4 mm high piece of “gold” (photo Peter Johnston) It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.…
Flora of New Zealand Volume 1, cover by Nancy Adams What do Star Trek, Sherlock Holmes, and the Flora of New Zealand have in common? Benedict Cumberbatch, who played “Khan” in Star…
Old man’s beard looking a bit sad (photo Jerry Cooper) Every year for the last 20 years I have gone to the annual FUNNZ fungal foray with colleagues and enthusiasts from around…
This is an excerpt from a Wasp Wipeout at Stuff. At his office in Lincoln near Christchurch, Dr Bob Brown, an ecologist at Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research, has an incubator containing precious…
The King’s pouch fungus (photo Geoff Ridley) Back in 2012 I read about the half-life of facts. That is the period of time it takes for half the facts in a field…
50 years ago tomorrow, on 22 April 1970, a massive protest in USA against pollution and other destructive impacts of humanity heralded the first “Earth Day” and helped spawn the modern environmental…
Hydora lanigera (photo Manaaki Whenua) We have few beetles in New Zealand that could be called truly aquatic but, what we do have includes the riffle beetles in the genus Hydora. With…
[Picture: Hypocreopsis amplectans, tea tree fingers – IUCN Red List status as Critically Endangered. Known from only 2 locations in ANZ but not seen for several years. (photo: (c) Reiner Richter, CC…