Our Changing World

Claire Concannon investigates how luminescence and specialised materials could be key to our growing data storage needs, and visits a test site for native vertical gardens that could cloak the walls of Wellington's city buildings.

More of us are making use of 'the cloud': we press save, and our precious photos, documents and data are stored, somewhere. But behind this ethereal shopfront is the physical reality of data storage, and its ever-growing needs. 

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The future of long-term data storage 

Optical storage discs such as CDs and Blu-ray had their heyday in the 90s. But they were quickly surpassed in terms of capacity by electromagnetic data storage on hard drives or solid-state drives. 

However, these drives have a short shelf-life: they must be replaced every 5-10 years or else data will be lost. Many also require power, contributing to data centres' estimated consumption of 1-3% of global energy use. 

The ideal then, is a form of long-term data storage that is easy to write and read, can hold a lot of data, is stable across a long time, and doesn't require constant power. 

Robinson Research Institute scientist Dr Joe Schuyt thinks that using luminescence to encode data into specialised materials might be the key to our growing data storage needs. Listen to hear how a blend of reading, thinking and chemical tinkering might help him figure it out.

Greening our cities

Singapore is one of the most densely populated cities in the world, but also one of the greenest and most biodiverse. By law, developers must replace any natural area they develop with green space somewhere on the buildings. This means that plants are installed on roofs and drip from the walls. 

Should we be doing the same for our urban environments here in Aotearoa? And which plants would actually cope on windy Wellington walls? 

Victoria University of Wellington architecture PhD candidate Maggie McKinnon is testing whether native plants can hack it in a green wall set up in the city, as well as checking to see if there are benefits for local residents - including the feathered kind. 

To learn more: 

In 'Biodiversity and the city', researchers in the People, Cities and Nature research programme talk about the potential and challenges of wilding our urban spaces.

Listen to 'The details behind the data' by Damian Christie for a deep dive into how scientists make sense of data. 

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

In the final instalment of our summer science series, we bring you two stories from the ocean. First we have a story on marine noise pollution from Victoria University of Wellington Centre for Science in Society student, Xanthe Smith. Then, we have an episode on pāua from RNZ podcast Voices, presented by Kadambari Raghukumar.

In the final instalment of our summer science series, we bring you two stories from the ocean. First we have a story on marine noise pollution from Victoria University of Wellington Centre for Science in Society student, Xanthe Smith. Then, we have an episode on pāua from RNZ podcast Voices, presented by Kadambari Raghukumar.

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Sounds under the sea

Beneath the ocean surface, you might expect to find quiet. Instead, you'd hear a symphony of dolphin clicks and whistles, the snap-crackle-pop of shrimp, and grunting fish. You'd also hear the loud thrum of boat engines - an unnatural addition to the sea's soundscape.

These human-produced noises are causing problems for our ocean-dwelling neighbours - a phenomenon called noise pollution.

In this story, Xanthe takes us underwater to learn about the impacts noisy boats and machinery are having on animals like dolphins. She speaks to Dr Deanna Clement from the Cawthron Institute and Dr Matt Pine, a marine scientist specialising in acoustics and vibration.

Xanthe also takes a trip aboard Wellington's new electric ferry, and chats to skipper Mark McCormack. Compared to conventional vessels powered by fossil fuels, the electric ferry is much quieter. Could switching to electric help undersea animals?

Thank you to Dr Deanna Clement, Dr Matt Pine and Mark McCormack. This episode was produced by Xanthe Smith. Sound credits: Outboard motor, Tom Kieckhefer (CC BY-NC 4.0); harbour comparison, NC State University; New Zealand bigeye grunts, Craig Radford University of Auckland; snapping shrimp, Paul Perkins, NUWC Engineering; sea urchin/kina, Craig Radford University of Auckland (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0); common dolphin, Tom Kieckhefer (CC BY-NC 4.0); humpback whales, Tom Kieckhefer (CC BY-NC 4.0).

