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.
There is no doubt a regulated market for access to medicinal cannabis is safer, but if cannabis-based products were allowed to bypass efficacy trials, there’s a potential cost to patient safety.
The endangered Hector’s dolphins are found only in coastal seas in New Zealand, but conservation experts describe New Zealand’s proposed protection plan for the marine mammals as misleading.
An Australian company’s plan to mine a fossil-rich site in New Zealand to produce pig food has been described as unjustifiable vandalism. A campaign is under way to protect the site in perpetuity.
The high cost of dental treatment is stopping almost half of all New Zealanders from seeking care when they need it. Funding at least parts of dental care publicly could change that.
Escalating tensions between India and Pakistan over the disputed Kashmir border are a stark reminder that the subcontinent is one of the world’s likeliest nuclear flashpoints.
New Zealand’s gun lobby presents licensed gun owners as sensible and responsible, but the response to gun law changes reveals an aggressive online culture.
The evolution of live birth from egg-laying is no mean feat. Now new research reports on the first known example where both eggs and a live birth come from the same lizard pregnancy.
A new report suggests New Zealand should rethink climate policy and use forests to offset only agricultural emissions, which make up half of the country’s total emissions, and not carbon dioxide.
Interviews with survivors of sexual abuse by clergy show that recognising Jesus as an abuse victim might help the Catholic church to change its culture and response to the abuse crisis.
Genetic information extracted from fossil bones of two extinct penguin species shows the geological emergence of islands plays a role in penguin evolution.
Mike Joy, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington and Michael Baker, University of Otago
Nitrate in drinking water has been linked to an increased risk of colorectal cancer. That could have implications for some parts of New Zealand where nitrate levels are high.
Taxonomists are becoming as rare as some of the species they work on, and this puts museum collections and conservation efforts under threat and increases the risk of biosecurity incursions.
Scientists are using environmental DNA to compile a census of life in Loch Ness and to establish if there is any scientific basis for the centuries-old monster legend.
Since 1995, several ice shelves off the Antarctic Peninsula have abruptly disintegrated. A new analysis suggests that these events are triggered when ice shelves lose their buffer of floating ice.
Leaked reports reveal that some of New Zealand’s largest fishing companies have been under-reporting their catch of the commercially valuable hoki by hundreds of tonnes.
Baleen whales are some of the least likely mammals, supporting their massive bodies by filtering tiny prey. New evidence from an ancient fossil sheds new light on how baleen evolved.
Inbreeding and male infertility could be impeding the recovery of one of New Zealand’s threatened birds - the stitchbird, or hihi. Hihi sperm might hold the answer, and help raise funds for conservation.