Fronts adorn most weather maps, and can be recognised as lines decorated with solid black triangles or half-moons. Put simply, they mark areas with abundant cloud and usually some rain. As they pass over an area, there will generally be changes in both wind and temperature. Fronts have traditionally been described as the boundaries between […]...
At last the apparently endless clouds are drawing off the country and we are again being permitted to see the stars. Orion, lord of the summer nights, is already visible in the east as the sky darkens, and he will dominate our heavens until lost in the afterglow of autumn sunsets. Uniquely amongst the constellations, […]...
The subject didn’t know he was being filmed, but this wasn’t Candid Camera, and nobody was prattling on about what a rewarding job being an insurance rep had turned out to be. What we had on this occasion was a robber. It was a dark night, and only an ultra-sensitive electronic eye could have detected […]...
In the dark , damp corners of our cities there is a corrupt subculture abroad. It is most active at night, when innocent victims, lured to these retreats by small, bright lights, are captured and murdered. In the same dark enclaves, confident males, often congregating in small gangs, lie in wait to seduce virginal females the […]...
I am standing at the edge of a volcanic crater, just a careless step away from plunging fifty metres into a lake of incandescent orange lava that boils and hisses. The crater punctures the top of Pu`u 0`o, a cone that sits like a boil on the flanks of its great volcanic parent, Kilauea, on the […]...
Imagine an underground reservoir so large that it has its own tides. A spring of such clarity that the term “crystal clear” is actual, not imaginary. Where distance is deceptive, and divers in its waters seem to hang suspended, as if in space. There is such a place: Pupu Springs, source of the clearest natural water in […]...
Around the country, young researchers are taking science out of the classroom and putting it on display....
Jan Styles Mangawhai I’ve never been a city person; always loved the country and animals. I don’t think you’ve got enough time in the city—to just learn about life. I think you’ve got to learn to exist in the city. You don’t learn to do anything else; you don’t live, do you? You run from one […]...
Time moves slowly on d’Urville Island, but the ebb and flow of human endeavours on mainland New Zealand is catching up with this isolated outpost of the Marlborough Sounds....
“Would your bird like the Alphitobius diaperinus (that’s the lesser mealworm to lesser mortals) or perhaps a Galleria mellonella (waxmoth) larva for the axylotl? The Locusta migratoria is high in protein with medium fat levels … “...