To learn more:

Alison Ballance listens to the underwater songs of Weddell seals in this episode of the award-winning series Voices from Antarctica

Matt was interviewed for this 2021 piece on the need for controls on underwater noise

Deanna featured in a recent episode of the Voices podcast

Passion for pāua …

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We continue our summer science series with an episode from RNZ's The Aotearoa History Show. In the first episode of season two, the show burrows into the story of rabbits and other pests introduced to New Zealand.

We continue our summer science series with an episode from RNZ's The Aotearoa History Show. In the first episode of season two, the show burrows into the story of rabbits and other pests introduced to New Zealand.

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We don't really know who first introduced rabbits to Aotearoa. But what started out with plenty of (h)optimism has led to generations of damage to our environment and economy.

In this episode, we learn why those initial introductions led to a rabbit boom, and how rabbits impacted both the land and farmers. 

Since the population explosion, we've been looking for ways to control rabbits. In the 19th century, some took up the profession of "rabbiting" - trapping and poisoning the pests for a living. Eventually, some looked to introduce rabbit predators such as ferrets, stoats and weasels - a decision that would prove disastrous for Aotearoa's wildlife. In more recent times, we've turned to toxins (like 1080) and viruses (like calicivirus) to attempt to control our rabbit problem. But the rabbits are still here, and still threatening New Zealand's environment and economy.

This episode also explores the introductions of other animal species by both Māori and Europeans, and explains the ideology of many early colonists that Aotearoa needed to be "improved" through the introduction of exotic animals.

Learn more:

In addition to the podcast format, this episode is also available as a video

Episode one of the Fight for the Wild series looks at the devastating effect introduced mammals have had on New Zealand's unique wildlife

In 2016, Alison Ballance learned how rabbits and redbacks are threatening a rare native beetle

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

As part of our summer science series we bring you an episode of The Otago Chronicles podcast, hosted by Max Balloch. In this episode, Max talks to Associate Professor James Scott from the University of Otago Department of Geology about looking up at the night sky and the hunt for what would've been New Zealand's 10th meteorite.

Our summer science series continues this week with an episode of The Otago Chronicles podcast, hosted by Max Balloch. In this episode, Max talks to Associate Professor James Scott from the University of Otago Department of Geology about looking up at the night sky and the hunt for what would've been New Zealand's 10th meteorite.

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At a few dozen schools across New Zealand, special cameras are keeping watch for meteors streaking across the inky darkness. They're part of a network called Fireballs Aotearoa - detecting meteors and connecting schoolkids to the night sky - established in early 2022.

Most meteors - space rocks usually originating from the asteroid belt - burn up as they fly through the atmosphere, dying in a blaze of glory. A handful might make it to the Earth's surface intact. 

On 28 August 2022, three of the cameras picked up a fireball - an especially bright meteor that "winks out" just above the ground. "We couldn't believe that it had landed right in the middle of our camera network, that we'd just deployed," says James.

The meteor's trajectory was calculated, narrowing its potential point of impact to a farm west of Outram in Otago. Once a meteor touches the Earth's surface, it's known as a meteorite.

A two-day meteorite hunt ensued - about 100 students, researchers, and volunteers scoured the countryside for what would be New Zealand's tenth meteorite. 

Listen to the episode to hear what they did (or didn't find) and learn about the science of meteorites.

Thank you to Associate Professor James Scott. This episode was produced by Max Balloch. Music credits: LEMMiNO - Cipher CC BY-SA 4.0; LEMMiNO - Nocturnal CC BY-SA 4.0; LEMMiNO - Cosmic Solitude CC BY-SA 4.0.

To learn more:

Claire heads on another meteorite hunt on the West Coast in this episode of Our Changing World

James spoke to Kathryn Ryan on Nine to Noon about Fireballs Aotearoa in July 2022

RNZ covered the Otago meteorite hunt including the initial footage, the two-day hunt, and the aftermath

Another meteorite streaked across the sky above Northland in November 2022, sparking another hunt

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Two stories about genetics produced by students at the University of Otago's Department of Science Communication. Amanda Konyn investigates whether gene editing has a role in future pest control, while Richard Marks explores why the "eat less, move more" approach to weight loss isn't really working.

