Newsfront

NATIONAL SCIENCE AND RESEARCH INVESTMENT STRATEGY RELEASED BY GOVERNMENT

Stuff, 5 Oct 2015

The Government is hoping to attract more private money into science and improve how public science grants are spent. Science and Innovation Minister Steven Joyce released the Government's National Statement of Science Investment, its first national science strategy, in Wellington on Monday.

Joyce said the strategy was to support New Zealand's “very proud history” of science and innovation. It would include redesigning of the sector-specific research funds run by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, which will be consolidated into a single “more agile” fund.

As part of the overhaul, the Government will now produce three-yearly investment plans to signal how, when and why it will make investments. Close scrutiny of what investments are and aren't working was also expected, with annual system performance reports introduced.

Joyce said the changes would make the Government's priorities clearer, while collecting better data on the benefits of science and research.

“All this is about driving better use of the resources we've got, getting better performance measures, then being able to take to Cabinet and the Government a strong, empirical argument for an increase to what's already been strong investment.”

Joyce said the Government wanted to “scale up” its funding for public research from $1.5 billion, about 0.65 per cent of GDP, to the OECD average of 0.8 per cent. However, it also wanted private sector investment in research and development to grow to one per cent of GDP by 2025.

“If we're really going to be ensuring that our innovative companies compete and succeed on the world stage, we've got to get our business sector through to around one per cent of GDP.”

As part of the strategy, the International Relationships Fund, used to connect our scientists with overseas counterparts, has been redesigned and renamed the Catalyst Fund. While its annual funding of $9.3 million will not be increased, Joyce said changes to the fund would allow it to respond better to “emerging opportunities”.

Joyce said the Government also wanted to review core funding of Crown Research Institutes, as it was “probably the funding that has the least strings attached to anybody”.

“We effectively write a cheque about once a year to each of the CRIs and say, ‘Do your best, come back and tell us what you've spent the money on'.”

Plans to establish new regional research institutes specialising in certain sectors, as well as a “strategic refresh” of the Health Research Council, also formed part of the strategy.

Labour science and innovation spokesman David Cunliffe criticised the strategy's lack of ambition.

“There's not enough meat in the sandwich. Typically what you see with Steven Joyce is pretty documents that pull together a lot of stuff that's going on anyway.

While the Government's rhetoric around increasing private R&D investment was welcome, Cunliffe said the strategy lacked anything “that would either incentivise or force a change” to the status quo.

Scientists and others in the sector had told Cunliffe they did not feel listened to during the consultation process, with particular concern about a shortage of funding for postdoctoral fellowships that had not been addressed.

Royal Society president Professor Richard Bedford said the Government's strategy was a “very different document” from a draft statement released last year, and had addressed concerns about a lack of focus on “discovery-led research”.

PRAYER TREATMENT FOR ADDICTS

Stuff, 6 Oct 2015

Prayer is successfully treating alcohol and drug addiction in the Waikato, according to an independent report on a Salvation Army programme.

The Otago University study on the Bridge Programme, which treats 1000 people annually in the Central North Island, also found the programme's recovery rates matched leading national and international treatment programmes.

Dr Tess Patterson, from the university's department of psychological medicine, and Dr Julien Gross, from the psychology department, shared the findings of their research at a Salvation Army symposium in Hamilton on Tuesday. The researchers found an awareness of generic spirituality, not necessarily religion, improved outcomes for participants and that the vast majority of clients valued the role of spirituality in the programme.

Facilitating spiritual well-being , researchers said, improved outcomes for those on the Bridge Programme, which was run in partnership in the Central North Island with health boards in the Bay of Plenty, Lakes, Taranaki, Tairawhiti and Waikato districts and Ministry of Health funding.

“We all know that spirituality, for a number of years, has been known to be important,” Gross said. “Health professionals normally underestimate it. Clients say it's the critical thing.”

The doctors, with four Otago University colleagues, asked 478 Bridge Programme clients aged 20 to 73 if they could be studied for a year and 382 consented. Of those, 65 per cent were male and 66 per cent were of European descent.

“These people were problematic users at the high end,” Patterson said. Of those, 24 per cent met the criteria for major depression and 14 per cent for other types of depression.

A small number said the Bridge Programme, which people were referred to by health professionals and sometimes referred themselves, has no impact on their spirituality. Others said it was important and their spirituality had changed over the programme.

