Tim Curran

And the exciting bit is how much she can improve!

Her stats at the WACA are insane - a batting average of 335 (currently) and a very low bowling ave.

theconversation.com/new-modellin...

Smoke rises from fire passing under a large bur oak matriarch (5 feet in diameter)

A burn crew member stands next to a drip torch observing the fire line and the burn-out around a dead bur oak snag in the distance.

Backing/flanking fire along the fire line with a crew member standing back and monitoring the fire break and grassy fuels on the far side of the break.

Flanking and backing fire burning into prairie with old farm structures in the background.

71% RH. Who cares. A little March sun and dry antecedent conditions, and praires will burn just fine. RH was actually 82% a hour before ignition!

🌲This study provides the first robust assessment of the fire resilience of mature black spruce stands, & raises concerns about their capacity to persist & maintain ecosystem services under the projected climate-driven increases in burned area & severity.

🔍 buff.ly/Dapzr2Y

Government ‘kicked the tyres’ on solar subsidies but went with ‘minor’ tweaks instead It is one of the cheapest ways to cut power bills - yet documents reveal the government shelved a subsidy.

New Zealand has more sunshine than Germany.
But only 1 in 35 homes here has rooftop solar.
Australia? 1 in 3.

Why? I tried to find out - despite some strange secrecy

www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...

Best part of your fish tank!

Sounds like great fun! Enjoy!

I presume you've seen this quote? Seems made for your project!

From this paper: www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

The Ecology of Serpentine Soils Click on the article title to read more.

I did a 2nd year ecology essay on ecotypic differentiation of plants on serpentine soils and loved it. These papers kicked it off for me:

esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.2307/...

I love all the early pot trial papers showing evolution for serpentine soils.

Nice!

No worries. Cool paper!

Predator–prey interactions as drivers of cognitive evolution

by @predator-smarts.bsky.social @lizardlab.bsky.social @biodiversityguy.bsky.social @ferransayol.bsky.social @biologynerd.bsky.social et al.

Nice! I bet you are reading lots of wonderful papers on serpentinite vegetation.

bsky.app/profile/simo...

New police powers to ‘move on’ rough sleepers only mask NZ’s deeper homelessness problem Women make up half of the people experiencing homelessness in New Zealand. A study shows access to permanent housing improves their health and lifts their income.

NZ is an international outlier in that more than half of those experiencing homelessness are women, often with dependent children. A "housing first" approach makes a huge difference to their lives (and men's), writes @universityofotago.bsky.social's Brodie Fraser theconversation.com/new-police-p...

Anger over plans to abolish New Zealand’s dedicated environment ministry Critics say proposal to fold department into a new ‘mega ministry’ will dilute accountability and put nature protections at risk

It makes no sense to rush into a giant centralised government department that merges environment into housing/transport etc. it creates huge transaction costs, taking NZ back years in effective climate and environment action, losing focus, accountability & skills www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...

Even better still when no-one predicts the flammability and we get to ask why (and point out that we are also often wrong with our hypotheses)!

2/2

Learning something that perhaps no-one has ever known before.

For us that comes from burning a new plant species on our 'plant BBQ' to test its flammability. It's even better when you do it as part of an outreach event with kids: 'we're on the cutting edge of science today!' 1/2

Thanks. Yes, it was extremely helpful to discuss our policies on AI use in my field course where we spend a lot of time teaching scientific writing.

Great! Looking forward to it.

Great to hear! Anything in it on LLMs?

Police given powers to order homeless to 'move-on' - Expert Reaction - Science Media Centre New powers will enable police to require people to leave a public area for up to 24 hours. In an amendment to the Summary Offences Act, the 'move-on' orders can be applied to anyone over the age of...

Police given powers to order homeless to ‘move-on’ – Expert Reaction

Conceptual model of the expected role of dryland mechanisms along a climatic gradient from cool and moist towards hot and dry conditions, and their relevance for climate-smart forestry.

Ecophysiology for climate-smart forest management

#TansleyReview by Gessler et al. @wslresearch.bsky.social @arthurobuntspecht.bsky.social @annekempel.bsky.social @josegruenzweig.bsky.social

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

#plantscience

A landmark Indigenous-led enquiry has confirmed that the British committed genocide against Indigenous peoples in Victoria, Australia.

It’s the first time a commission of this kind has published a report like this in Australia.

Read the BBC’s news article about it here: svlint.org/BBCNews

Ping @darwinnernz.bsky.social

UN recognition is latest boost to restoring spekboom across South Africa’s semidesert Karoo “Spekboom is everywhere, it’s all anyone talks about … what used to be an Angora goat farming town is now a spekboom town,” says field ecologist Rae Attridge. In the past two years, Nat Carbon, the ca...

news.mongabay.com/2026/02/un-r...

New Zealand bug of the year: moth named Avatar after mining threat crowned winner Arctesthes avatar moth, which won nearly half of the votes, was discovered in 2012 and is critically endangered

New Zealand bug of the year: moth named Avatar after mining threat crowned winner

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...

Great photos, @frankashwood.bsky.social!

More women are professors, but gender gaps continue to plague NZ universities New Zealand universities are slowly closing the pay gap, but men are still more likely to fill senior leadership roles in the highest pay brackets.

More women are professors, but gender gaps continue to plague NZ universities
theconversation.com/more-women-a...