Each year, science communication students at the University of Otago's Department of Science Communication are tasked with producing a podcast on a controversial science topic. In this episode, we hear two of those stories - on weight loss and gene editing - from Amanda Konyn and Richard Marks.

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Is there a future for gene editing in pest control?

In 2016, the then-government announced the "moonshot" goal to make New Zealand Predator Free by 2050. It's an ambitious project that aims to remove three of the biggest threats to New Zealand's native flora and fauna: rats, stoats, and possums.

However, current pest control methods are not likely to be enough to get us there. We need to develop new technologies in order to eradicate pests from Aotearoa. The technologies being considered includes types of genertic engineering (GE): gene editing and gene drives. But, given New Zealand's GE-free stance, is there a path forward for this kind of technology? And if so, who gets to decide whether it's appropriate to use?

To understand how gene editing might be able to help in the war against pests, science communication student Amanda Konyn speaks to Anna Clark, a PhD candidate and geneticist at the University of Otago. While conventional methods of pest control can remove up to 90% of pests from an area, the remaining 10% are particularly problematic to eradicate. As Anna puts it, "We just can't seem to get rid of them." It's this 10% that could be targeted by genetic pest control. 

But even if rigorous testing and research shows that gene drives would be safe and effective for pest control, we may not roll out the tech beyond the lab walls. While scientists may champion the technology, ultimately, the decision to use gene editing (or not) will rest with the public and with mana whenua. Amanda chats to biodiversity and pest control expert Tame Malcolm (Te arawa: Ngāti Tarāwhai, Ngāti Pikiao, Ngāti Ngararanui, Ngāti Whakaue) about possible te ao Māori views on gene editing, and, why it's vital for Māori to be consulted.

Thanks to Anna Clark and Tame Malcolm. Produced by University of Otago Department of Science Communication student Amanda Konyn. Music by Blue Dot Sessions (CC BY-NC 4.0).

To learn more:…

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MethaneSAT is the first New Zealand government funded space mission. A joint project between the United States' Environmental Defense Fund and New Zealand, the project will see a methane sensing satellite launched into orbit. Science journalist Peter Griffin finds out why and how.

MethaneSAT - the first NZ-government-funded space mission - is launching a satellite that will detect emissions leaking from pipelines, agriculture, landfill and wetlands.

Science and tech journalist Peter Griffin finds out why and how.

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The recent COP27 climate summit focused on reducing carbon dioxide emissions with the aim of limiting global temperature increase to within 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Reaching that goal will also require a dedicated effort to reduce methane.

"Ultimately there's no way to have anything like a habitable world without tackling our CO2 emissions," says NIWA's Dr Sara Mikaloff-Fletcher, the leader of the MethaneSAT project at the Crown research institute.

"However if you are thinking about... how you can reduce emissions quickly, there's a strong argument to be made for including methane in that first tranche of work. Over the next 20 years, methane that we emit today is going to warm the atmosphere 85 times as much as the equivalent amount of CO2."

Short-lived but powerful

Methane is a powerful but short-lived greenhouse gas that scientists estimate accounts for about half of the net rise in global average temperature since the pre-industrial era. But methane emissions from oil and gas have been underestimated for years, due in part to a lack of independent monitoring.

A voluntary global effort, the Global Methane Pledge, was launched in 2021 to address the methane issue, with over 100 countries, including New Zealand, undertaking to reduce methane emissions by 30% on 2020 levels by 2030.

Some satellites currently track methane emissions but are unable to zoom in and identify their exact source. MethaneSAT aims to fill that gap.

Primarily funded by the US-based nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund, which is spending over $100 million on the project, MethaneSAT is also New Zealand's first government-funded space mission, to the tune of $26 million.

While the satellite will primarily be used to pinpoint methane emissions from leaky oil and gas pipelines around the world, New Zealand's involvement will allow a secondary focus on methane emissions from agriculture - sheep and cows here in New Zealand, but also rice paddy fields, wetlands and animal herds in the developing world…

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The kākerōri or Rarotongan flycatcher is a South Pacific conservation success story. Once reduced to just 29 birds, it has been rescued from the brink of extinction by a rat control programme managed by the land-owners of the Takitumu Conservation Area in the Cook Islands. Alison Ballance visits to find out more.

