Sciences at University of Otago

03/09/2026

🙌 Tautoko Professor Jim Cotter and Dr Kate Thomas, who, along with postgrad tauira Rilee Gould and Emma Maultsaid, are studying the physiological effects and risks of cold-water swimming.

🏊 The exercise physiologists are interested to see whether people’s perceptions of how cold they are and their level of comfort line up with their actual core temperature.

Kate says, "That's important because there's a lot of evidence around how cold people get and it's very variable, very dependent on body shape and size and experience. But how their feelings align with that is less well known.

"We're hoping to get a little bit more information around the benefits and the risks of a sport that's clearly becoming more popular."

Visit the RNZ website to learn more 👇

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/science-and-technology/1145442/our-changing-world-cold-water-swimming-panacea-or-peril

School of Physical Education Sport & Exercise Sciences, University of Otago

03/09/2026

🏆 Congratulations to the Sciences winners in the 3MT™ challenge!

⭐️ PhD winner – Jim Davies, Sciences, Psychology: Of Mice and Men: Modelling Alzheimer’s
⭐️ Peoples’ choice – Jenna Gawn, Sciences (Christchurch), Psychology: Every health behaviour counts: lifestyle behaviours and youth mental well-being

🫶 Kia mau te wehi!

02/09/2026

🙋 What's small, cute, and has been secretly evolving in our southern waters?

🪸 Bryozoans are small, usually hidden, invertebrate marine creatures which have existed for more than 250 million years.

🐬 Known for their lace-like skeletons, they are important structure-formers – an organism that creates habitat for other organisms – in deep waters around Aotearoa.

🔎 Scientists believed there were only two species of hornerid bryozoans in Aotearoa New Zealand, but new mahi has identified 11 more.

🫶 Emeritus Professor Abby Smith from the Department of Marine Science says the discovery has important implications for conservation.

“You can’t conserve, manage, study or understand a species if you don’t know it’s there,” she says.

“We never thought there would be this many species and that they would turn out to be this diverse.”

https://www.otago.ac.nz/news/newsroom/new-species-of-ancient-marine-creature-discovered

Marine Science Otago

Scientists believed there were only two species of hornerid bryozoans in Aotearoa New Zealand, but new research shows several more have been secretly evolving and thriving in the nation’s southern waters.

01/09/2026

🐠 Dr Roe Stuart didn’t find a taniwha in the unexplored depths of New Zealand’s lakes – but they may have found a new species of fish.

“We have four lakes in New Zealand that exceed 400m deep, and the deepest records we had of fish life were 90m,” says Roe, who realised while doing post-doctoral work at Lake Champlain in the USA that no one knew what lurked in Aotearoa's lakes.

“I just wondered what would be down there.”

🌄 A depth sounder found Lake Manapōuri and Lake Te Anau to be to be 467m and 430m deep respectively – about the height of Dunedin's Saddle Hill.

🍞 Searching for signs of aquatic life in the untraversed waters required 2km of rope, multiple traps set at different depths, and … a breakfast spread?

“We baited the traps with marmite,” Roe says. “I've had quite a few people ask if vegemite also works, but why risk it?”

You can read the full story here 👇
https://www.otago.ac.nz/news/newsroom/marmite-lures-discovery-from-lake-depths

Zoology Department, University of Otago - new

31/08/2026

💐 Tautoko tauira and dancer Inese Velde, who recently completed her BSc in Environmental Management, and has made a video she hopes will help people reconnect with nature.

🩰 With the help of fellow dancer and Pharmacy tauira Madison Gay, Inese choreographed a dance that was filmed in four of the most beautiful parts of Ōtepoti – Doctors Point, Woodhaugh Gardens, Blackhead Quarry and Sutton Salt Lake Scenic Reserve.

“I really wanted to do a dance film, and then I was just thinking about what story would I like to tell? And I knew I wanted to combine my passion for dance and my passion for the environment," Inese says.

🍃 Inese grounded the performance, titled ‘Our Home’, in the Tauki ‘Ko au te taiao, ko te taiao ko au’, which translates to ‘I am nature and nature is me’.

