NZEDGE Science/Tech — New Zealand through the eyes of the world's media

Local Test Flight Gets the Go-Ahead

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has granted a permit to the Martin Aircraft company, allowing it to test jetpacks with a pilot at the helm in two uninhabited areas of New Zealand. The company…

Evidence of Genetic Basis to Sense of Smell

After testing some 200 volunteers in Auckland, Richard Newcomb of the New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research (PFR) and his colleagues have found the most convincing evidence yet of a…

James Bond Would Be Impressed

Ivan Sentch, an Auckland programmer and Aston Martin devotee, has decided to build a full-scale 3D printed replica of a 1961 Aston Martin DB4. “He’s already made considerable progress, with much of…

Cooking Up Raspberry Pi with the Internet of Things

New Zealand developer Nathan Broadbent was inspired to hack into his microwave after reading a post on Reddit about using matrix barcodes to instruct microwave ovens. Broadbent then cooked a raspberry pie using the…

Sequencing Genes to See What Makes a Thoroughbred

A piece of champion thoroughbred Phar Lap’s tooth is being sent to the University of Sydney’s veterinary science faculty from Wellington so scientists can analyse his DNA and compare it with other champions like…

Focus on What You Do Best Says Facebook Exec

As the mobile industry evolves, mobile operators and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) should focus on what they do best, according to New Zealander Vaughan Smith, vice president of corporate development at Facebook, who was…

Early Adopters of Technology Perfect to Test On

When Google chose New Zealand to unveil secret plans for balloon-driven wi-fi network, dubbed Project Loon, it cemented the country’s reputation as a test bed for global tech companies looking to trial their latest…

Internet Giant Launches Balloon Connection over Canterbury

Google has launched a balloon over Christchurch emitting an internet connection, which could connect to remote parts of the world to the web. “Project Loon” came to fruition in the South Island, where the…

Producing X-ray Beams in Germany’s North

New Zealander Graham Appleby, a physicist based in Hamburg, speaks to German publication The Local about high intensity x-ray beams and life in Germany’s scientific community, in the latest installment of “My German Career”….

Air New Zealand’s Skycouches Pass ‘GeekDad’ Test

Andy Robertson is the self-styled ‘Chief GeekDad’ of UK Wired magazine. Recently, he put Air New Zealand’s innovative Skycouch technology to the ‘geek’ test, flying from the UK to New Zealand with his young…

Chile and NZ Sign Agreement on Science

President Sebastián Piñera of Chile has signed a new trade agreement with the visiting Prime Minister of New Zealand, John Key, writes Elizabeth Trovall of The Santiago Times. The agreement promises shared innovation in…

New Creatures from the Deep

In a recent joint expedition between the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) and the University of Aberdeen, to one of the deepest parts of the Pacific Ocean, scientists turned up something…

Where Do We Come From

A two-year study, called “The longest journey — from Africa to Aotearoa”, could provide a snapshot of the lineage of all human history, according to biological anthropologist Lisa Matisoo-Smith, who is leading the research…

Metal Work Wins Steel Oscar

Inventors of the world’s first container tilter, New Zealand company A-Ward, have won this year’s Swedish Steel Prize for the MiSlide, a flexible system for compressing and packing metallic scrap in containers….

Running on Sunshine

Tokelau has become the first country to have all its electricity needs met through renewable energy sources. The pacific nation — which is administered by the New Zealand government – was running an archaic…

Revival Vest a Finalist

The James Dyson Award has nominated 22-year-old Victoria University graduate James McNab as one of 15 finalists in its 2012 design competition. After the death of McNab’s friend Jacob Beck-Jaffurs, who suffered a shallow…

Up on the Plane

New Zealand-founded company Gibbs Sports Amphibians will introduce a new off-roader on to the market this week, the Quadski, which is equipped with retractable wheels and a BMW motorcycle engine. Gibbs’ chairman Neil Jenkins…

Open to Experiment

For one year, New Zealand-born filmmaker Sam Muirhead, 28, is to abandon all copyrighted products and instead make use of only open source products. Muirhead’s goal is to raise awareness outside the world of…

A Question of Morals

University of Otago researchers have challenged a landmark US study, undertaken by Yale University, that indicated infants are born with a moral compass that enables them to recognize “good” and “bad” behaviour. The American…

Looking at the Cold Hard Facts

In a tour de force of glacial geology, Columbia University’s Dr Aaron Putnam and his collaborators have been reconstructing much of the Holocene history of a group of mountain glaciers in New Zealand. Their…

Voyage of Discovery

Wellington science historian and writer Rebecca Priestley is blogging about her trip to the Kermadec Islands on the HNZMS Canterbury for the Scientific American. “We’re sailing north along a chain of underwater…

Illegal Downloads Halved

Internet piracy rates in New Zealand have halved since the introduction of the controversial “three strikes” rule, the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (Rianz) says. The rule allows fines of up to $15,000…

Edgy Stay on Mars

A group of six New Zealanders recently completed a two-week simulated mission at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in Hanksville, Utah. The three men and three women of the KiwiMars team…

He Makes Stuff You Want

Professor of mechatronics at Massey University in Auckland Olaf Diegel’s bespoke nylon-bodied guitars are attracting interest from all over the world. An exponent of 3D printing, Diegel’s zany guitar bodies are created using computer-aided…

Honey, It’s a Superfood

The nectar collected by honey bees that forage New Zealand’s manuka bushes, contains unique antibacterial, antiviral, anti-fungal, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antiseptic, stomach-healing, wound-repairing, and overall health-promoting properties that make it an amazing “superfood” worthy of…

Tracking Space Travel from NZ

AUT University’s Institute of Radio Astronomy and Space Research (IRASR) was contracted in May to track the re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere of the world’s first privately-owned space craft to the International Space Station (ISS)….