“It built more spirituality,” one participant said. “It made me see better things in life than alcohol.”

The programme in the Waikato is run through the Salvation Army's Addiction Services in Hamilton and in the Bay of Plenty through its Tauranga Addiction Services. It employs 40 health professionals in the Central North Island.

Salvation Army Waikato/Midland Bridge Programme director Rob Revan said some clients used a communitybased day programme while others required residential treatment.

“Everything is running at capacity,” he said. “With this research we will look at how we can do better.”

The study found clients who completed treatment experienced a statistically significant reduction in harmful substance use and improvements in their physical and mental health. There were also improvements in clients' perceived quality of life and a reduction in criminal activity and other negative consequences related to substance use.

“Spirituality is a key component of the Bridge Programme,” researchers said. “It is expressed through Recovery Church, prayer, spirituality lifters... other, more subtle spiritual aspects of the programme include a focus on meaning and purpose beyond addiction.”

Recovery Church is a service aimed at recovering addicts.

‘INTO THE RIVER' BAN LIFTED BY FILM AND LITERATURE BOARD

Stuff, 14 Oct 2015

The New Zealand Film and Literature Board has lifted the ban on Ted Dawe's controversial teen novel Into the River. In a decision that was far from unanimous, the president of the board expressed the collective felt the actions of the censor were “illegal”.

Board president Don Mathieson delivered a dissenting minority report but the remainder of the board voted to allow the book to be sold without restriction, saying a previous ban on under-14s was no longer justified.

The conservative campaign group Family First are outraged at the decision, with national director Bob McCoskrie describing the ruling a “loss” for New Zealand families.

Award-winning author Ted Dawe on the other hand, couldn't be more “thrilled” and “delighted” by the decision. “This whole thing has been so entrenched in politics with all the publicity, in many ways I feel as though it's the end of the line for the book now. It can finally do it's job, what it was always supposed to do.

“I believe in freedom of speech, and freedom of expression. Everybody should hold an opinion. Family First are entitled to theirs, just as I am to mine. I don't subscribe to theirs, but they're certainly entitled to one,” said Dawe. “Many argued that an R-14 restriction wasn't a ban at all. Of course it was a ban, it was restricting readership. If you're restricting the reader, nobody's going to read it.”

Dawe, who felt the ban and subsequent politics surrounding his book detracted from the novel itself, was initially “surprised” by Family First's extreme reaction.

“As an artist, it's our job to hold a mirror up to society. It's not always what we want to see. We have no problem criticising Australia, criticising their history, particularly regarding race relations, yet when it comes to here at home, we expect a very PR version of our own country.”

MYSTERIOUS BUBBLES SPOTTED IN WAIKATO RIVER

Stuff, 19 Oct 2015

An unexplained bubbling in the middle of Waikato River has kept many Facebook users guessing. But the mystery has been solved without a jet ski, or taniwha in sight.

A minute-long video captured by Martin Smith showed a sudden spurt of bubbles in the middle of the river, near The Point in Ngaruawahia. The video has been seen about 160,000 times by Monday morning and shared just over 3000, according to Facebook.

The bow fisherman was stumped as to what it could be - although after he posted his video on Facebook he got suggestions including a freshwater whale.

But the real cause is more mundane: routine cleaning linked to the water treatment plant, the Waikato District Council said.

Smith caught sight of the river's unusual behaviour on his way to work on Saturday morning when he looked back from the nearby bridge.

“Initially I thought it was a jet ski, how they nose dive a jet ski into the water and blow the water back up,” he said. “When I never saw anything come up I did a U-turn and went back. I actually thought I'd witnessed a boat going under.”

After watching the bubbles a couple of times the Ngaruawahia resident of about eight years decided it was like nothing he'd ever seen, despite frequent bow fishing at The Point.

He went home for his camera and uploaded the footage later the same day. “I just wanted to know if anyone had seen it before and knew what it was,” he said. “There's been all sorts of speculation on taniwhas, submarines, fresh water whales, bull sharks, you name it.”

He was amazed at the response, which included hundreds of friend requests from people he didn't know.

Smith was later told by the Waikato District Council that it was a more practical reason: the water treatment plant.

“The filter is being backwashed,” waters manager Martin Mould said. “This is standard operational practice and a regular occurrence when cleaning the pipes, so nothing unusual or untoward.”

