Barely seven per cent of New Zealand is land. The rest of it, the wet bit, covers four million square kilometres. In 2016, photographer Richard Robinson won a Canon Personal Project Grant that enabled a dozen expeditions into this vast marine prairie, arguably the country’s last great tract of undisturbed wilderness.
This issue of New Zealand Geographic went to print almost 20 years to the day after a science-fiction film by a young screenwriter and director from Paraparaumu opened in cinemas in the United States. It envisaged a future where people are genetically engineered, creating an upper class of physically ‘superior’ humans and an underclass of ordinary people whose parents couldn’t afford to tweak their DNA. Gattaca was Andrew Niccol’s first film. It bombed at the box office, but has since acceded to the rank of a classic. In 2012, it topped NASA’s list of the “most-realistic” science fiction films ever made. I was dubious about paying a return visit to its vision of the future, but I discovered that Gattaca has barely aged: its concerns about genetic engineering are the same ones we are still facing today. Since 1997, we haven’t come any closer to answering the question: If we can edit our DNA, where do we draw the line between the eradication of disease and the improvement of other physical qualities? We can’t wait another 20 years to decide. Since 2012, we’ve all of a sudden become really, really good at editing genes. Though we’ve been able to tinker with DNA for decades, only recently has it become possible to make very precise changes very quickly. That’s because the tools are different: we’re using a scalpel rather than an excavator claw. The technology described in Kate Evans’s story is going to dramatically reshape the world around us. So we need to make up rules for how we will use it, and fast. Trouble is, the technology for editing genes—known as CRISPR—has outstripped our understanding of genes themselves. “A geneticist said to me, ‘It feels like we’re building the plane as we’re flying it’,” said ethicist Josephine Johnston, at a public talk in Auckland about gene editing. Data deficiency is a bit of a theme in this issue of the magazine. We don’t know very much about whitebait, except that we’re probably on the cusp of losing them, and we’ll need to make a number of decisions in the absence of complete data if we want to be scoop-netting them every spring for the next 20 years. Nor do we know very much about what lives in the vast blue expanse of our territorial seas, or how our actions impact those species, yet we will increasingly be called to make decisions that affect them. We cannot let the unknown prevent us from taking action. As Jennifer Doudna, the first person to demonstrate how CRISPR works, said of the tool she helped invent: “People will use the technology whether we know enough about it or not.” One place to begin is to address the values that we, as a society, hold close. When we lack data about the species in the world around us, we make decisions—such as decisions to learn more—based on those values. Concerns over gene editing causing discrimination against certain people or characteristics exist because those attributes are already discriminated against. Gattaca’s gene-edited humans are tall and strong and healthy and beautiful because we’re biased against the sick, the weak, the short, the ugly. Social views dictate our use of science, not the other way around, and we should begin any decision-making process by taking a careful, open-minded look at our values and the shape of the society that we want.
Niue has announced its intention to protect 40 per cent of its exclusive economic zone, or 127,000 square kilometres of ocean, from fishing and other extractive activities. The protected area will include deep ocean seamounts and the biodiversity-rich Beveridge Reef. “Our commitment is not a sacrifice; it is an investment for our future and a tribute to our ancestors,” Niue’s Minister for Natural Resources, Dalton Tagelagi, said in a statement. At the same time, Chile also announced an increase in protection, from four per cent to 29 per cent of its waters. By contrast, New Zealand protects 0.3 per cent of its exclusive economic zone, and a proposal to create a sanctuary incorporating the Kermadec Islands has stalled.
Octopuses are solitary, except for when they breed. But gloomy octopuses (Octopus tetricus) have been spotted shacking up together in a mass settlement—for the second time. Up to 15 octopuses live within arm’s reach on rocky outcroppings in Jervis Bay on the south coast of New South Wales, in dens they have sculpted from shells and other remains of their prey. The settlement has been named Octlantis. The first one, discovered in 2009 with up to 16 octopuses and also located in Jervis Bay, was named Octopolis—and was considered an anomaly. It’s not clear why the octopuses have decided to keep close company. Interactions filmed between them involve antagonistic colour changes, morphing, and chasing.
Old barn owls have young ears, still sharp at an age when mammals would be deaf, according to new research by Germany’s University of Oldenburg. This is because all birds can regrow damaged hair cells in the inner ear, while mammals have lost the ability to do so. Barn owls (Tyto alba) locate and catch prey in darkness using their hearing alone, and their ears specialise in high frequencies—the region where humans and other mammals usually lose their hearing. When a range of barn owls of different ages were tested, all had flawless hearing—even an extremely old 23-year-old. Studies on elderly starlings and invertebrates have also shown inner-ear hair-cell regeneration. The human body has the ability to repair the ear’s vestibular system, which means that we retain our sense of balance, even in old age. Study author Ulrike Langemann says this suggests the genetic switch for hearing regeneration is still there in humans, but in “off-mode” for our inner-ear hair cells. The quest to switch it on is an active field of research.
Gene editing is now being used in research around New Zealand, usually to ‘switch off’ genes one by one in order to figure out what they do. Overseas, this technology has started to emerge from the lab—it has the potential to help eradicate pests, save threatened species, even cure diseases—and soon, we’ll have to decide whether gene editing should be permitted more widely in New Zealand. What are the risks? What could we use it for? And how should we decide?
