I received an email earlier this week about a new Citizen Science Project called Planet 9.

formulating a "Christian response" to scientific studies on morality - developing a new model of biblical interpretation - relating themes from First Corinthians, a book in the Christian bible, to astrobiology - reconciling a potential astrobiology discovery with Christian theology - looking at how astrobiology would affect the Christian doctrine of redemption - examining Christian ethics and Christian doctrines of human obligation - looking at societal implications of astrobiology with "theological ethics" - writing a monograph on Christian forgiveness

Shaquille O'Neal gave his support to the flat earth conspiracy movement on a podcast recently. However, although many websites were quick to jump on this, it turns out that Shaq was just joking:

Mark Hanna of the Society for Science Based Healthcare and I had an exchange over IM a few months ago, where we realised that there are so many bad claims being made for alternative therapies that if you picked a random combination of condition and treatment, chances are high that someone in NZ is making illegal claims that the treatment can successfully treat the condition.

The NZ Census asks a question of respondents about Religious Affiliation. Historically, the only response available for non-believers has been "No Religion". NZ Stats have now added several categories in time for the next Census in 2018.

"I have no evidence of whether it is real or not real"

Back in 2009 Belle Gibson claimed she had cancer, and that she was treating it with "natural" remedies. She released a cookbook and iPhone app (called The Whole Pantry) helping others to use diet to treat medical conditions.

Six of us skeptics went along to Father John Rea's healing event on Tuesday in Tawa, Wellington. John is a well known healer in New Zealand, and he's appeared on my skeptical radar in the past for making claims about being able to treat cancer.

Anti-vaccination advocates in New Zealand have raised enough money to bring a screening of Vaxxed, a movie created by disgraced ex-doctor Andrew Wakefield and promoted by Robert de Niro, to New Zealand. The movie is an attempt to sow doubt about vaccines, and makes extensive use of secret audio recordings of CDC employee and "whistleblower" William Thompson.

A man from Nelson won $100,000 recently when his numbers came up in the lottery, and he'd purchased 12 tickets with the same numbers. Although this is touted as a lottery tactic, in the long run, on average, people using this method to play the lottery will win less than others, as any wins they have will result in a lower payout per ticket.

Homeopathic products are made by diluting a substance that causes similar symptoms to the condition they're meant to treat. In the case of Hyland's Teething Tablets, that substance is belladonna, also known as deadly nightshade. Wikipedia says that it's "one of the most toxic plants found in the Eastern Hemisphere".

I was messaged this week by someone who works near the new Scientology centre in Auckland. They told me that there are lots of Scientologists out on the streets at the moment, including outside the nearby hospital, trying to bring people into the church. The way they do this is quite disingenuous, normally starting with offering a free personality test - the Oxford Capacity Analysis test (nothing to do with Oxford University)

This is an argument I've never heard before against an idea I occasionally hear - that belief in science is just like religion, because it requires faith. In fact, I last heard this argument only a couple of weeks ago.

Vicki Latele, who was jailed for mortgage fraud, has had a tough time. She has cancer, and has had her stomach removed. It appears that the standard treatments, such as chemotherapy, have not helped her, and she's been released from prison on compassionate grounds.

Robert Hunt spoke on behalf of Creation Ministries International this morning at Upper Hutt Baptist Church.

Scientology are pushing to open new "Ideal Orgs" around the world, and Auckland's old Whitecliffe Art school building has been converted to a new Org. It was purchased in 2007 with a $10 million loan from Scientology central, but recently local Scientologists borrowed a further $6 million to restore and modernise the building.

Nigel Antony Gray, who "predicted" last month's earthquake on Facebook, has recently shown just how daft, and dangerous, he is.

In the scheme invested money receives a return of 30% profit after a month. It works as a classic Ponzi scheme, where the incoming money from new members is used to pay members whose investment is withdrawn. These schemes work while they gain in popularity, but stop working as soon as they stop growing. The most famous example of this is the Bernie Madoff fraud, where it's estimated that $65 billion was lost.

The Society for Science Based Healthcare were asked about Applied Kinesiology this week and I helped to write this response to questions:

Fijian government representatives, including leader Frank Bainimarama, were at a lavish launch event a couple of weeks ago to announce the launch of a new app which is set to revolutionise our mobile phone use.

I was contacted by a journalist about a local cancer "cure", Te Kiri Gold, and sent a response (with a little help from ex-chair of the NZ Skeptics, Vicki Hyde):

Here are my notes from this year's NZ Skeptics conference:

There have been a few stories in the news recently about earthquakes that have left me feeling skeptical:

We have some great speakers for this year's Skeptics Conference, including Susan Gerbic who runs the Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia project. Her team put a lot of work into adding a skeptical angle to Wikipedia pages and fleshing out pages of interest to skeptics, such as those of famous scientists.

After last Sunday's show, when I talked about Bioptron at the Go Green Expo, a Bioptron rep called up RadioLive and asked for me to contact them. I called, and was then contacted the next day by a Division Manager for Bioptron - David.

