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theobrominated.bsky.social
Retired botanist, now focusing 📷 on flower biology. New book "He Puāwai, a natural history of New Zealand flowers", ~October 2025 (Auckland University Press), illustrated with >500 stereo pairs. Whakatū, Aotearoa. orcid.org/0000-0002-2539-4152
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I've spent the morning imagining what Aotearoa could be like as a sandbox for techbro billionnaires to test their dystopian ideas in. Gotta say I'm not happy about it.

submitted 5 hours ago • 1 comment

… the *current* high water mark …

submitted 9 hours ago • 2 comments

When powerful men call Aotearoa a "sandbox," ask: who’s being experimented on? Whose data, health, and rights are at stake? Tech deregulation in the name of “investment” puts women, tangata whenua, and marginalised communities at risk. #OnlineHarms #nzpol

submitted 21 hours ago • 12 comments

And it’s not a fair comparison. Sole traders and businesses can and do control what their income is for tax purposes.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Tory for PM ir

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

I was working in the library this morning and a woman nearby started coughing. Then she said, “I feel SO cold!” and I was out of there in a flash.

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

I want New Zealand to at least suspend its membership of Five Eyes. We shouldn't be complicit in this.

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

It’s a good thing Congress isn’t alive to see this

submitted 4 days ago • 817 comments

NZ *must* decouple from the US regime. This is an open act of war by the US, an attempt to start WW3 & a war crime. It was pretty clear that this was the track Trump would take the US down and NZ should have moved FAR earlier. But it's existential now. We cannot be part of this.

submitted 4 days ago • 6 comments

WASF now.

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

A bit of retrospective glory for Mark's parents, Felix and Mimosa (who are long gone) and a bit obscure in AoNZ but glory nevertheless in the plant world. jury.co.nz/2025/06/22/a...

submitted 4 days ago • 3 comments

We need to stop pretending Luxon is being walked over by Seymour and Peters and acknowledge that he's using them for cover to do exactly what he wants. And he should suffer the same (electoral) consequences as them.

submitted 4 days ago • 6 comments

It's scary how aligned NZ and US policies are under these governments. We may be a small island nation at the bottom of the world but mark my words, it's the same forces that are driving racism, the war on nature, and degrading workers rights. There's just too much in common to be a coincidence.

submitted 5 days ago • 14 comments

I wish people would stop describing things that are indisputably provable as a matter of fact as "controversial." People not liking a fact doesn't mean the fact is controversial. Reality is not malleable around our beliefs and it shouldn't be. We need to stop acting like it is.

submitted 5 days ago • 47 comments

Street trees are one of the best long-term investments a city can make. (TheFigen_)

submitted 5 days ago • 3 comments

Ngā mihi o te tau hou Māori: te wā o Matariki, a time to pause, to mourn, to remember. A time to let go of those who have left us, and of ideas that no longer serve. A time for wānanga: to ask again: what are we doing, and who are we doing it for?

submitted 6 days ago • 3 comments

Mōrena Aotearoa NZ Mānawatia a Matariki #Matariki (Pleiades | Subaru) above That Wānaka Tree #NZ #Māori #Holiday #NewYear #Nikon #Photography

submitted 6 days ago • 20 comments

This feels a bit like when your child does something amazing and you feel like you want to take the credit but can't really. My new book Alchemy: An Illustrated History has arrived, and it looks *gorgeous*.

submitted 7 days ago • 22 comments

Publication Day! Moss Safari is Out in the Wild! Well, the day has finally arrived. After months (OK, years…) of researching, writing, editing, photographing, microscope-fiddling, and occasionally yelling at my laptop – Moss Safari: Exploring the Secret Life in Moss is officially published! It’s…

submitted 9 days ago • 1 comment

What is common knowledge in your field, but shocks outsiders? Tomatoes are berries; strawberries are not.

submitted 8 days ago • 1 comment

Man who claims he knows how things works blames the PM on Cabinet Collective decision & his own coalition partner NOW, was in that Cabinet. 2020 Arden’s govt won 50% vote to his 7% an affirming MANDATE in response to the Covid actions. Grow the F up Spanky. Emotional age of a fucking 12 year old.

submitted 9 days ago • 2 comments

People all over the place appear to have lost their entire minds about school closures during the pandemic rather than losing their entire minds about MILLIONS OF PEOPLE DYING DURING THE PANDEMIC What is wrong with everyone

submitted 9 days ago • 55 comments

If you're in organism science or taxonomy and even the littlest bit pro-generative-AI I am coming to your house to dump booklice on your floor. This technology is designed to remove the need for us to get paid in exchange for spitting out lower-quality work, what do some people not understand

submitted 10 days ago • 4 comments

If over 3.5% of the population march and supposing that really is a magical number that changes the government, what’s the democratic mechanism for that in the USA?

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

At least somebody likes our garden. This is a tahou (Zosterops lateralis) nest

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

We had a further back-and-forth with the New Zealand prime minister about NZs proposed methane target of 'no additional warming' that flies in the face of international climate pledges. It could be a disturbing precedent that actually moves us backwards on climate. www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...

submitted 12 days ago • 3 comments