Figuring out how to stop nutrients from fertiliser and animal wastes flowing from land into waterways is difficult, as it isn’t a question only of farming intensity, but also soil type, topography, groundcover, and a host of other variables. Now, a new software tool called LUCI—it’s short for Land Utilisation and Capability Indicator—can help predict run-off and offer solutions. Developed by Victoria University of Wellington researcher Bethanna Jackson (pictured), LUCI uses a farm’s geographic information system (GIS) data to estimate how much nutrient is entering nearby waterways. It does this by measuring ground cover, animal numbers, fertiliser amounts, slope, and soil types, in resolution up to five metres. Then it calculates the flow of water across and under farmland, and how much rain each part of the land can absorb. With this data, LUCI can predict how many animals each part of a farm can hold, and how much fertiliser can be applied, before run-off occurs. It also highlights areas where water could be slowed by features such as sediment traps, planting, or changes to tillage. If adopted widely, LUCI could later be used to predict the health of rivers and streams.
Last year’s earthquake is now believed to be one of the most complex ever recorded.
There isn’t a catch limit on the lucrative whitebait fishery, which threatens to extinguish a cherished tradition and a small family of fish in one sweep of the net. If nothing changes, two whitebait species will be gone within five years, and the rest by 2034.
Photographer Neil Silverwood has just arrived at Scott Base on assignment for New Zealand Geographic, along with a large group of scientists starting their summer research.
Hidden beneath quiet suburban streets are clues to Auckland’s tumultuous geological past: lava caves.
Ancient whales had ferocious teeth—so how did some become baleen-bearing filter feeders? University of Monash researchers have shed light on this evolutionary mystery. Thirty million years ago, their theory goes, some whales began sucking in their prey instead of biting, slowly losing their teeth in the process until only thick, horny gums remained. A fossilied whale tooth, below, shows horizontal marks thought to have been caused by suction rather than biting. When the Antarctic Circumpolar Current formed, small prey boomed, and these more intricate gums filtered it better. Baleen was born.
There are five ways to identify the deadly myrtle rust this summer. Do you know them?
The Hunter Island penguin (Tasidyptes hunteri) was named in 1983 when four penguin bones were excavated from a midden on Hunter Island. Its ‘extinction’ was estimated to have occurred about 11,700 years ago. But the bones were in fact from other penguins, including two from New Zealand. Recent DNA analysis led by the University of Otago showed the bones were from three penguin species which are very much alive: the Australian fairy penguin, and two New Zealand species that are occasionally sighted in Tasmania, the Fiordland crested penguin and the Snares crested penguin. This year, ancient DNA has added species to the register as well as subtracting them. A new seabird, the kōhatu shag, and a native black swan, the poūwa—both extinct—were discovered by another team at the University of Otago.
Photographer Neil Silverwood takes part in Antarctic Field Training—an overnight course on how to live and work in Antarctica's extreme conditions.
Beneath Antarctica are thermal cave systems created by volcanic steam, where fungi and bacteria flourish. Now, researchers have discovered the remains of other life. Forensic analyses of cave soil on Mt Erebus by Australian National University researchers found DNA from mosses and green algae, as well as roundworms, earthworms, springtails, and an arthropod species unknown to science. Whether this life also exists in other caves remains to be seen, as Antarctica’s subglacial geothermal cave systems are little explored. Study author Ceridwen Fraser says there are more than 100 volcanoes in Antarctica, and many potentially have large caverns, subglacial ponds, streams or lakes. “There might be life, even unknown species, deep in the cave systems,” she says, but she’s quick to add that it will likely be similar to existing Antarctic life: “Mosses and small invertebrates—not Yeti.”
Earlier this week, a team of 10 left Scott Base to travel to the heart of the Ross Ice Shelf—the longest traverse undertaken by a New Zealand group since Sir Ed's trip to the South Pole. New Zealand Geographic photographer Neil Silverwood is one of them.
Tiny increases in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere caused dramatic changes in global temperature during the last ice age, according to new research published in Nature Geoscience. During an 80,000-year-long ice age that ended 20,000 years ago, global average temperatures occasionally shifted by as much as 15°C across a few decades. It was thought that this was caused by changes in glacial meltwater flowing into the Atlantic, which affected ocean circulation. However, this theory overlooked the effect of carbon dioxide on the oceans. Researchers showed that a rise in carbon dioxide, even an incremental one, could have prompted an El Niño, which would have warmed the eastern Pacific at the equator. This would have started a chain reaction, whipping up trade winds across Central America, which sucked moisture from the Atlantic, making it saltier and denser, kickstarting stronger ocean currents and causing warming across the entire North Atlantic region. Today’s tipping points are unknown, says study co-author Stephen Baker. The northern ice sheets are now much smaller, and have different dynamics. “If a system is close to the threshold and you don’t know that, it could make a sudden transition that you didn’t see coming,” he says. “We might not always have a lot of warning.”
To catch an octopus, pretend to be a rat.
Off the beaten track in Kahurangi National Park.
3
$1 trial for two weeks, thereafter $8.50 every two months, cancel any time
Already a subscriber? Sign in
Signed in as . Sign out
Ask your librarian to subscribe to this service next year. Alternatively, use a home network and buy a digital subscription—just $1/week...
Subscribe to our free newsletter for news and prizes
