Glenn Banks

7.30 pm Tuesday, 23 June, Palmerston North Central Library, George Street, Palmerston North

Deep-sea mining (DSM)—once the realm of Jules Verne—is closer to becoming a technological, economic and political reality. Governments and corporations are increasingly promoting extraction from the ocean floor, driven in large part by growing demand for “critical minerals” such as nickel, cobalt, and rare earth elements needed for the global transition away from fossil fuels.

This talk explores three interrelated issues: emerging technologies and proposals for deep-sea mining in the Pacific, the geopolitics of the seabed, and the prospects for seabed mining in the waters around Aotearoa New Zealand. Along the way, it asks a central question: can deep-sea mining support a just, sustainable energy transition, or does it risk creating new environmental, economic and geopolitical challenges?

Glenn Banks is a Professor of Geography at Massey University with more than 35 years’ experience in the minerals sector in the Pacific. Most recently he worked with Forest and Bird on the TransTasman Resources proposal to mine the seabed off South Taranaki.

All welcome!

David Chagné

7.30 pm Tuesday, 19 May, Palmerston North Central Library, George Street, Palmerston North

David Chagné’s research uses genomics for developing fundamental knowledge and new tools for fruit trees and taonga species. His work has led to understanding the genetic control of many traits that are important to fruit tree growers and consumers such as disease resistance, fruit colour, texture and flavour.  His work on taonga species (mānuka, swamp maire, karaka) embraces new ways of working with, and for, Māori by embedding tikanga, Te Tiriti with co-innovation. David Chagné will present about his work on mānuka genetic diversity, to support regional provenance trademarking for honey, as well as the restoration of an endangered tree species in the Manawatū (swamp maire).

John Buckleton

7.30 pm Tuesday, 21 April, Palmerston North Central Library, George Street, Palmerston North

The advent of DNA revolutionised forensic science. Questioning has transitioned to how and when the DNA got there.  Most commonly an innocent pathway for DNA transfer is proposed. This is termed Activity Level Evaluation because it considers the activity that deposited the DNA. Since about 2022 this has become a matter of intense heated debate in the US. Some argue that there is no method by which one can infer which of two different transfer routes makes the findings more probable. Using a murder of a young woman in Texas, I will outline some of the issues.

John Buckleton FRSNZ is a Principal Scientists at the New Zealand Institute for Public Health and Forensic Science (PHF Science). He has had a long involvement in forensic science in New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. He is one the developers of STRmix, a software package for the interpretation of forensic evidence that contains DNA from more than one person. That package has now been used in over 700,000 cases worldwide. The STRmix team won the Prime Minister’s Science Prize in 2018.