Dances with fish
New Zealand marine biologist Sunil Kadri, co-founder of Optoswim Technologies, is the O2 X Male Entrepreneur of The Year, awarded in London for technology Kadri created to improve the production of farmed salmon, dubbed…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Flights of Fancy
Christchurch engineer Glenn Martin, inventor of the Martin Jetpack, recently offered a test flight of the machine on eBay at a starting bid of US$30,000 for six flights. The bidding was open to anyone…
Rescuing the Bumblebee
The short-haired bumblebee, Bombus subterraneus, was introduced to New Zealand from England between 1885 and 1906 to help pollinate crops. The bumblebee died out in the UK in 2000 because of loss of habitat and intensive…
Reef makers
Raglan-based marine consultants and artificial reef designers ASR Ltd are profiled in surf publication Drift magazine. Drift’s George Mojo talks to ASR principal Dr Kerry Black about reef-building and creating “surfable waves” without environmental…
Green, green grass
New Zealand dairy cooperative Fonterra’s “secret weapon is vast acres of clean grass.” “What we’re very good at in New Zealand is growing good, high-quality grass,” says area manager of Fonterra’s South Taranaki site Rod O’Beirne. “We…
Robotic travel plans
Victoria University associate professor and tourism futurologist Dr Ian Yeoman predicts self-cleaning hotel rooms, sleep deprivation tablets to fight off sightseeing fatigue, robot prostitution and hotel rooms so clever they’ll be able to detect moods and change…
Easy in the back paddocks
Fielding farmer David Short has invented a battery-powered shearing handpiece that can be used in the yards or paddocks, and for minimal cost. Short has spent four years perfecting the design and now the…
Extolling winged virtues
A New Zealand manufactured turbine-powered bush plane, the P750 XSTOL is being promoted in Alaska by a Californian dealer who says the aircraft rivals the traditional Cessna turbine aircraft for travel in the American…
Eblack strummer wins
New Zealander Mason Maddox or “massi4h”, a member of the 2009 eBlacks team, has won a gold medal at the World Cyber Games Asian Championship in Singapore. Maddox won gold competing on the Xbox…
Supernova discovery
Oxford dairy farmer Stuart Parker, 37, had been scanning the North Canterbury skies through his telescope for 15 years searching for a supernova before finally coming across one – now named SN2009GJ – on…
Jet back to Oshkosh
Christchurch inventor Glenn Martin, 49, will make another appearance, albeit without his Martin Jetpack, at this year’s EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin to report on the progress of his personal flying machine, to give…
Sting in UK market
Family-owned business Nelson Honey is seeking approval to market its bee venom honey in Britain, claiming the product alleviates the symptoms of arthritis. Britain’s Food Safety Authority has to approve the marketing of any…
Investing in New Zealand
A number of New Zealand companies are seeking alliances with the Silicon Valley’s tech investors and entrepreneurs in an effort to grow and extend their reach into world markets. “Everyone realises the best thinking…
Good as gold
Zespri is encouraging Malaysians to eat two kiwifruit a day in a six-month campaign dubbed ‘Extreme Nutrition, Extreme Vitality’. In its promotional flyer, Zespri claims that kiwifruit has immune-boosting qualities; it contains twice the…
Space traveller
Gisborne-born aeronautic engineer Lester Waugh has been presented with a New Zealand flag which has traveled 216 times around the earth in the space shuttle Discovery. The gift from Nasa was a “rare honour”,…
All that Jazz
The rapid growth of New Zealand’s premium new apple variety Jazz has reached another milestone this year with over 1.2 million cartons of apples forecast to be exported in 2009. Revered for its outstanding…
Purple potato on the gravy train
Plant and Food Research, New Zealand’s sole potato breeder, has developed a new purple skinned potato as one of 16 new cultivars bred by the company. Purple Heart, as the potato is called, is…
Sailing into the US
New Zealand global procurement company Unimarket is in the process of finalising a move to Annapolis, Maryland in the United States, where it plans to hire 100 new employees by 2011. Founder and chief…
Making more milk
New Zealand scientists at AgResearch have discovered some keys to dramatically increasing milk production in the country’s cows. Researchers investigated the potential of epigenetic regulation, or changes in gene expression caused by chemical changes…
Universal access
High-speed broadband Internet access is coming to over three quarters of the country over the next decade, in a 3 billion dollar project jointly funded by the private and public sectors. “This model aims…
Hot competition
Blenheim-based company Carbonscape — one of only five companies to make the shortlist in the Financial Times global Climate Change Challenge — makes charcoal from biomass for the sequestration of carbon using industrial microwaves….
