Signposts - a blog about Te Ara the Encyclopedia of New Zealand

Maybe it’s a sign that summer has finally arrived — a couple of short comments we’ve recently received from Te Ara users have been about insects.

Giant dragonfly

Giant dragonfly shopper

Blair McLauchlan sent in the above picture and says:

Today, 4 February 2010, a colleague bought a set of shelves from a store in Tory St, downtown Wellington. As he tried to leave, a frighteningly big dragonfly scared him by ‘buzzing’ him and then insisting on landing on him, and then his purchase.

He took a quick photo with his cellphone camera.

Black pine beetle infestation

Robin Roche’s insect problem is more ongoing, and more annoying:

We live in Whakamaru and this year we have had an infestation of black pine beetles. They come into the house just on dusk, through any opening and carry on for a couple of hours. We have never had this before and are wondering why.

If you know anything about black pine beetles, and can give Robin some advice, please leave a comment below.

Brian Mason

Expatriate scientist Brian Mason died in Washington DC in December 2009, aged 92.

Appointed Curator of Meteorites at the Smithsonian Institution in 1965, he examined and described more than 7,000 meteorites in the last 40 years – probably more than anyone else has ever looked at. Although he officially retired in 1984, he continued to work at the Smithsonian until a few months before his death.

With a long-term love of travel, Dr Mason led an adventurous life, starting with climbing in the Southern Alps during his student days in the late 1930s. Awarded a postgraduate scholarship to study overseas in 1939, he rejected the conventional path to Oxford or Cambridge, and elected to study the new science of geochemistry under Professor Victor Goldschmidt in Oslo. He was only there for a few months in early 1940 before the German invasion, and he was lucky to escape to Sweden, where he completed his PhD.

Appointed Curator of Mineralogy at the American Museum of Natural History in 1953, he was in charge of one of the world’s most spectacular mineral collections. His introduction to meteorites came when he found the large collection of meteorites in boxes filling the corridors, waiting for him to sort them out. Later, his book Meteorites became a standard text.

Brian Mason returned to New Zealand many times and wrote a number of papers on geological topics. Indeed, many local scientists knew him through his New Zealand research, and were unaware of his overseas work in geochemistry and meteorite science. He was always disappointed that so few meteorites had been found in New Zealand.

An admirer of the American tradition of philanthropy, Dr Mason established a number of trust funds at Canterbury Museum and the University of Canterbury, as well as setting up the Brian Mason Scientific & Technical Trust.

Recently published obituaries reflect different sides of his career. Not surprisingly, the one published in the Washington Post emphasises his work on meteorites at the Smithsonian, while that on the Royal Society of New Zealand website has information on the New Zealand side of his career. The University of Canterbury notes his long-term connection with the Department of Geological Sciences, while a memorial by the Canterbury Mountaineering Club notes his long term membership and generous financial support in rebuilding the Park Morpeth hut (where he sheltered after a climbing accident in 1934).

Brian Mason’s life is described in an autobiographical memoir, From Mountains to Meteorites, published by the Geological Society of New Zealand in 2001.

Rosemary Du Plessis

Now that Te Ara is about to launch our Economy and the City theme, it is time to introduce Rosemary Du Plessis, the editor of our next theme – Social Connections. Rosemary has been with us for the past year, drawing up the entry list, inviting contributors and now turning her expert eye to the entries flooding in.

Rosemary comes to us from Christchurch, where she lives on the Port Hills looking out over that wonderful plain to the Southern Alps. She has taught sociology for many years at the University of Canterbury. Involved in teaching hundreds of first year students, she has learned to make New Zealand’s social history, social change and its organisational structures accessible and interesting. She sympathises with Te Ara’s desire to make accurate research-based scholarship easily understood by our users.

But university teaching and research are just a small part of her rich professional career. Rosemary has strong connections with local community organisations and national associations such as the Women’s Studies Association, and has made distinguished contributions to the New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO, the Royal Society of New Zealand and the Toi te Taiao: the Bioethics Council. Not surprisingly, she writes, ‘I am fundamentally interested in how knowledge in the social sciences can be used to make sense of people’s lives, and inform both policy and the actions of individuals.’

