Top Posts RSSThu, 27 Nov 2025 05:12:18 GMTAmanda Craig is doing an 8 session course on Māori Data Sovereignty. It is designed for people who want to make a difference. It has a price point that can be more accessible than an organisation wide course.‍Check it out ? Upholding The Mana of Our Knowledge This is the page for course Te Kura o Tahetoka. amber-craig-s-school.teachable.com  ‍‍... Read more

]]>Thu, 27 Nov 2025 05:12:18 GMTJoin us on 6 November 2025 at 6pm NZST / 4pm AEST for an inspiring panel discussion featuring incredible women shaping the future of ocean science across New Zealand and Australia.Hear from experts working across research, fisheries, conservation, and citizen science as they share their career journeys, challenges, and advice for the next generation of marine scientists.Whether you’re a student, early-career researcher, or simply passionate about our oceans, this event offers valuable insights into diverse marine science pathways across the Tasman Sea. ? While this event is focused on several women's science careers, ALL are welcome to join! ? Date: 6 November 2025 ? Time: 6pm NZST / 4pm AEST ? Online – Scan the QR code to register! Or click here: https://otago.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_TE7BYi3OT0S9nmiRdbPpKgHosted by Women in Ocean Science (WOS) — Elevate. Empower. Protect.

]]>Mon, 27 Oct 2025 23:14:37 GMTGenomics for Aotearoa New Zealand (GFANZ) is the parent organisation of Te Ara Paerangi Community.We had our AGM last night. It all went smoothly. How could it not with this great group of people! In addition to the usual required agenda items, we voted to accept the updated constitution. This is brings us up to date with the Incorporated Societies act of 2022 and adds one more object:To promote and support collaboration between genomics and a variety of disciplines;We are well aware of how broadly genomics touches peoples lives and the world around us. As a research discipline, genomics can inform what we can do. But can and should are different things. The should needs to be determined by societal discussions deeply informed by other disciplines and epistemologies. While GFANZ has always been a collaborative organisation, we wanted to make that explicit in our core objectives. Now we have.Along with updating our constitution, we have just launched a new membership management system and web site. It is now super easy to join with a range of affordable subscription options. If you appreciate what we do here, please join now.

]]>Tue, 07 Nov 2023 03:46:04 GMTSocial media I was active on:Facebook - 2010 - 2013Friends, family, local groups and events, free items and purchased itemsFacebook/LinkedIn - 2013LinkedIn career connections and contacts for job avoiding need for business cards. Industry discussion. Aspirational jobs and inspirational business folks.Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter -2016Facebook and Twitter to help with promotion of space interests in NZ and overseas.Later Twitter for keeping up with world events and authors and celebrities.Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter/Mastodon - 2022Facebook for bonsai Mastodon as place to get away from Twitter but retain some of its use.Facebook/Twitter/Mastodon/Bluesky - 2023 Twitter leave transition phase duplicate follows and functions on to Bluesky.Bluesky 2024.Delete Facebook. Attempt to build bonsai community to replace that lost on Facebook. Not to go to any meta related SM.Bluesky/Mastodon - 2025Invest more time into Mastodon as a short term back up to Bluesky while I decide if either are suitable for election build up 2026.Is Bluesky wobbling now ?If Bluesky fails is SM over for me? As Im tired of fighting platforms or being their sandbox test subject and rebuilding connections and relearning each platforms quirks and limits.I get it is all free but i don't want to be a content creator for bad actors that will use my tiny data point to give them credibility.Concerns for data sovereignty. No trust in USA anchored apps. Need a reliable enduring news and information source especially as I approach 2026 election for NZ. Concerns about over reliance on Bluesky if it was to fail or be coerced or sell out to become ineffective for organizing community and voters to grind this current government to dust in the election 2026.

]]>Thu, 09 Oct 2025 11:02:13 GMTIntroductionBluesky user The Broke Bonsai Bloke asked where Kiwis might go if Bluesky takes a nosedive. I offered up this site as one possibility. I had in mind people for whom our kaupapa resonates. He asked for a bit of background about the site. This is a condensed explanation.History / Background of Te Ara Paerangi CommunityTe Ara Paerangi Community is a project of Genomics for Aotearoa New Zealand (GFANZ) GFANZ is a registered charity and incorporated society. GFANZ was formed as an alternative to business as usual in the genomics research community. It has a focus on promoting genomics science to benefit the public, with a strong sense of what makes this place special. Genomics is a broad research area covering all living things. Its use is connected to many other parts of daily life and influenced by the many ways people live and think. GFANZ aims to work in the place where society and genomics science meet.Te Ara Paerangi / Future Pathways was an MBIE process to reform the public research system (excluding universities) under the last Labor Government. I spent a year on the New Zealand Association of Scientists council working on that effort. I had concerns that the MBIE led process would be too narrow in reach. Basically that the usual voices would be heard and the chance for serious reform might be missed.Te Ara Paerangi Community was started as a way to expand reach and promote collaboration. One thing we did was set up a place to share ideas for submissions to the Green Paper. Things that could be remixed or combined. We also gathered historical documents about previous reforms and made it easy to access all submissions to the Te Ara Paerangi / Future Pathways process. There were a record number of submissions for this process. That is some indication of the interest in reforms and the time and effort so many people put in.With a change in government, Te Ara Paerangi / Future Pathways was killed. But the work the broader research and public put in remain... Read more

