This year's NZ Skeptics conference is in Wellington in 3 weeks. We have speakers such as Cara Santa Maria from the USA, and an ex naturopath, Britt Marie Hermes. We're hoping to officially announce our $100,000 prize for evidence of the supernatural, and it will be interesting to see what kinds of applicants we see over the next few months.

A company is making claims about their soap made out of breast milk.

The prevailing scientific opinion on lie detector tests is that they don't work well enough to be relied on in courts as evidence - in fact, they're probably not even a good way of discerning the truth. Unfortunately a Christchurch based private detective is selling tests to couples as a way of finding out whether a partner has cheated.

Doterra is a successful multinational company which sells innovative medical treatments - or at least that's what they'd have you believe. In reality, it appears to be a Multi Level Marketing scheme, based on Essential Oils, which preys on vulnerable people and makes dangerous untrue claims about their products.

These days, with modern technology, it only takes a matter of days after most tragic events before conspiracy theorists have converged on an "alternative narrative". For the Sandy Hook massacre, there are people who claim it was a "false flag" operation where no children were actually killed. For missing flight MH370, the aeroplane was apparently re-routed to a secret military base.

A couple of years ago I went along to a talk in Wellington about a new device called the QTB (Quantum TrailBlazer), now rebranded as a QSB - Quantum Scalar Box. Back then the device was made from a piece of sewage pipe spray painted black, with several blue LEDs around the top. We were told to believe that the device was emitting "scalar waves" (a pseudo-scientific idea) on the Solfeggio frequencies. I sat there for half an hour while the device went through a range of these frequencies, supposedly healing areas of my life.

NZ now has its second ingested product for sun protection being sold. The first hit the market a few years ago, and is from a company called Osmosis Skincare. Their product contains "harmonised" water, which is described as:

The Pharmacy Council recently ran a consultation about a new proposed Code of Ethics, after they tried to weaken their code a couple of years ago to remove the requirement that pharmacists could only sell alternative medicines where there was evidence that they work.

I recently found out that a movement which is popular in America has reached our shores. The Freeman movement, otherwise known as Sovereign Citizens, consists of people who believe that it is possible to declare yourself no longer beholden to the laws of your country, and not liable to pay taxes. Normally the process involves filling in obscure government forms, opting out of government forms of ID such as driving licenses and passports and writing signed declarations using lots of very big legal sounding words.

David Meade, who I spoke about last month as predicting the end of the world around the 20th of September, has given us all a reprieve. Obviously the world didn't end, but he now says that October the 21st is the real end of the world.

Another crazy conspiracy theory I'd never heard of - that Saddam Hussein owned a Stargate, and that the US had to invade to take it from him.

Newshub published an article about an 80 year old picture showing a native american man holding something rectangular with flat edges. Although it conceivably looks like an iPhone 5, as the article concedes it's much more likely to be a mirror or blade.

Last week an article was published on Stuff talking about how a young New Zealand woman who has had cancer (acute lymphoblastic leukemia) since she was 14 is going to spend $20,000 on an alternative treatment for her cancer - Ozone Therapy. The clinic says about this therapy:

The Herald published an article about someone's prediction that the world will end in a few weeks. David Meade, described as a Christian numerologist, claims that on or just after September the 20th (my birthday!), the world will meet a fiery end.

It looks like the book has finally been closed on one of the most famous Satanic Panic cases in the US - that of the Kellers.

Stuff has a great article about a Naturopath who has been involved in treating the cancer of two patients who have died recently. The patients have both spoken out about how they think they made a mistake in trusting the naturopath.

There was a nice story about the 30th anniversary of the Lotto this week from Stuff. The article talked about how the fact some numbers come up more often than others is likely chance (Lotto take this seriously, and apparently regularly wash and weigh the balls to ensure there's no bias). The difference in frequency between the most drawn ball, number 1 (16.91%) and the least drawn ball number 34 (13.97%) is not huge, and I suspect the number frequency draws a bell curve.

Vinny Eastwood has suggested that the new head of the Labour Party is in league with the Freemasons:

Debbie Merrick bought a doll for £5 and then placed the doll on eBay, after making international news by talking about the doll being haunted. Apparently the doll scratched Debbie's husband, although the doll was not seen causing the scratches - the husband simply woke up with scratches on himself. The determination that the doll caused the scratches came from a psychic friend.

Lori Harris from the UK has sold all her belongings to pay for treatment for her mother, Lisa, who has stage 4 ovarian cancer. The Go Fund Me page for the fundraising effort for this treatment, which asks for £200,000, talks of needing money for immunotherapy in Germany, and links to a great article describing how this new therapy has the potential to allow us to treat some cancers in a novel way.

Emails have been released about the show Sensing Murder from OIA requests, and have brought to light (unsurprisingly) that the show has not materially helped the Police, and in some circumstances is considered to be a potential problem for ongoing cases.

Last week I learned about a new conspiracy theory from Weather Wars International, a Facebook group dedicated to spreading nonsense about government control of the weather. A video posted to the group shows a field and trees, along with a light halo and what appears to be a rotating planet in the background.

There's a lack of rural doctors in NZ, and one doctor has spoken on Radio NZ this week about the trials and tribulations he's suffered trying to renew his visa to stay in the country. Dr Feller is a GP at Mountainview Medical Centre in Hawera, and the medical centre is badly in need of the service he provides. Losing him would not be good for the local community.

The group responsible for bringing Vaxxed, an anti-vaccine movie, to Australia and New Zealand is still causing issues in our country. There are more screenings of Vaxxed coming up, including one in Wellington that I will try to attend:

The Spinoff did a great job of looking into Hamilton Councillor Siggi Henry's views on a variety of topics. It turns out that she's anti fluoride, anti-fat (she recently said that obesity was a risk to others as fat people could fall on you and hurt you) and anti-vaccine.

