NZ is home to species found nowhere else but biodiversity losses match global crisis

Dec 04, 2018 16:25 pm UTC| Nature

The recently released 2018 Living Planet report is among the most comprehensive global analyses of biodiversity yet. It is based on published data on 4,000 out of the 70,000 known species of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles...

Why we should stop labelling people climate change deniers

Dec 03, 2018 23:59 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature

In the westernmost reaches of Nunavut, on the Northwest Passage, Inuit hunters have told me some pithy things about climate change. The land is changing. It isnt climate change. This is part of cycles. Our elders saw...

How we calculated the age of caves in the Cradle of Humankind -- and why it matters

Nov 26, 2018 17:00 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature

As a species, we humans have always been fascinated in where we came from. Initially, it was believed humans couldnt have originated from Africa. That misconception began to shift slowly from 1925, when the modern...

It looks like an anchovy fillet but this ancient creature helps us understand how DNA works

Nov 26, 2018 16:58 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature

Today a large international consortium of researchers published a complex but important study looking at how DNA works in animals. The research focused on a marine organism, a creature called amphioxus (also known as the...

Steps rural communities can take to protect their water resources

Nov 26, 2018 16:17 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature

For rural communities in the highlands of eastern Africa, water for domestic use is not piped. They have to collect, or use it from springs or rivers and its accessible to anyone. Increasingly, highland communities in...

Volcanic eruptions once caused mass extinctions in the oceans – could climate change do the same?

Nov 14, 2018 12:19 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature

All animals, whether they live on land or in the water, require oxygen to breathe. But today the worlds oceans are losing oxygen, due to a combination of rising temperatures and changing ocean currents. Both factors are...

The world's plastic problem is bigger than the ocean

Nov 14, 2018 12:18 pm UTC| Nature

As you read this, a strange object that looks like a 2,000-foot floating pool noodle is drifting slowly through the central north Pacific Ocean. This object is designed to solve an enormous environmental problem. But in so...