academic (lecturer) positions available at the University of Otago in Aotearoa/New Zealand! One in Conservation Biology, another in Evolutionary Ecology. Links for positions below: otago.taleo.net/careersectio... otago.taleo.net/careersectio...

Bad actors are creating packages with names that mimic hallucinated packages in code generated by coding assistants. When the code runs it installs the malware-riddled packages. Another reason why learners should not use coding assistants to generate code (there are other good uses for learners).

LLMs can't stop making up software dependencies and sabotaging everything

: Hallucinated package names fuel 'slopsquatting'

theregister.com

The rise of AI bots scraping websites, mostly for openly licenced images to feed generative AI models, is increasing infrastructure costs for sites like Wikipedia - this will become an issue for OA publishers too. Rate-limiting and enforced authentication might need to be imposed.

Wikipedia Faces Flood of AI Bots That Are Eating Bandwidth, Raising Costs

'Our content is free, our infrastructure is not,' the nonprofit that runs Wikipedia says, warning that AI scrapers are wasting the site's bandwidth.

pcmag.com

"If they look like this animal then they are this animal" is definitely not how the morphological species concept works. Genetically altering grey wolves to make them look a bit like dire wolves does not suddenly make them dire wolves.

Mike Dickison@adzebill.bsky.social · last yr.

I’m rapidly losing all respect for Beth Shapiro. She’s deliberately misrepresenting the morphological species concept here to claim her modified wolves really are dire wolves. It’s ludicrous. www.newscientist.com/article/2475...

Love this explainer from @data.ft.com about how generative AI works. It's useful to understand that LLMs are essentially 'autocomplete on steroids', using statistical methods to predict the next word based on the prompt and training data. This is why they make things up and can't spell strawberry.

Generative AI exists because of the transformer

The technology has resulted in a host of cutting-edge AI applications — but its real power lies beyond text generation

ig.ft.com

AUT Library Research Services Team is seeking a permanant, full-time Scholarly Communications Librarian to contribute to the growth of Tuwhera and AUT's scholarly communications services while supporting the uptake and impact of open research. Auckland City. $59,000 - $78,000. Closes 14 April.

Quartabs: new #rstats package to dynamically generate tabset panels in #Quarto html documents, by @sayuks.bsky.social. Have been scratching my head over this recently, so this is potentially very handy. github.com/sayuks/quart...

GitHub - sayuks/quartabs: Dynamically generate tabset panels in Quarto HTML documents

Dynamically generate tabset panels in Quarto HTML documents - sayuks/quartabs

github.com

"There's lots of ways you could fix the ecology of the Siberian tundra without spending millions of dollars making sad, cold, shivering asian elephants. So this looks more to me like a fundraising and hype driven enterprise than anything else."

Mike Dickison@adzebill.bsky.social · last yr.

It was a pleasure to join @nicrawlencenz.bsky.social in a huge rant about the charlatans at Colossal Biosciences and their hyped-up woolly mice. www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

We’re creating a guide, “Wikifying a Conference”, so any keen volunteer can help out. We hope conference organisers will think about hosting an official Wikipedian if they’re serious about increasing the visibility of their subject and their attendees. I blogged: www.rove.wiki/blog/wikifyi...

Wikifying a conference — Rove

Any conference or festival can host a Wikimedian in Residence, who can photograph attendees and improve Wikidata and Wikipedia on them and their specialty.

rove.wiki

Using @gbif.org data in your masters or PhD? Apply for the 2025 GBIF Graduate Researchers Award. Looks like NZ doesn't have a closing date up yet but we are a GBIF member so our graduate students will be eligible. @manaakiwhenua.bsky.social

Call for nominations opens for 2025 GBIF Graduate Researchers Award

Deadline for GBIF member countries to nominate graduate students whose innovative research relies on biodiversity data: **27 June 2025**

gbif.org

HRC 2025 Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare RFP now open. "Proposals must clearly identify the health or healthcare area where AI can be leveraged safely and ethically to improve health outcomes in the New Zealand health system."

"Filling the basket with knowledge: The evolution of open access in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand" by Janet Catterall, @ginnybarbour.bsky.social, and @kimtairi.bsky.social. doi.org/10.31274/jls...

Kicking off planning for ResBaz Aotearoa 2025 and one of our regular speakers just told me that contributing to ResBaz is one of the highlights of their year :)