The delightful little kākerōri, or Rarotonga flycatcher, has been brought back from the brink of extinction in a Cook Islands conservation success story.

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In the mid-1980s New Zealand ecologist Rod Hay identified the critically endangered kākerōri as one of the Top Ten most at-risk birds in the Pacific. The population hit a low of just 29 birds in 1989, and Rod and fellow kiwi Hugh Robertson identified ship rats and feral cats as significant threats to the species' survival. "Rats ... are the number one problem for kākerōri," says Hugh.

They started a rat control study, using poison baits to knock down rat numbers and Hugh says the results were impressive.

"We found that the breeding success  was 62 percent in the areas where we'd been controlling rats, compared with 26 percent in the areas we hadn't."

Female kākerōri are particularly vulnerable to being predated as they spend most time on the nest.

"In the non-treatment area 34 percent of the females died each year, but in the treated area we reduced that down to just 8 percent dying each year," says Hugh.

Kākerōri live in three forested valleys collectively known as the Takitumu Conservation Area, which lies in Rarotonga's southeast. The TCA, as it is known locally, belongs to three land-owning families. Back in 1996, they set aside 155 hectares of forest to protect the kākerōri.

The rat control programme was extended across the Takitumu Conservation Area, and has been led since 1999 by Ian Karika. Ian, other landowners and a team of volunteers put out poison baits from September to December each year, to protect nesting birds. The bait is funded by income from guided walks into the sanctuary.

The kākerōri population has climbed steadily and on his recent trip to colour band individual birds and conduct a population census, Hugh and his colleagues estimated that the kākerōri population has reached at least 621 birds on Rarotonga.

"It beggars belief really that they could have done so well, from being just 29 birds 33 years ago," says Hugh.

Hugh says the success of the kākerōri conservation programme on Rarotonga is due to the people who put out the rat poison…

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If the future of healthcare is personalised genomics, how can we ensure that it is used to lessen inequities, rather than strengthen them? This week, Our Changing World speaks to two of the co-leaders of the Rakieora programme - a pilot to develop a New Zealand-specific national database for genomic research.

If the future of healthcare is personalised genomic medicine, how can we ensure that genomic data can be used to reduce health inequities, rather than double down on them? 

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For Associate Professor Phillip Wilcox from the University of Otago, empowering Māori to develop and lead indigenous genomic databases and genomic research can go some way to achieving this. 

Phillip is one of the co-leads of a Genomics Aotearoa programme of work called Rakieora. The goal is to set up an infrastructure that allows the safe acquisition, storage and use of genomic and health data here in Aotearoa. One that upholds tikanga, centres the research needs of the community and minimises negative outcomes. 

To pilot Rakieora, the team have looked at two ends of the healthcare spectrum - primary care in rural Tairāwhiti, and tertiary care of cancer patients in urban Tāmaki Makaurau. 

It's the latter that is the focus of Professor Cris Print of the University of Auckland. "Our research is really around understanding how tumours can evolve and resist therapy, and really understanding what's the best way for us to implement some of this knowledge about tumours in the clinic," he says. 

While initially a pilot, they hope that Rakieora will eventually be scaled up to allow national collaborative research into genomics. 

Phillip is also involved in the Aotearoa Variome project, the aim of which is to add to our knowledge of the natural variation in genomes by sequencing Māori genomes. This will help address the current bias in genomic databases towards people of European ancestry and identify specific variations important for Māori healthcare. 

Listen to the episode to hear Phillip and Cris discuss their work developing Rakieora, and what the future of genomic research in Aotearoa might look like. 

To learn more:

Listen to last week's episode - Genome sequencing and the pandemic

We also discussed inequities in healthcare research in Business not as usual for heart health

The Detail podcast have an episode about filling in the final pieces of the human genome puzzle 

If you want to learn more about DNA, genes, RNA and gene expression, listen to A new way to make vaccines 

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Genome sequencing has become a household term during this pandemic. This week, we explore how it became an important tool in the fight against Covid-19.

