an explanation of blog name

The toaroa is a shell fish found buried beneath the sands of New Zealand's coastal beaches (or should I say Aotearoa's beaches). Because they are such rare delicacies and consequently were for a long while plundered mercilessly, the toaroa was some 60 years ago in serious danger of becoming extinct and accordingly became protected by a law prescribing very limited times of year at which they could be dug-up. They remain protected to this day.

So why as a new blogger have I chosen to call my site after this exquisit antipodean shellfish?

First, one of the enduring memories of childhood on Waitarere, a delightful beach on the west coast of New Zealand some 70 miles North of Wellington, was the annual harvest of toaroa to allow my mother to make her delicious version of toaroa soup.

Second, despite their size, anything from 100 to 200 mm in length, they were devilishly difficult to locate. They were typically buried beneath 100 to 200 mm of sand and the only way of locating their position was a small tell-tail depression on the surface. Torn finger nails and bloody fingers were occupational hazards while digging them out as their smaller cousins - the pipi - protected them by getting in the way of the dig.

And third, the toaroa is a gorgeous creation of evolution and as far as I know unique to the shores of New Zealand.

I hope the toaroa will provide a metaphor for one of the aims of this blog - namely, to try and uncover the delights of science (well some restricted areas of science at anyrate) and encourage open dialogue of some of the issues that conventional science publishing seems more and more to be preventing from happening. This was brought home to me when thinking about a suitable outlet for sharing some observations and musings as to the possible causes of some curious ice rings that had formed on the ice sheet covering the Central Park Reservoir in New York during the recent blizards that hit the eastern seaboard of USA. In a later blog I will try to elaborate on these observations and musings. But in a way (if I can be excused for the pun) this was the tip of the iceberg. For some time I have, to a large extent unsuccessfully, been trying to suggest new ways of explaining certain natural and man made morphologies that appear to be incompletely understood. But have you ever tried to publish outside of your comfort zone? It is not easy. Like the toaroa many science disciplines have well and truly buried themselves away from all interferring outside influences. Like the toaroa their disciples protect themselves with a pipi-like protective shells. So I hope too that this blog will encourage discussion of all those aspects of the social/political organisation of science that are currently working against its true development.

So I have set an ambitious agenda for the toaroa blog. More to follow.