Botany Curator Heidi Meudt and colleagues have published a paper on what is special about the diversification of plants on islands, based on an investigation of the five best-studied island archipelagos, including New Zealand. Read on to find out more about their findings on the role of whole genome duplication – also known as polyploidy – in these island floras.Read more

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Recently, Curator Invertebrates Entomology Dr Julia Kasper re-discovered a box of audio tapes stored alongside our entomology collection. They were recorded by Sir Charles Fleming in his pioneering study of our country’s cicadas in the 1960s and 70s. Intern Finlay Dempster explains the significance of these audio tapes and the man who made them.Read more

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In: Science
An old fashioned billboard stand in front of large rocks. In the billboard are three photos, each of a man with a plastic bag over his head, making three different faces, each suggesting a struggle. In front is an oversized soft drink bottle and a small astronaut

Paris Collage Collective is an online community of collage makers, who respond to regular creative challenges. Over the past couple of years, a lot of those challenges have used photos from our collections. In light of a recent collaboration, Petra Zehner from Paris Collage Collective talks to Senior Digital Editor Daniel Crichton-Rouse.Read more

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In: Collections Online

NZSL, or New Zealand Sign Language, is one of New Zealand’s three official languages. As the NZSL Act reflects, it’s a distinct language, with its own grammar, not a signed version of a spoken language – English, in fact, is a second language for many Deaf people. Yet NZSL has been largely invisible in our cultural landscape.

Te Papa now has its own NZSL Mobile Guide, a new mobile-optimised web application for Deaf visitors and online audiences. Digital Producer Amos Mann takes us through the project.Read more

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In: Behind the scenes

Do you dream? Do you know why you dream? What even are dreams? Dr Rosie Gibson, Senior Lecturer at the Sleep/Wake Research Centre, Massey University dives into the surreal worlds that we inhabit while we sleep.Read more

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In: Science

Tapa, or barkcloth, is an important textile in the Pacific. Tapa is made from the beaten inner bark of some plant species, but once the tapa is made then identifying which plant species was used is difficult. Our genetics researcher Lara Shepherd teamed up with Catherine Smith from the University of Otago and colleagues to create a DNA reference database for identifying the plants used to make tapa.Read more

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In: Māori, Pacific, Science