We've become familiar with a whole suite of words and their meanings over the last three years of this pandemic - coronavirus, variant of concern, mutation. There is one term in particular that many of us probably wouldn't have come across as part of our daily lives before: genome sequencing. 

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It wasn't all that long ago that genome sequencing of a whole virus genome was expensive, laborious and time consuming. 

But rapid advancements in genome sequencing technology in the last decade have reduced the cost and effort involved. So, when a new disease emerged in late 2019, the technology was ready to be used in a new way, says Dr Jemma Geoghegan, a virologist at the University of Otago and ESR. "It completely revolutionised genomics. I mean, never before has real-time genomics been integrated at the level it is at the moment with disease outbreak," she says.

Jemma is part of a team of scientists at ESR, the Institute of Environmental and Science Research, that did early work on sequencing the Covid-19-positive cases that arrived in New Zealand. From there, they made a case for this type of real-time sequencing work to be integrated into New Zealand's pandemic response, to help guide decision making. 

The extent to which genome sequencing was used here in the early days of the pandemic meant that Aotearoa could do investigations that other countries simply weren't able to undertake. According to Dr Joep de Ligt, Bioinformatics and Genomics Lead at ESR, "That actually has meant that we could do some fairly unique studies of actually showing airborne transmission during flights and in quarantine facilities.

"And they were the type of studies that were quite important to the recognition of the airborne nature of the virus," he adds.

In this Our Changing World episode, we learn how New Zealand's genome sequencing efforts added to global knowledge of the virus, and explore the past, present, and future of genome sequencing technology.

To learn more:

Dr Jemma Geoghegan's research into virus evolution was the focus of the episode Investigating the virosphere 

The Detail podcast have an episode about filling in the final pieces of the human genome puzzle 

If you want to learn more about DNA, genes, RNA and gene expression, listen to A new way to make vaccines 

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Sunfish are the world's largest bony fish species - and yet scientists know little about their lives. This week, Our Changing World meets a sunfish researcher unravelling mola mysteries and dives into the weird world of sunfishes as a museum specimen is examined and prepared.

When you first see a sunfish - also known as a mola - your first question might be: how on earth can that thing swim?

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In fact, sunfish are pretty good swimmers, according to Dr Marianne Nyegaard, research associate at the Auckland Museum. They're also impressive in stature and are the world's largest bony fish, weighing up to 2.7 tonnes and measuring more than 3m long.

Yet, these hefty ocean-dwellers often end up washed up on beaches around the world, with no signs of illness or injury.

That's exactly what happened to a young sunfish I found in May this year, it was dead and stranded on a tidal mudflat about an hour and a half north of Auckland.

The specimen was fresh (no fishy smells here) and its good condition meant the Auckland War Memorial Museum were keen to add it to their collection.

I joined Marianne in a lab at the museum to inspect the juvenile sunfish and try to uncover its scientific secrets.

Until recently, there were two known Mola species: Mola mola, the common ocean sunfish, and Mola alexandrini, the bump-head or giant sunfish. 

But during Marianne's PhD, she decided to follow up on genetic clues that indicated a mysterious third species might be lurking in the waters around Australia and New Zealand.

Her worldwide detective hunt led her to Birdlings Flat near Christchurch, where a sunfish with a peculiar-looking backside had washed up, and to the foyer of the Otago Museum, where a huge sunfish specimen has been on display for the last 50-odd years.

Marianne's efforts resulted in the identification of a new species, Mola tecta, or the hoodwinker sunfish. It had been hiding in plain sight for 125 years.

But there are plenty more sunfish secrets to unravel - such as, how do they grow from teeny larva that could fit on your thumbnail, into multitonne giants the size of a car? What do they eat? And how can you tell the three species apart when they're young?

That's where the sunfish I found comes in - as a juvenile Mola alexandrini, this specimen is one puzzle piece in the ongoing Mola mystery.

Listen to the episode to dive into the weird world of sunfish and hear what Marianne's investigations of the mini-mola revealed.

To learn more:

Check out Marianne's Ocean Sunfish Research Facebook page …

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details