Stories by Alison Ballance

New research shows lead-based bullets used to shoot wild game contaminate the meat, posing a health risk to humans and wildlife.

Kuaka bar-tailed godwits make the longest non-stop flights, and researchers are using hi-tech tags to solve the mystery of how and when they sleep. 

Could your burger one day come with a plankton patty? Alison Ballance visits the Cawthron Institute's collection of more than 750 different strains of microalgae, where scientists are investigating…

Grab your gumboots! Alison Ballance squelches out into Nelson's mudflats with a team of Cawthron Institute researchers in search of cryptic seagrass flowers and their seeds. Collecting the seeds is…

The kākerōri or Rarotongan flycatcher is a South Pacific conservation success story. Once reduced to just 29 birds, it has been rescued from the brink of extinction by a rat control programme managed…

Alison Ballance visits the Brook Waimārama sanctuary, and discovers that the old saying "many hands make light work" is particularly true when it comes to community conservation. A relatively new…

Alison Ballance joins the kākāpō recovery team on Pukenui Anchor Island to hear how the 2021/2022 kākāpō breeding season is going.

Two stories on addressing our energy problem - using AI to maximise locally produced renewable energy and reducing the carbon footprint of ammonia production.

Alison Ballance revisits a 2013 feature on kauri dieback disease and talks to Nick Waipara to find out how the northern kauri forests are coping with the disease in 2021.

Alison Ballance's foray into the vaults finds a feature on ocean acidification, The Acid Test and adds a 2021 update.

There are some familiar names as well as some new faces among the winners of the 2020 Prime Minister's Science Prizes.

Alison Ballance digs into Our Changing World's Antarctic treasure chest and finds part 2 of Voice of the Iceberg.

Alsion Ballance revisits a story looking at the complexity of the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake.

Alison Ballance looks back at the 1,000+ stories she has made, and revisits stone-eating spotted shags and urban eagle rays

The story of a seabird translocation to Mana Island, involving fluffy white-faced storm petrel chicks, artificial burrows and sardine smoothies.

Fertility researchers are developing a new way of testing IVF embryos that have too many chromosomes.

Shaun Eaves talks about glaciers in the North Island and how evidence left behind by glaciers can help reconstruct past climates.

Much of New Zealand's freshwater flows underground, and a team from GNS Science is in the process of mapping it.

Ornithologist and author Ralph Powlesland is intimately acquainted with the weka families on the regenerating Marlborough Sounds farm where he lives.

University of Canterbury's John Hopkins and Toni Collins explain disaster law and shortcomings in NZ's legal system highlighted by the Canterbury earthquakes.

Misko Cubrinovski is interested how the ground and the structures on - and in - it behave during an earthquake.

Biotechnologist David Leung finds ways to make plants solve environmental issues.

University of Canterbury engineers plan to 3D print the next generation of wastewater treatment filters.

Victoria University of Wellington's Wokje Abrahamse talks about environmental behaviour change, and projects to get people to save energy and use their cars less.

Summer students from Victoria University of Wellington have been helping the Innermost community gardens in Wellington put numbers on their social and environmental values.