Stoats – threat to island birdlife
By Rebecca Priestley in Science
Issue 3707 28th May 2011
Stoats are a much greater threat to island birdlife than previously thought.
Rebecca Priestley
(@RKPriestley) Rebecca Priestley is a science writer and historian with a particular interest in New Zealand’s science history. Her anthology, The Awa Book of New Zealand Science, won the 2009 Royal Society of New Zealand Science Book Prize and Atoms, Dinosaurs & DNA: 68 Great New Zealand Scientists, co-authored with Veronika Meduna, won the Elsie Locke Award for Children’s Non-fiction in 2009. Rebecca curated The Art of Science, a joint exhibition between the Royal Society of New Zealand and the New Zealand Portrait Gallery, which opened in March 2011. As well as her regular science column for The Listener, she writes the occasional book review or travel feature and is working on two books: one about New Zealand’s nuclear and radiation history and the other an anthology of Antarctic science.
Danger of lost Moriori art
By Rebecca Priestley in Science
Issue 3705 14th May 2011
New Zealand is at risk of losing a unique treasure carved by Moriori.
Antarctic science programme
By Rebecca Priestley in Science
Issue 3703 30th Apr 2011
Next season’s Antarctic science programme will be the first to take place under a new strategy.
What really happened at Chernobyl?
By Rebecca Priestley in Science
Issue 3701 16th Apr 2011
So far, fewer than 50 deaths have been attributed to the Chernobyl disaster, but the final toll may be many thousands.
The immortal illness
By Rebecca Priestley in Culture
Issue 3700 7th Apr 2011
Siddhartha Mukherjee’s The Emperor of All Maladies is a biography of cancer, “the defining plague of our generation”.
Aftershock zone
By Rebecca Priestley in Science
Issue 3697 19th Mar 2011
Although seismologists have made huge advances in their knowledge of how earthquakes happen, accurate forecasting still lies in the future.
Good with gold
By Rebecca Priestley in Science
Issue 3695 5th Mar 2011
Three Kiwis have created unique products - nanogold wool and nanosilver wool - for high-end international markets.
When in Rome
By Rebecca Priestley in Science
Issue 3693 19th Feb 2011
Coppicing, canals and windmills, all known by ancient Romans, could save us from climate change.
Where the wild things were
By Rebecca Priestley in Science
Issue 3689 22nd Jan 2011
Fossils can tell us a lot about science, from evolution and climate change to how fault lines move.
Scope for learning
By Rebecca Priestley in Travel
Issue 3688 15th Jan 2011
Florence celebrates 400 years since Galileo changed our view of the universe.