The backwashing happened twice each day automatically, for about 30 seconds each time, but it could happen more regularly if monitoring showed it was needed, he said. The bubbling often happened at the Huntly treatment plant, but it couldn't be seen by public.

Smith said the bubbling was occurring every five or ten minutes on the day he took the video.

“It's hard case because I spoke to a number of people that have lived here all their lives and they've never seen it... It's just one of those things - you've got to be there to see it.”

And the element of mystery in the video had caught people's attention, Smith thought.

“If people had realised what it was straight away, I don't think it would have reached the numbers [of views] that it did,” he said. “The mystery's solved and the views are dying back.”

MORE STRANGE SIGHTINGS ABOVE KAIKOURA

Kaikoura Star, 26 Oct 2015

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a drone, microlight, helicopter or balloon? Not according to Kaikoura resident Debbie Smith who inadvertently photographed the strange phenomenon over the skies last week.

Smith was taking a photo to help with an oil painting. It was not until much later, while going through the photos on her computer, that she realised she had captured two unusual objects in the picture.

“The distance I was standing was so far away that it would be far too big to be a drone. Neither object appears immediately before or after in the sequence of photos I took, and no balloon could move so quickly out of frame.” She did not hear any noise at the time, and she would have noticed if it had been a regular moving object like a bird, Smith said.

“Whatever it is, it must have moved fast.”

She contacted Tauranga's UFOCUS group who were very excited when they saw the photo and sent it on to a technical guru for analysis.

Kaikoura's resident astronomer, retired Canterbury University professor Larry Field, inspected the image and even after some image enhancement admitted it looked a bit strange.

It did not conform to the standard drone that looked like a flying saucer because the gear was on top rather than underneath, he said.

This was not the first time Kaikoura's skies had been the subject of such debate - the Kaikoura Lights were famously spotted in December 1978 by a cargo aircraft as well as an Australian TV crew.

In April 2012, things got exciting again with numerous sightings of a strange floating light, until that was debunked, the lights turning out to be paper lanterns. Then in December 2013, footage of an object flying over the peninsula was posted on YouTube by photographer Martin Kantor. In the end it was presumed to be a bumblebee flying close to the water.

NATURAL HEALTH STORE ‘MISLEADS CONSUMERS OVER HOMEOPATHY'

Voxy, 17 Nov 2015

The Advertising Standards Authority has ruled that ads for homeopathy from New Zealand natural health store HealthPost were misleading.

The Society for Science Based Healthcare complained about three advertisements from HealthPost. The ASA has released its decision to uphold two of these complaints, and to settle the third after the misleading claims identified in the complaint were removed.

The upheld complaints were about two homeopathic products, “Cramp-Stop” and “Colic Calm”.

HealthPost had advertised Cramp-Stop as being able to prevent and treat muscle cramp. Neither HealthPost nor the manufacturer of Cramp-Stop, NZ Natural Formulas, was able to supply credible evidence for the claims. The ASA ruled:

as no substantiation had been provided to support the strong therapeutic claims made, or adequate evidence to support the comparative claim, the original advertisement was likely to mislead the consumer.

Colic Calm was advertised as being proven effective in treating colic. However, neither HealthPost nor Colic Calm's manufacturer were able to supply evidence to back their claims up. As such, the Advertising Standards Authority ruled that:

as no substantiation had been provided to support the efficacy of the product in helping a “baby's digestive system adjust to new foods and help relieve stomach upset caused by infant teething” it was likely to mislead the consumer.

The complainant, Daniel Ryan, says “It's disappointing that these products have been misleading consumers and exploiting their lack of knowledge that these are nothing more than the placebo effect.” Ryan further notes he was happy with the outcome of the complaint, and hopes to see more upheld complaints against bad health claims for homeopathy.

The ASA also settled one and upheld two other complaints from the Society for Science Based Healthcare, regarding misleading claims in health ads.

Complaints against homeopathic business Healing Haven and New Zealand online pharmacy Pharmacy Direct, which was advertising ear candles, were upheld.

HealthPost removed strong health claims about a product called Noni Juice when it became clear they were not supported by evidence, resulting in the complaint being settled.

A complaint regarding misleading claims made by Red Seal about dental fluorosis in an ad for their fluoride-free toothpaste was settled, when they removed the claim voluntarily.