Flora Feltham wrote an early version of our cover story when she was living on Wellington’s predator-free reserve Mana Island with her husband, then a DOC ranger. The couple spent two years on the island, often alone, spanning Feltham’s first pregnancy and 10 months of their baby’s life. An incredible honour, she says, but it […]...
A diabolical gamemaker scatters 85 flags across the Pisa Range. He assigns each flag a certain number of points. Some are buried in brambles, others hidden in gorges. Some, fiendishly, will lead you away from fresh water. You have 24 hours, and a map. Go....
As glaciers retreat, they lose invisible ecosystems formed of microbes—before we’ve had a chance to get to know them. Bacteria thrive just about anywhere, but nobody has investigated the microbiome of alpine glaciers on a global scale, says geologist Mike Styllas, leader of a three-year, round-the-world expedition to study ice-loving microbes on 200 glaciers in […]...
One of the greatest difficulties in astronomy is that of getting a feel for the relative size of celestial bodies and the distances between them. The problem arises because the objects are tiny—minute, even—compared to the distances which separate them. This is true even of such a cosy little corner as our Solar System. For […]...
