The proposed changes close off that option, meaning any student wanting to go to university would be taking a risk in adding ...

New Zealand’s highest mountain, Aoraki/Mount Cook, forms the cornerstone of the country’s longest cycle trail. Starting from the Southern Alps, this 260-kilometre trail descends 540 metres through the ...

Tall, dark and lonely, formed from a mountain peak drowned by the sea, D’Urville Island is a rugged sentinel between Nelson’s Tasman Bay and the gentle filigree of the Marlborough Sounds. Māori called ...

While most of the world’s new settlements are slowly shifting inland, in New Zealand we’re largely staying put—or edging closer to the sea, according to research published in Nature. The work tracks ...

What do our smallest dolphins get up to underwater? Until now, researchers have been limited to watching from boats, or listening to recordings of the dolphins’ echolocation clicks and buzzes. In ...

Of all the lifeforms that photosynthesise—turning light into energy, and pumping out oxygen—Prochlorococcus is the smallest and most abundant. A drop of seawater might contain 100,000 of the ...

A year ago, we reported on preparations for the arrival of the highly pathogenic avian flu that has ripped through poultry, sea birds, mammals and a host of other species overseas (see ‘Skyfall’, ...

Kim Logan had the sort of childhood where he was so hungry he’d sneak dog biscuits at night. Once, after accidentally starting a fire in their treehouse, he and his brother hid under the family home ...

But tapping the riches underground would itself be expensive. Quartz reef mining requires a stamp battery, which in the 19th century meant a water-powered machine that crushed rock to powder with ...

These lustrous pieces of agate were found on Rangiatea Station in Canterbury, home to Sara and Bill Gallagher. The farm is rich in agates, and the couple use some of it to run a small jewellery ...

Some of the most powerful moments in this job are when I open up a new gallery a photographer has sent in. It’s a story on screen, right in your face—gorgeous, gutting, often both at once. See: ...

From fossils to boulders, heritage precincts to glacial moraines, the Waitaki Whitestone Geopark rocks. Situated on the east coast of the South Island and straddling the line of the 45th parallel ...