Electric Rules
“In New Zealand, an idea has been floated to convert up to 60 per cent of the country’s automobile fleet to electric vehicles, which would be e charged with wind power,” writes daily trade…
A bright future
23 March 2009 – New Zealand was breaking its own records for renewable energy production in the final quarter of 2008, creating 74 percent of its energy from renewable sources. Boosted by full lakes,…
Southeast Asian discoveries
Auckland-based gold exploration company Zedex Minerals Ltd. looks set to begin a drilling programme in Vietnam at the end of February with a potential find of as much as 5 million ounces according to…
Speed Demon’s Dream
Wellington entrepreneur Richard Nowland is the man behind the only jet-powered car ever designed and built in New Zealand. Nowland purchased a Rolls-Royce Avon 206 turbojet engine and intends to transform it into New…
Fresh sense
Supermarket giant Tesco has signed on to use fruit labeling technology developed by New Zealand packaging specialists ripeSense. The color-coded labels let shoppers know how ripe a fruit is by responding to aromas released…
Madonna’s mad for it
Wellington-based company “Phil & Ted changed my life,” writes Examiner.com’s Kate Byrd of the New Zealand “stroller gurus”, going on to give ten reasons why she loves her buggy. “I researched double strollers for months….
Open up and say ah
The New Zealand Department of Conservation will perform a two-hour necropsy on a 10ft female great white shark at the Auckland Museum in a live operation streamed online, reminiscent of that performed on the…
Flying High
Air New Zealand has made a bold move into the world of sustainability, becoming the first commercial airline to fly using an alternative fuel made from the jatropha plant. The airline recently conducted a…
Drilling For Knowledge
Victoria University’s Tim Naish is one of a hundred scientists from 40 different countries working on a map of climate change. The Antarctic Geological Drilling Program (ANDRILL) is digging deep below the Ross Ice Shelf to determine…
An Astral Heritage
23 November 2008 – Tekapo’s Graeme Murray – director of Earth & Sky at Mt John Observatory – is the driving force behind obtaining UNESCO World Heritage Starlight Reserve status for the pristine skies…
Waterborne Cars Are Go
16 November 2008 – New Zealand entrepreneur Alan Gibbs, 69, has opened an amphibious vehicle engineering and research centre for his firm, Gibbs Technologies in Auburn Hills, Michigan. Gibbs previewed two of his company’s…
Awarded for Imagination
New Zealand mineral chemist Dr Alan Reid, 77, has won the Ian Wark Medal in acknowledgement for his outstanding contribution to Australia’s prosperity through the advancement of scientific knowledge. One of a number of…
Rethinking Polar Power
Later this month, Meridian Energy will begin work on the most southernmost wind farm in the world, on Crater Hill, Ross Island in Antarctica. The turbines will provide renewable energy to New Zealand’s Scott…
Pig Cell Go-ahead
New Zealand’s Living Cell Technologies, a company founded by Aucklander Professor Bob Elliott, who has pioneered research in the treatment of type-1 diabetes, has been given approval to trial the transplantation of insulin-producing pig…
Flights of Fancy
Chief executive of New Zealand-based Air Sports Peter Newport is the brains behind virtual game Sky Challenge which saw two pilots and a gamer race planes through hoops in the clouds above Spain….