Rosemary has contributed to many cross-disciplinary projects, most recently on a project ‘Constructive Conversations/Kōrero Whakaaetanga‘, where she learned much from work with Māori researchers. At UNESCO she collaborated with Māori and Pacific scholars questioning dominant ideas about knowledge, ethics and research. So she is sympathetic to Te Ara’s desire to involve and represent all the cultures of this country.

Rosemary has also had extensive experience as an editor, working on books and special issues of journals. In the time she has been with us she has already proved to be an outstanding wielder of the red pen, ensuring that our entries are clear, lively and accurate.

If it sounds as if we are extraordinarily pleased with ourselves to have Rosemary helming the Social Connections theme, then we’re happy to plead guilty. We hope you enjoy the fruits of her labours over the next year as we begin to release some great entries about the families, groups and relationships which make up New Zealand society.

Te Ara's new homepage

We’ve just launched the new Te Ara homepage, and we’re very proud.

Heath, our lead designer, blogged recently about our new homepage and other improvements you can expect on Te Ara this year. But now that it’s live, let’s have a wee tour.

The first thing you’ll notice – apart from how much more attractive it is – is the bigger, better featured-entry slideshow at the top. You’ll also notice that the page is much less brown.

Perhaps the biggest change is that the ‘Browse Te Ara’ Flash tool (we just call it our ‘browser’) isn’t immediately obvious. But it isn’t gone – just click the ‘Browse Te Ara’ button (right below the featured image, and next to the search box), and the ‘browser’ jauntily slides down. From here you can browse Te Ara’s entries by A–Z, by theme or by topic, and also you can browse ‘Your stories’ (stories contributed by members of the community) and entries that are translated into Te Reo Māori. Even better, the browser button is available at the top of every page of Te Ara.

You’ll also notice some new things down the side of the homepage:

• a new improved ‘Don’t miss’, where we feature one of our favourite resources (photos, videos, interactives, sound files and more)
• ways to contribute a story or subscribe to our newsletter
• a snippet of our latest blog post
• a slideshow of interesting things (this currently includes our most popular resource: Mr Blobfish).

Back in the main part of the homepage, you’ll find the ‘What’s inside…’ section, which shows the themes we already have in Te Ara. If you’re a frequent Te Ara user, this will be very familiar to you, and is a major way that people navigate through the encyclopedia. Below that you’ll find featured links from our sister sites NZLive.com and NZHistory.net.

And probably my favourite thing about our new homepage (apart from the lack of brown) is the thumbnails of photos that have been recently added to our Te Ara Flickr pool – a sneak peek at the photographic riches you’ll find there.

I hope you’ll love it as much as we do.

The sandfly menace

Sandflies and mosquitoes almost missed out being in Te Ara. We were just finishing The Bush theme when I happened to spend a few nights tramping near Blackball. The rata were in full flower and the views were glorious, but, boy, did we suffer from those huge fat West Coast sandflies and mossies!

Slowly the thought dawned – how could we present the New Zealand bush to the world and not tell people about the blood-suckers to be found there. So Carl Walrond sat down and wrote a great little entry on sandflies and mosquitoes.

The subject continues to attract interest. We have just received this comment from Mary Hallowell from Seattle, who seems to have suffered from them long after she left the South Island. This is her story – can you answer her questions?

I visited South Island, NZ in late November, returning to my home in Seattle, WA, USA, on Dec 1. I felt one severe itch on my hand and saw a tiny red mark before leaving NZ.

After I got home, more and more of these dreadfully itchy spots began to appear, mostly on my legs. I counted 15 on my left leg and probably 6–8 on my right leg. I could not resist scratching, undoubtedly making some of the spots worse. Our NZ guide said she thought these were sandfly bites, though I never saw an insect nor felt them bite at the time. The bites increased for some time, and the itching lasted most of December. I still have small bumps and scars where the spots were.

Is it actually possible that one or more of these little creatures could have travelled home with me in my clothing, or been concealed on my body somewhere? It seems astonishing to me that they could have lived that long. I do not believe I have any serious long term effects, but I would certainly like clarification on how this all could have occurred.