You can watch the video here 👇

https://www.otago.ac.nz/news/newsroom/celebrating-our-home-in-dance-video

30/08/2026

📻 RNZ has reported on the recent core workshop at the Otago Repository for Core Analysis (ORCA).

🌊 The project group’s drill site was at a place called Crary Ice Rise where a finger of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet juts out, still sitting on the bedrock of the Antarctic continent.

🧊 The 218 metres of sediment recovered (a record-breaking length) was drilled after they'd used hot water to melt a hole through 523 metres of ice, all at a distance of about 700km away from the nearest base.

📡 If you’re interested in Antarctica, Geology, our history or our future, you can read the story or listen to the 30-minute podcast here 👇

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/science-and-technology/1042217/our-changing-world-a-precious-piece-of-sediment-and-what-it-says-about-our-future

27/08/2026

🐧 There are just 117 breeding pairs of hoiho remaining in New Zealand, making them the rarest penguin the world.

🪦 The taonga species, only found in Aotearoa, are facing climate change, starvation, disease and fishery by-catch deaths.

🐣 Department of Zoology PhD candidate Thor Ruru-Elley is using on-bird cameras to see what hoiho are facing in the ocean. He is also using GPS trackers on 100-day-old fledgling penguins as they enter the water for the first time, to better understand why 80 per cent never make it back to land.

🎣 His findings show the birds are travelling far beyond the area covered by the Otago Peninsula set net ban – up to hundreds of kilometres along the coast between Kaikōura and Stewart Island-Rakiura.

“It's somewhat confronting in the footage when you go from hoiho foraging in kelp forests and protected areas to places that have been dredged – places that don't have anything on the seafloor anymore,” Thor says.

Visit Stuff to learn more about the fight to save this New Zealand icon before it’s too late 👇

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/361021216/samantha-hayes-just-326-hoiho-remain-can-new-zealand-save-its-most-endangered-penguin

Zoology Department, University of Otago - new

26/08/2026

🙌 Tautoko Edwin Brooks, who graduated last week with a master's degree in Surveying after sailing halfway around the world 🥳

“It’s a funny story,” begins Edwin, as she explains how a sea voyage from Canada led to a master’s degree at Otago.

“In 2020, right before Covid hit, me and two crew – my retired parents – bought a big sailing boat."

⛵ After navigating everything from otters to cargo ships, Edwin found herself in Aotearoa.

“There are two very strict weather windows to get in and out of New Zealand, and it was months before the weather window to get the boat out," Edwin says.

"I looked at the visas, and it said you could do a 15-month master’s degree in Geographic Information Systems (GIS). I’d always wanted to do something geographic or spatially related, and the University of Otago has one of the best GIS programmes you can get."

You can read more about Edwin's incredible journey here 👇

“It’s a funny story,” begins Surveying graduate Edwin Brooks, as she explains how a sea voyage from Canada led to a Master’s degree at Otago.

24/08/2026

🌟 Tautoko Ashton Bradley, Associate Professor in the Department of Physics, who's written an opinion piece about the proposed physics curriculum for secondary schools.

"New Zealand’s proposed regime provides significantly less support for teaching topics in a logical sequence – giving students time to master them – and reinforcing learning through practical work," Ashton says.

"Physics is cumulative. Later ideas depend on earlier models, mathematics and ways of reasoning. That is why major reviews of science education advocate a limited number of powerful ideas developed coherently over time."

You can read Ashton's full piece here 👇

https://theconversation.com/nz-wants-a-high-tech-future-its-proposed-physics-curriculum-may-make-that-harder-288921

PhysicsOtago

23/08/2026

🧊 Fancy a cold plunge?

🥶 Neither, but not because I'm a wuss – because School of Physical Education, Sport, and Exercise Sciences lecturer Dr Jim Cotter says the widely promoted health claims remain unproven.

“The actual evidence around demonstrated effects like lowering blood pressure, anti-inflammatory effects, altering brain function or improving fat metabolism to help weight loss are not really supported yet," he says.

To see Jim pour more cold water on the ice bath idea, visit the NZ Herald website 👇

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/northern-advocate/news/northlander-embraces-icy-cold-plunge-craze-even-during-wintry-blast/6FLRHCF5RZFE3KJFDAWLWJAO3M/

School of Physical Education Sport & Exercise Sciences, University of Otago