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Worldwide Vision – from Syria’s Crisis to Poverty in the Pacific

April 3, 2017 By Cath Gilmour

March 28, 2017

How to humanise the refugee crisis that has seen a record 65.3 million people displaced? World Vision CEO Chris Clarke did so by portraying the tale of 12 year old Syrian refugee Adel, who he met in a makeshift Lebanon refugee camp with his widowed mother and five younger sisters.

At 12, he was digging potatoes for 12 hours a day to pay back the farmer for the pocket handkerchief of land they had built their leaking plywood and plastic shelter on. When they met, he had 75 more days to clear the debt. His sisters were suffering post-traumatic stress disorder. Nightmares of gun toting soldiers they had seen back home had one sister often run from their paltry shelter in the middle of the night, screaming and terrified. It was Adel who had to chase after her, bring her back, comfort her till she could sleep again.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: pacific, poverty, syria

Avoiding Conservation by Numbers and How Genetics Can Help

February 25, 2017 By Cath Gilmour

February 21, 2017

Did you know the little spotted Kiwi was nearly lost when just 5 individuals remained? A conservation program saw its numbers grow. But a bigger population is not enough. Dr Helen Taylor, research fellow in conservation genetics at the University of Otago, is tackling what happens when a population crashes and inbreeding – a threat to even thriving populations – affects the survival and reproduction of subsequent generations.

Dr Taylor discussed how conservation is often considered to be a numbers game – if we increase the size of a threatened species’ population, we think this a conservation success. Unfortunately, population growth is not always the full story; factors such as genetics have a big part to play in whether or not a species will survive.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Reviews

Science for Survival: AMN8’s Nano Trio

February 17, 2017 By Cath Gilmour

February 14, 2017

Three top international women scientists working in advanced materials and nanotechnology conference inspired an overflowing audience, including primary and high school students, by describing their work and experiences on the road to science.

Many common threads bound together the stories of Professor Silvia Giordani, Dr Carla Meledandri, and Professor Natalie Stingelin. We learnt that science is hard and science is unexpected – taking the path of science opened doors they never expected and took them to places they never thought they’d go. Science means learning all the time – it means being driven by curiosity and being stubborn to get results. And all three had inspiring high school science teachers! For more on the panel’s talk and Q&A with the audience, read the article in The Spinoff.

 

Filed Under: Reviews

The Science of Soccer

February 16, 2017 By Cath Gilmour

February 14, 2017

Catalyst plucked bioengineer Dr Albert Folch from the 2017 AMN8 conference and took him to Shotover Primary School to talk to students about the science of soccer and the end of the world. You can read more about his talk at The Spinoff.

Filed Under: Reviews

Constitution Aotearoa – A Catalyst Conversation

February 12, 2017 By Cath Gilmour

February 9, 2017

Donald Trump and Treaty of Waitangi issues added topicality and spice to the Constitution Aotearoa discussion with Former Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer and constitutional lawyer Dr Andrew Butler. In Queenstown at the invite of Catalyst, they met with an engaged audience keen to participate in a nationwide conversation about New Zealand’s Constitution.

New Zealand does have a constitution, but it is neither well-known nor well understood.  It is subject to political whim, as Parliament can change or remove fundamental rights and protections without consultation or a popular mandate.

Palmer and Butler argued a modern, codified Constitution would strengthen democracy, make government more transparent and accountable, and protect human rights. They proposed a constitution “that is easy to understand, reflects New Zealand’s identity and nationhood, protects rights and liberties, and prevents governments from abusing power”.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Reviews

Einstein, Time and Light

January 31, 2017 By Cath Gilmour

January 29, 2017

Bangs, whizzes, levitation and the secrets of the universe were revealed when Nobel Laureate Professor William D Phillips of the Joint Quantum Institute, National Institute of Standards and Technology and University of Maryland, presented a lively, multimedia presentation on Einstein’s insights into light and how they have changed how we think about time.

In the 20th century, scientists used light to cool a gas of atoms to temperatures billions of times lower than anything else in the universe. Now, these ultracold atoms, Einstein’s theory of gravity and the discoveries of optics pioneers from Ibn al-Haytham to today, are converging upon a great scientific and technological wonder: atomic clocks, the best timekeepers ever.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Reviews

Half a Century of Studying Antarctica and Climate Change

December 21, 2016 By Cath Gilmour

December 7, 2016

Dr Peter Barrett published his first article on the potentially “unstoppable and catastrophic” effects of climate change on Antarctica in the NZ Listener in 21 February, 1981. This came after almost two decades of research on the ancient coal-bearing strata of the Transantarctic Mountains, and a decade drilling for Antarctica’s past climate history coring strata off the Victoria Land coast.

Peter explained how further drilling has shown that Antarctica’s ice sheet first formed around 34 million years, as atmospheric CO2 levels declined from 800+ parts per million in the “Greenhouse World”, cooling global temperatures. A further decline below 400 ppm 2-3 million years ago led to further cooling and the Ice Ages, with ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere as well as Antarctica.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: Antarctica, climate change

The Mysterious Case of the Slimy Algae: what we know – and don’t – about the ‘Lake Snot’ invading Queenstown lakes

November 28, 2016 By Cath Gilmour

November 23, 2016

The invasive didymo and more recent lake snot recently found in Lake Wakatipu share characteristics – but there is one difference that makes lake snot more problematic, University of Otago freshwater scientist, Dr Marc Schallenberg says.

Both are diatoms (a type of algae) with long polysaccharide threads made of chiton that they secrete. Didymo’s tail is cotton-like and not sticky. With lake snot, the threads form a sticky slime of greater nuisance value – clogging water filters and sticking onto swimmers, fishing gear and boats – that could potentially be less susceptible to chemical control, protected from treatment agents by its cover of slime.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: algae, lake snot, lakes

Is It True What Happened To You? Stories Of North Korea’s Human Rights Violations, And A Path Of Action To Make Them Otherwise

October 11, 2016 By Cath Gilmour

September 28, 2016.  

Prof Bob Huish has spent much of the last two years listening to North Korean defectors and studying what is literally a black hole on the satellite map – largely through detecting its ripples.  Like who is trading with North Korea, following the flow of sea traffic into Nampo Port and investigating how different companies, governments and individuals get around the substantive international sanctions banning business dealings with DPRK.

He spoke of the Songbun ‘caste’ system, where unbiased loyalty to the Kim dynasty buys favours while those classed as hostile are punished for political crimes by being sent to political labour camp – a punishment then inflicted on their children and grandchildren. Satellite photography suggests 150 – 200,000 North Koreans are currently in these camps.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Reviews

China: What Is Driving Its Strategic Outlook?

August 20, 2016 By Cath Gilmour

Dr Bates Gill, Kippenberger Fellow – August 15, 2016

At least four critical factors shape Chinese foreign and security policy today – the first two are long-term and historical in nature, the second two are more contemporary.

The first is what Dr Gill called the forces of “historical geodemography” and the challenges it has posed to Chinese stability and security over many, many centuries. That is, the lengthy borders, large size and enormous population, making it perpetually vulnerable to foreign incursion while also giving it huge resources to maintain political, cultural and military sway. It huge domestic population also has meant that threats to regime survival more often than not arose from within, hence the importance of quelling political and social discontent across a vast Han population and, as China’s borders have expanded, across ethnically non-Han populations also.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: China, international politics

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