Summer Series 2018

This is a special series of stories put out to the media over the 2018/2019 summer.

This is a special series of stories put out to the media over the 2018/2019 summer.

Dancers perform at NIWA’s Atmospheric Research Station, Lauder, Central Otago.

The stories will be issued on Wednesdays and Fridays from December 19.

  • Scientific muscle meets freshwater mussels

    Feature story
    NIWA scientists have made an important breakthrough in the battle to save New Zealand’s freshwater mussels.
  • NIWA scientist throws light on the Red Zone

    Feature story
    Christchurch’s Red Zone is to be the focal point of a scientific experiment involving street lights and insects over summer. 
  • Underwater magician

    Feature story
    Based at Bream Bay, Whangarei, Crispin Middleton is also an acclaimed underwater photographer and the recipient of numerous photography awards. His work regularly appears in New Zealand Geographic, dive magazines, scientific journals and conservation/ government documents.
  • Can a leopard seal change its spots?

    Feature story
    A leopard seal, who has made the balmy waters around Auckland home, is prompting a NIWA scientist to campaign for her to be made a New Zealand citizen.
  • Scientists voyage into the Antarctic unknown

    Media release
    A group of intrepid scientists leaves Wellington for Antarctica this week on board NIWA’s research vessel Tangaroa for what their leader calls “a voyage of discovery”.
    Ross Sea Environment and Ecosystem Voyage 2019
  • The eel earbone detective

    Feature story
    As a young child growing up on an Irish farm, one of Eimear Egan’s chores was to regularly clean out the well from where her family drew its drinking water. In the well lived a large eel that, no matter how many times it was shifted, just kept coming back.
  • The science of art or the art of science…

    Feature story
    If you think science and art have nothing in common, think again. At environmental science institute NIWA, it’s all about one inspiring the other.
  • Scientist collects rubbish to rid rivers of plastics

    Feature story
    It may be rubbish to everyone else, but to Amanda Valois each little scrap of plastic on a river bank or in a waterway tells a valuable story.