Stories by Alison Ballance

An ecologist and a mathematician discover that teaching a computer to recognise bird calls from acoustic recorders is an interesting challenge. Audio

Ten years after the Darfield earthquake, three seismologists from GeoNet reflect on a decade of big earthquakes and what we've learnt from them. Audio

Dead corals cast up the shore of Aitutaki, in the Cook Islands, provide a window into the Pacific Ocean's marine climate hundreds of years ago. Audio

From safer solvents to make better batteries, to catalysts that can clean up wastewater, green chemists are developing better ways of making stuff. Audio

Food scientist Nazimah Hamid from AUT says that the sound of the space we eat in can have surprising effects on the taste of food. Audio

'Covid-19 unmasked: understanding the outbreak' is a panel discussion from the 2020 New Zealand International Science Festival. Audio

Emma Carroll talks about the return of southern right whales from the edge of extinction and a project asking the public to report whale sightings. Audio

Take some old weather records. Add citizen scientists. Mix in machine learning. Result = something that might help predict future weather patterns. Audio

Tiny plants that live on the underside of sea ice form an upside-down garden that feeds krill and is the base of the Antarctic food web. Video, Audio

Researchers are using hot water to drill through the Ross ice shelf, to discover what has happened to Antarctic ice during previous periods of warm climates. Audio

Alison Ballance eavesdrops on the songs of the world's southern-most mammal, the Weddell seal, and finds out about sea ice. Audio

A team finding links between melting ice sheets in Antarctica and rising sea levels in NZ has won the 2019 Prime Minister's Science Prize. Audio

Student Thomas James wanted to help his elderly neighbour, so he invented a wheelie bin robot to take her large recycling bin to the kerb. Audio

Michelle Dalrymple, winner of the 2019 Prime Minister's Science Teacher's Prize, says being mathematically literate is an important life skill. Audio

Emperor penguin researchers are waiting for tagged birds to return, and an elderly radar system sheds light on a very windy part of the atmosphere. Audio

Alison Ballance meets a colony of Emperor penguins and their NIWA researchers, and finds out about making water on the frozen continent Audio

Keeping Scott Base warm and well-lit no matter the weather outside, and a physics experiment that eavesdrops on messages to submarines. Audio

Alison Ballance has her first day at New Zealand's Antarctic station, Scott Base, and visits the historic Hillary's Hut. Video, Audio

Alison Ballance dons her extreme cold weather clothing for a trip to Antarctica - but getting to the frozen continent can take time. Audio

Scientists warn that a small amount of sea-level rise could have big consequences for some low-lying parts of New Zealand. Audio

Ocean floor rock cores drilled into the sunken continent of Zealandia are revolutionising our understanding of Earth's history and how continents form. Audio

More than four months after it formed, a large blob of sooty dust from Australia's massive bushfires is still circling the southern hemisphere. Audio

There is a fine art to how pedestrians, cyclists, and cars and buses navigate the shared thoroughfares of our towns and cities. Audio

Modern-day citizen scientists are following in the footsteps of a well-known Wellington naturalist, collecting moths to document a century of change. Audio

Mathematician Alex James, from Te Pūnaha Matatini & the University of Canterbury, explains the art and science of modelling the coronavirus pandemic. Audio