Look Up Without Pain
New Zealander Darrell Poole invented the neck safety-device Necprotech after surviving a rock-climbing accident in 1998 which saw him fall six metres because of a slack rope. Poole fell after his belayer – the…
Imagination Roars to Life
Christchurch inventor Glenn Martin’s ultralight aircraft, the Martin Jetpack, a $100,000 “jetski for the sky” able to climb to heights of almost 2500m, has been launched at an aerospace show in Wisconsin. No more…
Leave Your Hat On
The Christchurch-designed 2c Solar Light Cap is trialled by a Chicago Tribune reporter who dons the headgear for a camping trip on the Mississippi River. “Part of the appeal of sleeping in the woods…
Boscombe Breaks
Raglan-based marine consultants ASR Limited have designed a £3 million artificial reef at Boscombe beach in Bournemouth; work will begin on the seabed project in the next few months with a completion date of…
Yacht Technology for Cars
Auckland property developer and yacht maker Jock Freemantle will launch a 2008 version of New Zealand’s first super car, the 550bhp BMW V8 Hulme named after New Zealand’s 1967 Formula One World Champion, Denny…
Powered by Fruit
Kiwifruit rejected for damage or inferiority is used as cattle feed throughout New Zealand, but Crown Research Institute, Scion and ZESPRI Innovation scientists are reconsidering its use as a potential biogas able to generate…
Coolest Boat in the World
New Zealand Earthrace skipper Pete Bethune has circumnavigated the globe in record-breaking time, 11 minutes short of 61 days in a £3 million 24m tri-hull wavepiercer powered on cooking oil. “I am elated,” Bethune…
Midas Works on Merino
Victoria University researchers have added particles of pure gold and silver to fine merino wool in the interest of haute couture. The researchers demonstrated the first scarf dyed with gold nanoparticles at the 2008…
Energy Beneath Our Feet
Over the next three years, New Zealand public research institute GNS Science will explore the potential of harnessing the low-energy geothermal energy produced by underground steam and water systems. GNS Science is to develop…
Solving the Belch
New Zealand scientists are conducting world-first research into solutions for agricultural methane emissions including genetic engineering, cloning and a vaccine for gassy animals. “Given that we’re trying to turn around hundreds of thousands of…
Rodents Settle Debate
The arrival of Pacific rats in New Zealand decides the debate about the settling of the country by Polynesians; the findings confirm that settlers arrived here some 1,000 years later than was previously thought….
Flaming Britches
James Watson, head of Massey University’s school of history, philosophy and politics in Palmerston North and author of agricultural study, ‘The Significance of Mr Richard Buckley’s Exploding Trousers’, won an Ig Nobel prize…
Unlikely Gathering
On a subsea mountain peak 400km south of New Zealand, a robot submarine has filmed tens of millions of waving five-armed creatures called brittlestars, in a never-seen-before seamount discovery. Scientists from New Zealand and…
An Intelligence Question
James Flynn, Emeritus Professor of Political Studies at the University of Otago and moral philosopher, says human intelligence has improved over the last century, rather than declined as was widely thought. “But,” Flynn…
Massive Robotics
New Zealand software company Massive, famous for its on-screen swarms of pillaging orcs in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, recently showcased new business potential in Hanover, Germany. This included engineering, architecture and robotics….
Bridging the Gap
On New Zealand’s Chatham Islands researchers have discovered the country’s oldest known bird fossils. The find represents four new seabirds dating back some 65 million years when New Zealand separated from supercontinent, Gondwana. Excavation…
NZ Scientists Dry Their Eyes
New Zealand’s Crop & Food Research Institute has taken the tears out of chopping onions. In collaboration with Japanese scientists, the breakthrough was made using gene silencing technology. The Institute’s senior scientist Dr…
Aquaflow Ahead of the Curve
A Blenheim-based company could hold the key to the world’s energy crisis, according to a recent Guardian article. Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation has patented a cleansing process known as bio-remediation that extracts biofuel from…
Rotorua Reveals Anti-warming Weapon
A scientific breakthrough in NZ could play a major role in combating global warming. A group of microbiologists at Hells Gate in Rotorua has discovered a new bacterium that eats methane – one of the key…
Surgical Innovation
University of Otago scientists have patented a gel derived from squid that can reduce bleeding and scarring during surgery. The gel, named Chitodex, is a chemically modified form of the polymer chitosan, which is found in…