]]>Sun, 05 Oct 2025 00:14:48 GMTConsider the following scenario: your research lab has been around for a few years, and you are wondering whether all these sequencing services you are paying for are worth it - should you invest in buying your own medium-scale DNA sequencer?Updates:December 2024 - PacBio introduced VegaJanuary 2025 - ONT changed MinION and P2 Solo pricingJanuary 2026 - ONT discontinued P2 SoloPrelude - Nanopore SequencingDisclaimer: I am a fan of Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT). ONT has produced a sequencer that can do something no other commercial sequencing company can do: carry out [relatively] model-free discovery of novel polymers (e.g. DNA & RNA with modifications). Combined with their relatively public disclosure of information (especially with regards to pricing), I've been willing to work around numerous technical and operational issues because their "move fast, release early" philosophy works well with my preferred way of doing research.If you're just starting out, don't have much money, or just want a taste of sequencing, then there's only one realistic option for an in-house sequencer: Oxford Nanopore's MinION. A MinION Mk1d is available from Oxford Nanopore for $3,150 USD ($5,500 NZD).For another $1,460 USD ($2,400 NZD), you can get a Flongle adapter (if you ask ONT support via email, and satisfy them that you know what you're getting into). The Flongle adapter gives you access to Flongle flow cells, which are the cheapest per-run sequencing flow cells available at $810 USD ($1,350 NZD) for a pack of 12. Depending on the use case, the per-sample consumable cost can be quite low on Flongle, down to $8.50 NZD per sample when running 24 samples using the $700 USD ($1240 NZD) Rapid Barcoding Kit (which is competitive vs Sanger sequencing for anything more than a couple of 1kb reads per sample).But this post isn't about MinION sequencing (a device that has a yield of 5-15GB for MinION flow cells, and 0.2-1 GB for Flongle flow cells); it's about sequencing on a device... Read more

]]>Mon, 15 Jul 2024 01:54:19 GMTKia ora koutou,Welcome to Te Ara Paerangi Community!Yesterday, Minister Collins dropped a bombshell on our already besieged public research sector. Abrupt changes to the Marsden and Catalyst Funds came as a surprise to all across the research sector. There is plenty being written about why this is bad, who it may affect and how, what it all means, etc. I won't rehash that here. This post is about coming together to work out a path to a public research sector that works for everyone.You are reading this because it is important to you that someone does something about what is happening in research and all across the public sector. We are all in the same boat. This is us and it is us who must do something. This site was created three years ago to encourage participation and sharing of expertise in the Te Ara Paerangi / Future Pathways research system reform process. We had some success with that - collaborating, teaching and learning, and having a place to do it. That process was scuttled when this government came in. That was disheartening for so many who had put their time and energy, heart and tears into it.As with so many other public services, cut after cut has been made in the research sector. Some overt, others quietly just letting things end (e.g. national science challenges). The announcements yesterday are a policy change in kind, not in degree. We are all right in being very, very concerned; angry even. The many years of neoliberalism, managerialism, and hyper-competition in our under resourced system have conditioned many away from working together for the good of everyone. We must overcome that, now. This includes organisations as well as individuals.To join the Te Ara Paerangi Community site: request an invitation here.‍What we are offering here is a place to organise, to collaborate, to build community, to plan, to work to effect change. Some things in the near term. Others with a longer time frame.Your help is needed to make these things happen. In the ... Read more

]]>Thu, 05 Dec 2024 05:18:56 GMTWe are moving! If the site is down intermittently over the next several days this is why. The server on which we have hosted Te Ara Paerangi Community has reached the end of the paid cycle. So has the domain name registration. We have migrated to a new domain name registrar. It will take some time for the DNS service to get sorted. We will be moving the site itself shortly as well.The main benefits of moving are that it will be in Aotearoa, we will have control and flexibility on how we run the server, and we can add more features. There is nothing you need to do except have a bit of patience as we do the work behind the scenes.Ngā mihi!

]]>Thu, 21 Nov 2024 19:51:14 GMTIn my opinion, it is generally useful for people (the public and practicing scientists) to have some grounded understanding of how the doing of science actually occurs. A great place to start is the work of philosophers of science, like the article below. In my own career, I have found the papers that I took in philosophy of science (as well as ongoing study) to be very helpful. So much so, that I would recommend students and practicing scientists alike to spend some effort in learning from those scholars. Relatedly, too often, specific, rigorous training in the application of the scientific method is missing from training of scientists. Instead, an ad hoc approach of a bit in this paper, a bit in that paper, and whatever one's advisor may impart is pretty normal. For those who are keen to know more about how to apply the scientific method in practice, Hugh Gauch's Scientific Method in Brief is a great resource. While the audience for the book is stated to be those who are learning about the scientific method for the first time, I reckon it is very helpful for those teaching and practicing scientific research as well. I had the pleasure of taking a paper with Hugh using his first book Scientific Method in Practice. It was with a small group of keenly interested students. I rank it as one of the top papers in my educational career in terms of influence and utility. Multiple goals, multiple solutions, plenty of second-guessing and revising − here’s how science really works Unrealistic, outdated ideas that idealize science can set the public up to distrust scientists and the research process. A philosopher of science describes 3 aspects of how science really gets done. theconversation.com  ‍... Read more

]]>Sat, 10 Aug 2024 22:07:17 GMTI just sent in my submission. It is very simple, with only 2 basic points. The first is commit to funding the system properly now. The second, consider all the work already done in Te Ara Paerangi via the green paper submissions (with a link to them all).I did not spend any time trying to figure out how to answer their ridiculously long list of questions in a ludicrously small number of pages.

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