Obviously people around the world are painfully aware of the many crazy beliefs held by president-elect Donald Trump. However, what's less well known is the range of nonsense that Mike Pence, America's future Vice President, believes.

I went to the Go Green Expo yesterday, along with other skeptics. The expo is meant to showcase green products and services, but many of the stalls promote alternative health.

An incident at the Hawke's Bay Better Home and Living Show has made the news because it made the courtroom. There were sellers of two different brands of health bracelet at the show, Shuzi and Zenteq.

Here's a press release that was sent out recently about a complaint I'd made to the ASA. As a result of the complaint, we uncovered the fact that Medsafe "grandfathered" in over a thousand of Weleda's homeopathic products. Medsafe registered these products as medicines without checking if there was evidence that they work, and despite a general understanding within science that homeopathy is ineffective. All they checked for is that there were no records of the products being unsafe, and given that homeopathy is normally nothing more than sugar pills or sugar water there were unlikely to have been any safety issues.

A Chinese man appears to have invented a novel way to tell the future. He puts his hand down a woman's top, feels her breast, and presumably uses the information he gleans to work out what is in store for the woman. Of course, by using cold reading a fortune teller

As usual, it's blurry footage from far away that is most likely a human. It appears to be a tall figure, dark, with a big stride and holding something white swinging in its hand. The white object could be a carrier bag. Of course, as the footage is taken from far away so our brains end up doing a lot of guesswork to try to make sense of what we're seeing.

Despite much criticism of both the original broadcasts and the recent reruns, it appears that TVNZ are recording a new episode of Sensing Murder. The episode focuses on a murder in Napier in 2008.

Mark Hanna at the Society for Science Based Healthcare has complained recently about the Napier Courier's column written by a local homeopathy business, called "Homeopathy Hub". the weekly column made many daft claims about the effectiveness of homeopathy, such as:

There is currently a bill working its way through parliament which proposes moving the decision to fluoridate water supplies away from local councils and into the hands of DHBs. This appears to be a very good move, as fluoridation is a health issue and DHBs are much better suited to weighing up the pros and cons than local councils are. Councils in NZ have historically been bamboozled by Fluoride Free NZ, our local anti fluoride group, and have in some cases made decisions to remove fluoride.

The infamous Brio clinic in Thailand has sucked in unsuspecting kiwis, promising to treat them with unconventional therapies for cancer. One unfortunate victim, Holly Devine, died after raising $55,000 on Givealittle for treatment at the clinic, but before attending the clinic.

As part of the US presidential election circus, and given that both candidates are two of the oldest candidates ever, health records have become a part of the debate.

Stuff have reprinted another article from Juice Daily, which claims that garlic, pineapple, a salt water gargle and chicken soup can help with allergies. Of course, this is all unproven tosh and certainly not good medical advice. Thomas Lumley at Stats Chat does a good job of deconstructing the article, going through all the links in the article and checking out the evidence for the claims. Unsurprisingly, the given evidence is very thin:

Mark Hanna at the Society for Science Based Healthcare has complained recently about the Napier Courier's column written by a local homeopathy business, called "Homeopathy Hub". the weekly column made many daft claims about the effectiveness of homeopathy, such as:

Chris Johnson created a coffee table book a few years ago, quoting atheists talking about their life without god. The book was titled A Better Life, and the strap line explains exactly what the book is about - "100 Atheists Speak Out on Joy & Meaning in a World Without God".

The Effective Altruism movement is becoming popular in New Zealand. The basic idea is that logic and critical thinking can be applied to charity giving, and that charities range from being great at helping people to being as good as useless, or even detrimental.

The Society for Science Based Healthcare has recently submitted complaints about articles in two newspapers.

Julia Rucklidge from Canterbury University has suggested that processed food may be a cause of a mental illness epidemic.

A woman has made the news today because she has been denied treatment for a medical condition, symphysis pubis dysfunction, related to her pregnancy. Southern Cross Insurance have said that the reason for not paying for treatment is that pregnant women in New Zealand are eligible for free healthcare, and so their policies don't cover pregnancy.

The NZ Herald reports that "a leading scientist" (Dr Poikolainen) has said a bottle of wine a day would do no harm to your health, and that drinking more than the current recommended daily amount of alcohol is more beneficial than not drinking at all. Dr Poikolainen has also written a book on the subject - "Perfect Drinking and its Enemies":

There were several witch doctors in Auckland last year, and they eventually left the country after efforts were made to clamp down on them, including some successful ASA complaints.

Superfoods are foods that are touted as having high levels of one or more nutrients, with claims made that these nutrients can heal the body. These superfoods, such as kale, goji berries and chia seeds, are often sold at very high prices.

I totally agree that people should not be allowed to talk about treating health conditions if they have not received approval, and hopefully the upcoming Natural Health Products bill will be a step in the right direction in New Zealand for ensuring claims can't be made without good evidence.

After a recent second campylobacter issue in Havelock North, it turns out that the Hastings water supply is not treated with chlorine to kill bacteria.