Every Living Species Accounted For

In a world-first, New Zealand scientists have accounted for every animal, plant, fungi or micro-organism – more than 56,200 living species and 14,700 fossil species – ever to live in New Zealand over the…

Cambodian Mountain Discovery

Two researchers from Otago University’s anatomy department are using radiocarbon dating technology to unravel the mysteries of a lost culture that once inhabited the Cardamom Mountains in Cambodia. The researchers have dated samples of…

Robotic Sex Machines

In their paper — Robots, Men And Sex Tourism — Ian Yeoman and Michelle Mars of Victoria Management School in Wellington, imagine what the sex industry will be like in the future. The year…

Kairuku Comes Alive

The full skeleton of an ancient penguin that roamed New Zealand 25 million years ago has been reconstructed by experts from the University of Otago and North Carolina State University. Standing about 1.3m tall,…

Chicken Little Might Be Right

Over the past ten years, the height of clouds has been shrinking according to researchers at the University of Auckland. The time frame is short, but if future observations show that clouds are truly…

Homes Bring Hope in Cambodia

Palmerston North City Council civil engineer Kelvin Au (left), 25, is putting his skills to good use in Cambodia as part of a Habitat for Humanity one-year placement, organized via Engineering Without Borders, building…

Rings Of Change

“At The Kauri Museum in Matakohe biologist Dr Jonathan Palmer explains a novel approach to assessing global climate change — by analysing the rings of ancient kauri trees,” Chris Kilham writes for Fox News….

Taking The Phibian For A Spin

Gibbs Technologies, a company founded in 1996 by New Zealand entrepreneur Alan Gibbs, has demonstrated its newest amphibian vehicle model on land and in the waters of the Potomac River in Arlington,…

Test Of Willpower

In a “remarkable” long-term study undertaken over 32 years in New Zealand, a team of international researchers tracked 1000 people in 1972 or 1973 from the age of three, rating their observed and reported…

Engines Off For Clean Hulls

Scientists at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) and Auckland University have found a possible answer to a multi-million-dollar problem for shipping companies around the world. Switching off a vessel’s generator…

Twin Imaginings

As well as remembering things differently, siblings often fight over ownership of the same memory writes the Guardian’s Charles Fernyhough in an article about shared memories and the problems they cause. “A study by Mercedes Sheen…

Innovation Nets Branson Time

Takapuna business FaceMe has won time with billionaire Sir Richard Branson after winning top entrepreneurial competition, BNZ Presents: The Virgin Business Challenge. FaceMe has developed a video conference system that is compatible with any…

International Cluster Deal

University of Waikato computer science doctoral student Paul Hunkin’s software has been picked up by Google and NASA. Hunkin created ClusterGL to connect multiple screens to form one huge image for the university’s display…

Spencer Drives The Thing

The glamorous 48.5m super yacht T6, custom built for New Zealand paper magnate John Spencer, creates a fuss wherever it goes, whether Monaco, the Caribbean or the hazardous North-West Passage in the Arctic. On…

Pecking Good At Math

Dr Damian Scarf, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Otago, and two colleagues have discovered that pigeons can learn abstract rules about numbers, an ability that until now had been demonstrated only in…

Optically Pure Blue-Violet Hues

Scientists at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) say that Blue Lake in Nelson Lakes National Park might be the clearest freshwater body in the world. The NIWA scientists said the…

Resetting The Global Compass

New Zealand scientists Tony Hurst and Stewart Bennie will travel to Antarctica on 28 December to reset the global compass. The pair, who work for New Zealand’s Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences (GNS…

Fighting Flu In South Asia

Massey University has received $5 million from the World Bank to develop an on-line project which will fight animal-borne diseases that can transmit to humans, such as bird flu and rabies, in South Asia….

New Zealand Facebook First

“New Zealand already has lush rainforests and sandy beaches, bungee jumping and scuba diving, gourmet restaurants and lively night life, even a thriving tech community that has drawn investment from the likes of Peter…

Xena Loves Geniuses

“You may know her as Xena from Xena: Warrior Princess and, more recently, Lucretia from Spartacus, but you may not expect that Lucy Lawless would fly all the way from New Zealand to California for TEDMED, a…

Radical Award For Professor

Christchurch biochemist Professor Christine Winterbourn has become the first woman to receive New Zealand’s top science award in its 20-year history, the Rutherford Medal. Winterbourn, Otago University pathology department’s director of the Free Radical…