Aotearoa Science Agency

08/05/2025

In February this year we were asked to be the first film crew to capture a kākāpō booming (its mating call) on mainland New Zealand.

These incredibly rare, flightless - and quite chonky - parrots have been saved from extinction by being kept on two predator-free islands in the deep south (Codfish and Anchor Islands), until 2023 when a number were brought to the mainland, to Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari.

This year, one of the translocated birds, an 11 year old named Taeatanga, started booming - a sign that he is comfortable in his new home. Unfortunately for Taeatanga, there aren't any female kākāpō in the area, not yet at least.

To keep Taeatanga safe from curious members of the public, many of whom would understandably love to witness this special event, we had to keep this footage under wraps until the booming season came to an end, and now we are able to share it.

Thanks to Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari, Department of Conservation and Kākāpō Recovery for entrusting us with this amazing mahi.

06/05/2025

We are so privileged to have been part of this story... amazing work everyone to get to this point!

Imagine the sound of a heartbeat echoing through the night-time world of te ngahere (the forest)... 💚💚
That's what it felt like as the magical low-frequency sound of kākāpō booming was heard at Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari this summer, the first time kākāpō booming had been heard on the North Island of New Zealand in more than a century!

11-year old Taeatanga (pictured), one of three male kākāpō in the fenced habitat trial on Maungatautari was the first to champion the display of this unique courtship behaviour on the maunga.

🎉 Let’s celebrate this green feathered milestone together symbolising the strength of the relationship between iwi as kaitiaki of these taonga and the partnership between Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari, mana whenua, the Department of Conservation’s Kākāpō Recovery team, and Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu.💚

📸 Taeatanga ready to boom: Aotearoa Science Agency

Read the full media release below 👇

13/03/2025

Last night's Science New Zealand Awards were a pleasure to attend, and it was great not only to be in the room with so many amazing scientific minds, but being honest, to hear those same people saying lovely things about the videos we made for the night.

We'll share some of the winners' videos over the coming days, starting with the 2025 Supreme Award winner, Grasslanz Technology. It's easy to overlook the importance of pasture in New Zealand, and the developments Grasslanz has made over the years has contributed billions of dollars to our economy.

Congratulations to Dr John Caradus and the Grasslanz/ AgResearch team

06/03/2025

While the Oscars might have got all the attention, the awards that we're focused on right now are the Science New Zealand awards, showcasing some of the best research and researchers across the country.

It's our first year producing the finalist videos for these awards, and has been a great opportunity to catch up on all the amazing interesting science happening in Aotearoa right now.

Here's a look at this year's finalists for Early Career Researcher, from across the CRIs, including our friends from Plant & Food Research, AgResearch, Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research and GNS Science. The winners are announced next Wednesday and we'll be showcasing them through this and next week.

16/10/2024

26/09/2024

Reporting on 'a cure for cancer' is such a journalistic trope that any research claiming to have made significant advances is treated with skepticism. And yet the battle against cancer is being won, slowly, one advancement at a time.

In this episode of "What If?" we look at the multi-pronged approach that genomics is being used to battle cancer. To understand inherited risks from birth; to detect almost any cancer as soon as possible with a simple blood test, and to understand each tumour's own genetics and fight it precisely.

Cancer isn't going away, but as Professor Parry Guilford says in this episode, the way we view cancer will soon change, from a terminal illness, to a condition that people will be able to live with. Like most people, we have friends battling with cancer, and this sort of news is welcome and progress can't come soon enough.

Full story: https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/what-if-genomics-in-aotearoa/story/2018952807/what-if-we-can-use-genetic-testing-to-beat-cancer

12/09/2024

You've probably heard the old television saying "never work with children or animals".

In my experience, that couldn't be more wrong!

Yes you've got to be prepared for the unexpected, but children and animals are a huge part of my favourite episode of our WHAT IF series with RNZ. It's about environmental DNA - the process of sampling the environment, often from a waterway, and finding out every single being - from plants and animals to insects, even bacteria - living in or around it.

It's a powerful tool for community groups wanting to monitor and restore their local awa, and sample gathering is simple enough for anyone to be able to do it.

For this episode, we visited the rural property of Michelle Worth and her family. It was a beautiful school holiday morning just out of Matakana, featuring kids (including my son Eddie), the family dog - and even their 'pet' eel paid us a visit.

The pictures we got were beautiful and reinforce a great story about citizen science - without the children and animals, it wouldn't have been the same.

Full episode: https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/what-if-genomics-in-aotearoa/story/2018952815/what-if-we-sequenced-every-waterway-in-new-zealand

Thanks to Michelle and family; Friends of Awa Matakanakana; Michael Bunce, Department of Conservation, Vanessa Crowe of Environmental Protection Authority NZ, Shaun Wilkinson of Wilderlab and Genomics Aotearoa.

03/09/2024

Did you know that the same scientific techniques that helped us contain the initial COVID-19 outbreak in New Zealand was also used to save kākāpō lives?

When birds on different islands started to fall sick with aspergillosis - a respiratory disease caused by fungus - scientists used genomics to establish that the infections all had the same source, making it likely that it was a humans bringing it to the remote islands.

For the full episode on how genomics has been saving the kākāpō, head along to the RNZ hosted series "What If":

https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/what-if-genomics-in-aotearoa/story/2018952806/what-if-genomics-could-help-save-an-endangered-species

28/08/2024

Tune in Thursday!

28/08/2024

I'm very excited to announce that my new science webseries - "WHAT IF?" is now live on RNZ!

I've been quietly working on this for the last year, and now the first four episodes are up, looking at how genomics has been used to save a species, contain Covid-19, battle cancer and understand the health of waterways.

I'm so grateful to all the scientists and everyone who helped make this series come to life, Genomics Aotearoa for trusting me to make it, and for Tim Watkin, Claire Concannon and the team at RNZ for giving it a forever home.

Please share the link far and wide - we only get to make shows like these if people watch them - and it's always a struggle to get science over the line!

NEW. What if...? Looks at the many and varied ways that genomics (the study of genomes / DNA) is being used in Aotearoa.

13/08/2024

Genetic modification is back on the agenda, is the New Zealand public ready for it?

It was good to see the Science Minister and PM in the news, pictured in the same lab where just yesterday we had been filming a story about gene editing.

Of all the reasons to support relaxing the rules on gene editing outside the lab, one of the most compelling for me personally is ensuring food security in the face of climate change.

I'm not a scientist, but I put my trust in experts like Prof Andy Allan, from Plant & Food Research who is using CRISPR gene editing to look at breeding apples that will still flower (and therefore produce fruit) even if they don't have as many cold winter days as they currently need.

The gene edits with CRISPR are small and precise, but crucially can speed up what is an otherwise haphazard and slow process via cross-breeding.

Climate change is happening faster than traditional breeding techniques can adapt. We need to move faster too.

Here's a video we made with Prof Allan from Plant & Food Research on this very topic.

News story: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/524990/ban-on-genetic-modification-and-genetic-engineering-outside-lab-to-end-government-announces

07/07/2024

If like us, you're home (and in Auckland) with the kids for the holidays, head along to Auckland Museum for the Lego RELICS! exhibition.

We helped produce this video for the Museum, and it was interesting to hear the insights from the two Lego Masters who put it together around the theme of minifigures taking up residence in abandoned items in a post-human world, and how the items they occupy influence the societies that form inside.

I'm heading up there with my two boys this afternoon, looking forward to seeing it in person!