Annette Taylor

Psychics get credit for body discovery Two psychic mediums have been credited with helping to find the body of a Stratford man who drowned in the Patea River last September (Taranaki Daily News, 1 ... (1259 words)

Magnetic claims challenged Online claims that magnetic wrist and ankle bands have therapeutic benefits have had to be removed following a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority (NZ Herald, ... (1234 words)

Annette Taylor has personal experience of a phenomenon that lies behind many tales of ghosts, demonic possession, and alien abduction. I was asleep. Marley, our cat, was faster asleep by my side. ... (757 words)

His name is Gold, he describes himself as a post- goth Discordian web developer, and one day soon he hopes to be homeless. He' s also the new chair entity of NZ Skeptics. Annette Taylor finds out ... (1257 words)

After 17 years as chair-entity of the NZ Skeptics, Vicki Hyde has stepped down. Annette Taylor talks to her about life, the universe and taniwhas. Vicki Hyde can't quite remember who came up with the ... (1406 words)

Supernatural forces on the increase Spirits are increasingly making their presence felt in New Zealand, spurred on by celebrity ghost whisperers, says the Manawatu Standard (12 April). A recent ... (1266 words)

Annette Taylor learns it's not enough to have your cake, you have to test it too. The Yuletide has well and truly washed up at our place, much food has been eaten and we are still in recovery mode, ... (520 words)

I had a dream. One of those ones which are slightly alarming in that they come true. In my dream a friend happily announced she was pregnant and when I chanced to bump into her the next day, she told ... (414 words)

Elephants in Loch Ness? Nessie's an elephant, says a leading British palaeontologist (Dominion Post, 7 March). Neil Clark, curator of palaeontology at Glasgow University's Hunterian Museum, spent two ... (1184 words)

In retrospect, it was a cunning move to give us each a Hopi ear candle. Wrapped in pretty cellophane, the little beeswax treats - if used correctly - would ensure people would be in prime mental ... (455 words)

Given his ratings, only a tiny handful of you probably saw Paul Holmes in his new slot on Prime a few weeks back, talking to Don Maisch, described as an Australian expert on the health effects of ... (484 words)

A couple of months ago we were visiting my brother, and got talking about a friend of his, who had enrolled in a counselling course. It turned out that the course had come to be dominated by some ... (460 words)

Astrology Romps into the Bedroom It had to happen, I guess. A new book, Sextrology: The Astrology of Sex and the Sexes, written by New York astrologers Stella Starsky and (wince) Quinn Cox gets a ... (1004 words)

It was a dark and stormy night. But (almost) without flinching we set off to hear Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist Kevin Grazier speaking about the Cassini mission to Saturn. During the talk (see ... (373 words)

A Waikato University website on evolution has received overwhelmingly positive feedback from teachers, says biological sciences lecturer Alison Campbell. "We held a teacher meeting in April for the ... (671 words)

I've just witnessed a miracle. Probably. On January 2 I took part in a trip to the outer Hauraki Gulf to search for a bird that until recently had not been seen since the nineteenth century. Three ... (414 words)

Dying is Bad for Business An Auckland law firm was going to court late last year (Dominion Post, November 1) to block the opening of a funeral parlour opposite it. Death (or dealing with it) offends ... (1267 words)

Had an email the other day from someone we hadn't heard from in a while. Among other things, he took the opportunity to ask why we heard so little from the Skeptics in the media, and made ... (381 words)

These are nervous times. By an astounding coincidence, as I wrote that line and paused to think of what to put next, I had a call from a friend to tell me there was a Sars case at the Waikato ... (425 words)

For almost half a century, it's seemed like human destiny to go into Space. When we were kids, everyone wanted to be an astronaut when they grew up. The loss of the Columbia space shuttle hasn't ... (517 words)

Biokinetic Horror Show A Hamilton doctor is facing two charges of professional misconduct and one of disgraceful conduct after one of his patients was left looking "like something out of a horror ... (1131 words)

Hamilton is a progressive place where the difficult issues are tackled. Rather than being a cow town (we're not! we're not!), we sit around of a Friday evening and debate the Big Questions. We had a ... (446 words)

Justice at Last Two recent items in the overseas press show that NZ is lagging behind in recognising that the child sex abuse panic has been greatly overblown. In a case which closely paralleled the ... (723 words)

With winter almost upon us, the time has come to curl up in front of a nice screen and browse the internet. Speaking of which, congratulations are in order to our chair-entity Vicki Hyde and media ... (342 words)