Women's gifting circles have made the news again this week as they are now officially considered a pyramid scheme by the Commerce Commission.

I'm hoping that the anti-GMO crowd don't sink the new GMO banana before it has a chance to be properly tested. The banana has had genes inserted that allow it to create alpha and beta carotenes, which allow our bodies to create vitamin A, which should help some of the quarter of a million children who die every year due to a lack of the vitamin.

Since I attended the opening of the new Scientology building in January, I have been called occasionally by a church member called Will who has been inviting me to Auckland Scientology events. However, I'm in Wellington and so I've been waiting patiently for a local event to be announced.

Alex Jones, anchor man of the news outlet InfoWars in the US, hosted Robert David Steele on his show this week, and talked about Robert's theory that NASA are holding slave children on Mars. This has led to NASA officially denying the accusation, along with another recent claim that there are no active rovers on Mars.

A mother in the US was found by doctors to be causing her child to fall ill because she was taking pills made from her own placenta. A company in the US makes the pills from dried placenta, and you supply them with your placenta after your child's birth.

The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God has been handing out cross shaped vials of a "holy oil" which it says have been blessed in Jerusalem and can "activate people's faith" in order to treat medical conditions such as depression, addiction, heart problems and chronic pain.

The Jehovah's Witnesses came around for an hour or more yesterday, having previously chatted with me last week.

An article in the Herald this week talked about several innovations that were showcased at the Hamilton Fieldays event. Unfortunately, one of the products, DermaShield, appears to be very much pseudo-scientific.

A breatharian couple, Camila Castello and Akahi Ricardo, have publicly claimed that they live on "cosmic nourishment" from the "energy that exists in the universe and in themselves". They claim that they didn't eat at all for a period of 3 years, and that they hardly ever eat. When they do eat, it's a piece of fruit or some broth.

Since a letter of mine was published in the New Zealand Medical Journal recently, I've started receiving occasional emails inviting me to send in a paper to a new journal for publication. It's immediately obvious that these are sham journals, as they call me Dr Honeychurch and are for topics that are unrelated to my area of interest (and not even expertise!), alternative medicine:

Radio NZ published an article this week that seemed to accept, without evidence, claims that traditional Maori medicine can help with medical conditions including cancer.

Nigel Antony Gray is a Scientologist who believes he can predict earthquakes and that the weather is controlled by the government - and recently that fidget spinners send out harmful "frequencies". Nigel has decided that he will allow skeptics to join his secretive Facebook group - Spiritual Awareness New Zealand - as long as they follow his instructions.

A new alternative therapy has become popular recently - grinding up oak galls and putting the paste in your vagina. Oak galls are woody balls created when a wasp larva grows inside an oak tree's leaf bud. It is being claimed by sellers of this remedy that it can tighten and clean your vagina and improve your sex life.

Dave Hansford from Nelson has written a book - called "Protecting Paradise: 1080 and the Fight to Save New Zealand's Wildlife" - about New Zealand's use of the poison 1080. The name appears to be a play on the Graf Boys' documentary Poisoning Paradise, which tried to paint a picture that 1080 is not as safe as the government says it is.

Although there is a history in skepticism of people being "skeptical" of climate change, modern skepticism understands that there is a broad consensus amongst scientists that climate change is both real and caused by humans.

Robert Bigelow is convinced that aliens are not only real, but they have visited earth and are living on our planet. He believes that his grandparents were visited by an alien craft, and says that he has spent millions gathering evidence that aliens are among us. People have pointed out that his company Bigelow Aerospace's logo looks a lot like the head of a "gray" - the most popular depiction of an alien, with big almond shaped eyes and a teardrop face.

A claim has been made by Noel Hilliam that European settlers beat Maori to settling NZ, and that reconstruction of skulls from a woman and man have shown that they originated in Wales and the Mediterranean, respectively. The woman had blue eyes and blonde hair, and the

Someone in the US recently flew on a plane with a spirit level to prove that the earth is flat. Instead he demonstrated a misunderstanding of physics.

After incidents with Stephen Fry and Jakarta's mayor, blasphemy made the news and there has finally been a push in government to repeal our archaic blasphemy law. Bill English expressed his surprise that we have a blasphemy law (which is funny, given that he's Catholic and the Catholic church have unsuccessfully tried to use the law in this country in the past), and David Seymour attempted to introduce a private member's bill to parliament to repeal the law (section 123 of the Crimes Act).

Nigel Antony Gray, who shot to infamy last November when he "predicted" an earthquake, gave a talk in Petone last night.

On April 11th I submitted a complaint to Medsafe about Te Kiri Gold, a bleach made by farmer Vernon Coxhead which he is selling as a cancer cure.

Kelvin Cruickshank has made the news because he's promoting a new book - "Surrounded by Spirit". In the book he claims he talked with the spirit of Jonah Lomu at a show last year, apparently unaware that Jonah's brother John was in the audience:

Last Sunday I went to church - not once, but twice. Arise is a large evangelical church that started in Wellington about 15 years ago, and has grown and spread to several other cities.

Otago University have defended their decision to allow a screening of Vaxxed, citing free speech and a need to controversial topics to be discussed.

We talked about Te Kiri Gold last year, when Sir Colin Meads was in the news endorsing it as a treatment for cancer. Although it wasn't on sale back then, and Vernon had been promising to run proper scientific trials of the product before putting it on the market, this seems to have now been forgotten.