Established in 1869 with great vision and foresight from Dunedin’s early settlers, the University of Otago is New Zealand’s oldest university. Today, the university has around 20,000 students, employs more than 3,800 staff, and is a significant educational, economic and cultural force. It has over 150,000 former students and enjoys a prestigious global reputation for outstanding research and scholarship.
For decades, New Zealand has struggled to substantially improve its productivity levels. But there are key ways the government can address this issue – improving the economic wellbeing of the country.
About a third of insects attracted to artificial lights die by morning, often from exhaustion. But we can help them, and the vital ecosystems they serve, by reducing light pollution.
Young people should be protected from taking up vaping but policies must be proportionate and reduce the appeal and addictiveness of both tobacco and vaping products.
Chronic pain is often caused by a hyper-vigilant nervous system which exaggerates the pain signal even after damaged tissue has healed. Similar processes are at play in persistent fatigue.
If Chaucer makes a comeback in the proposed English curriculum rewrite, we shouldn’t dismiss what his work tells us about human nature – and contemporary New Zealand.
The world’s best chance of preventing the next pandemic lies in a global treaty. But deep divisions over funding and the sharing of vaccines and treatments have so far prevented an agreement.
Even the big oil companies are predicting global demand will decline within decades. With investment in oil exploration projected to decline too, New Zealand should be putting its energy elsewhere.
Analysis of 111 calls suggests most responses to calls from people in mental health distress could be led by social service providers without the need for police.
Adding vitamin and mineral supplements to the diet of pregnant women with antenatal depression not only reduced their symptoms and improved their functioning – it also benefitted their infants.
Timothy Welch, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau; Anna Matheson, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington; Craig Elliffe, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau; Dennis Wesselbaum, University of Otago; Hiran Thabrew, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau; Julia Talbot-Jones, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington, and Mark Barrow, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
Finance minister Nicola Willis made good on two promises with her first budget – tax cuts and no surprises. But the belt tightening required to do that will have longer-term consequences.
An ‘apprenticeship’ system would undermine teaching’s role as a profession, and separate trainees from the evolving research and knowledge that university-based training provides.
Spikes in inflation are often blamed on government borrowing to deliver cash handouts. But it’s more complicated than that. The real issue lies in borrowing without a plan to balance the books.
One in five underage adolescents vape occasionally, and nearly 28% of Māori youth vape regularly. Most get their product by sharing and asking older friends to buy vapes for them.
Influenza accounts for more than half of all potentially vaccine-preventable hospitalisations of children under 14. But those living in poverty are three times more likely to require hospital care.
Many people may assume New Zealand’s native birds arrived via Australia. But our new research on the Auckland Island merganser shows they originated from much further away.
The majority of 25 surveyed developments around New Zealand lacked healthy, ecologically meaningful vegetation. Applying biodiversity targets for medium-density housing could turn this around.
New research highlights common threads in cancer survivors’ stories, including the effort it takes to navigate the health system, even for a diagnosis, and the struggle to fund unsubsidised treatments.
The protracted deliberations over joining AUKUS pillar two suggest New Zealand is hoping questions of security, trade and domestic opinion will be solved in time. That’s unlikely.