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For a group of fisheries scientists in Wellington, the next three years will be dominated by fish guts.

In a ground-floor lab at the National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (NIWA), they're painstakingly slitting open the stomachs of thousands of fish and sifting through the contents.

All up, some 50,000 stomachs from about three dozen species caught on the Chatham Rise will be analysed by the end of 2007.

Over $6000 worth of prizes will be awarded to school students in the Wellington region as part of the 41st annual Wellington Science & Technology Fair, sponsored by the National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (NIWA).

Large areas of the ocean, such as the north Tasman and Mediterranean Seas, are low in nutrients with only limited growth of phytoplankton, the microscopic plant cells at the base of the food chain.

A New Zealand woman is leading a project that will bring together several hundred scientists from over 30 countries for the next 10 years.

NIWA’s smaller research vessel, Kaharoa, leaves Wellington tomorrow (Thursday 21 April) on a 2-month voyage to deploy high-tech 'Argo' floats all the way to Hawaii and back.

Already, the crew of Kaharoa have deployed more Argo floats (141 so far) than any other vessel in the world. By the end of this trip, they will have deployed over 200 floats and clocked up over 40,000 nautical miles on Argo missions. That is almost the equivalent of sailing to the UK and back twice. (A round trip to the UK is approximately 24,000 nautical miles.)

New Zealand and American scientists have joined forces to explore some of the world’s most active undersea volcanoes along the Kermadec Arc, northeast of the Bay of Plenty.

Ash from the eruption of North Island volcanoes tens of thousands of years ago has attracted an American-led scientific expedition to New Zealand waters.

In an uncommon event, icebergs have been spotted in New Zealand waters.

Sustainable development of the coasts & oceans will be the focus of a new National Centre formed by the National Institute for Water & Atmospheric Research (NIWA).

The Centre will be launched today (24 November) on board NIWA’s deepwater research vessel, Tangaroa.

“Science has much to offer in helping guide exploration, management, and protection of coastal and marine resources,” says NIWA’s chief executive, Dr Rick Pridmore.

For some South Pacific countries near and east of the Date Line the chances of tropical cyclone activity are higher than normal for the November – May season, according to NIWA’s National Climate Centre.

The ozone hole over Antarctica appears to be about 20% smaller than last year’s record-breaking ozone hole.

Scientific records of at least 104,000 samples of New Zealand’s freshwater fish, invertebrates, algae and other aquatic plants are now available at the click of a mouse.

The number of scientists in New Zealand gets a temporary boost this week with the arrival of almost 400 experts in atmospheric chemistry.

NIWA Wellington Science & Technology Fair opens Friday, 27 August. Over $6000 worth of prizes will be awarded to school students in the Wellington region as part of the 40th annual Wellington Science & Technology Fair, sponsored by NIWA.

Sandwiched between the extreme weather of February and July (with more lashing the country at present), Autumn seemed comparatively peaceful. But it was not without natural hazards, according to the latest update from the Natural Hazards Centre.

Sizeable earthquakes were recorded in the North Island, although the largest were at a depth of over 40 km. The biggest were: 5.1 at Kawerau (March 12) and Ohura (May 5); 5.2 at Maketu (May 31); and 5.4 offshore in the Bay of Plenty (April 17).

The 50 Southern Alps glaciers monitored annually by NIWA gained ice mass in the past year.

NIWA Senior Climate Scientist Dr Jim Salinger said today that after analysis of photographs taken on the survey of the glaciers in March this year it was apparent they had gained much more ice than they had lost during the past glacier year.

Just ten days after the state of emergency was lifted in Whakatane, the Bay of Plenty is to host a major conference on the management of natural hazards.

The conference will be held at Baycourt in Tauranga, Tuesday 10th – Wednesday 11th August.

“It could hardly have been more timely,” says Dr Warren Gray of NIWA. “Delegates will hear about the practical implications of the latest science on flooding, coastal hazards, landslides, volcanoes, and earthquakes.”

NIWA and the Orange Roughy Management Company (ORMC) have just successfully completed their survey of the numbers of orange roughy on the eastern Chatham Rise.

Go to the east coast of the North Island, and the climate will be about 1.2 degrees Celsius warmer, on average, than at the same latitude on the west coast.

The reason: subtropical water brought across the Tasman Sea on an ocean current known as the Tasman Front. It’s an extension of the East Australian Current – the playground of surfing sea turtles in the movie, Finding Nemo.

The NIWA vessel, Kaharoa, is setting sail on a 90-day voyage to deploy high-tech floats between New Zealand and Peru.

Kaharoa will carry 84 floats, which is the largest number ever deployed in a single voyage. Each float is worth about $20,000, making the total worth over $1.6 million.

The floats can help scientists measure global warming, predict the strength of tropical cyclones, and even get a better fix on the path of toxic algal blooms.

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