Dummy pills just the trick The best paper in New Zealand (Waikato Times, May 6 - and it's got nothing to do with the fact that I work there) reports that depressed patients tricked into thinking they ... (614 words)

It was sad to see - two shelves of Lynley Hood's A City Possessed, heavily discounted at Whitcoulls. Released only last October it hasn't taken long for the book to hit the bargain bin. Perhaps it ... (373 words)

Blairs 'rebirthed' Tony Blair and Cherie took part in a 'rebirthing ritual' during a holiday in Mexico, says the Dominion (17 December). They were guided through the ritual while dipping in a Mayan ... (743 words)

It wasn't a dark and stormy night but a gaggle of skeptics got together recently to listen to ghost stories in Hamilton. Professional story teller Andrew Wright sent shivers down the groups' ... (438 words)

The placebo effect has long been of interest to skeptics for its presumed role in alternative medicine. The Skeptics' Dictionary (http://www.skepdic.com) has a lengthy entry, describing a placebo as ... (527 words)

My brain hurts. I haven't used it in some years, so there's no surprise really. After managing to avoid external employment for a goodly time, a job has finally got its teeth into me and won't let ... (544 words)

A Spell Away From School I wished I'd tried this one when I was at Gisborne Girl's High. An Oklahoma student has been suspended from school for casting a spell against a teacher, reports the Dominion ... (1199 words)

Another year, another millennium. We saw the old century out in a very quiet manner, watching Stanley Kubrick's 2001 with friends in Auckland. A few fireworks exploded from the top of the Sky Tower ... (515 words)

It was a Ngatea farmer who finally got to Doug Edmeades on an Autumn day in 1985. Then employed as a scientist for the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (MAF) Dr Edmeades had amassed a ... (263 words)

It's all over - the cheering and clapping are fading and the crowds have all returned home, with thoughts about the next one. I am, of course, not talking about that sporting thing on the TV from ... (446 words)

Taking a leaf from the UK Skeptic, we're turning our news clippings into a column. Which means I get to read them - never used to before! Many thanks to all those who've sent in material, and please ... (1180 words)

Many moons ago I packed into a dimmed lecture theatre along with 400 other keen-eyed stage I psych students to listen to a presentation on psychic ability. The mood was festive - it was almost the ... (466 words)

That was never six months just then -- it felt much longer. Banised to the depths of New Zealand, in Tuatapere (almost as far south west as you can get in the South Island), life took on a gentler ... (517 words)

Hedgehogs do not impale fruit with their prickles and run away with it, nor do they steal the milk from slow-witted cows. These are just two of the unsubstantiated rumours and misconceptions that ... (679 words)

Winter is here, and it's time for all good skeptics to heed the call and flock to Auckland for the annual conference, where illuminating conversation and inspired addresses await. And then the same ... (646 words)

IT'S A funny old world, I was thinking to myself on the way home from coffee with a friend. Except, it wasn't coffee, it was decaff, and, to add insult, instant. During which she'd helped me to a ... (653 words)

EVERYTHING was roses and buttercups until that fateful day. An omen, it was, for sure. In July, on Friday, only 17 days before the 13th, we had born on our humble dairy farm a calfie. She had four ... (597 words)

IT'S a damned rotten trick, I know, but I rang up my mum and asked her a simple question, does the Earth go round the Sun, or is it the other way around? She wasn't sure, but felt the most obvious, ... (713 words)

IT'S nothing short of a miracle that this issue has made it to the mailbox. For the last six months the family, including our cat and retired cattle dog, have been living in a small housetruck. (Just ... (633 words)

THERE'S no denying it. We're a strange lot. Sitting in the small hall during the annual Skeptics get-together and listening to the varied, and often colourful, discussion, it struck me how dissimilar ... (615 words)

Annette Taylor spends an afternoon checking out the alternatives. IF THERE was any doubt as to whether we'd found the right place, the music drifting on the wind guaranteed we were approaching ... (844 words)

IT'S BEEN a quiet old time in the Waikato, these past few months. My cat hasn't channelled any past lives, nor has she been abducted by aliens. I suspect, though, the little green guys made off with ... (605 words)

THE other day I was doing a spot of painting with the help of a friend. She was telling me about a fancy dress party she'd gone to, and how some friends had dressed up all in green, as aliens. "They ... (598 words)

The other night, after a particularly fine feed of nachos, my friend pulled out her numerology book and proceeded to do my chart. I'd done some things wrong in a past life, and there were a number of ... (775 words)