"… she successfully resisted the forces pitted against her, giving an astounding manifestation of some power other than that making up the ordinary phenomena of nature." So wrote the Feilding Star on ... (1886 words)

Alison Campbell learns some interesting facts about water chemistry Following recent events in Hamilton I've found myself involved in several debates on the merits of fluoridated water lately. This ... (712 words)

Matthew Willey finds it difficult to get into the spirit of the holiday season. It's over now. But Christmas for me is an annual ordeal. I loathe it. But even typing this admission, I hear the intake ... (1366 words)

Janelle Wallace reviews Salt Sugar Fat: How The Food Giants Hooked Us, by Michael Moss. Random House Publishing, 2013. Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Michael Moss' book takes a ... (182 words)

A best-selling book claiming to present evidence of life after death may not be all it's cracked up to be. I recently read an article ("Heaven's Gate", SA Weekend Magazine, The Advertiser, December ... (1475 words)

In the first of a new series of columns, Matthew Willey catches up with what celebrity medium Kelvin Cruickshank is up to these days. The dead talk to no-one. Kelvin Cruickshank is either ... (1002 words)

Stuart Landsborough conducts a small experiment which may land him in big trouble. I tried an experiment with my wife, but until now she knows nothing about it. I wonder what her reaction will be ... (692 words)

The Advertising Standards Authority provides an accessible platform for members of the public to take on the merchants of woo. This article is based on a presentation to the 2012 NZ Skeptics ... (1184 words)

… then there's little hope for the world, says Alison Campbell, who attends far too many meetings. Fortunately however, that may not be the case. I attend a lot of meetings; that's the nature of my ... (512 words)

A new alternative treatment for Alzheimer's doing the rounds seems to be based on a misunderstanding of the underlying science. The title of this piece is a question posed by the 'health ... (634 words)

There may indeed be a place for creationism in the science classroom, but not the way the creationists want. This article is based on a presentation to the 2011 NZ Skeptics Conference. We live in a ... (1865 words)

The discovery of a long-missing body offers a rare chance to put the psychic stars of Sensing Murder to the test. On Saturday 19 May 2012 the remains of Auckland teenager Jane Furlong were found in ... (2249 words)

The Believing Brain: how we construct beliefs and reinforce them as truths by Michael Shermer. Times books, New York. 386pp. ISBN 978-0-8050-9125-0. Reviewed by Martin Wallace. Aa a member of NZ ... (456 words)

Gold takes local action against PowerBalance, with encouraging results. PowerBalance Bands are hideously expensive silicon rubber wristbands with a mylar hologram in them. PowerBalance, an American ... (469 words)

The world-wide panic over the MMR vaccine was sparked by the actions of one doctor who breached several standards of scientific practice. This article is based on a presentation to the 2010 NZ ... (1927 words)

Many people lost a lot of money investing in non-existent data compression software because well:established principles of information theory were ignored. This article is based on a presentation to ... (3162 words)

When creationists try to harmonise their worldview with certain inescapable facts of geology, the result is chaos. Recently I had forwarded to me a document bearing the title Debunking Evolution: ... (2256 words)

Alison Campbell looks at some words that cause scientific misunderstandings. I suspect that for many of my first-year Biology students, the sheer weight of new terms they come across is perhaps the ... (647 words)

Autism paper binned Twelve years after it induced panic among parents world-wide, a paper linking the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism has been withdrawn (NZ Herald, 4 February). The ... (1184 words)

Yet another Sensing Murder veteran struts her stuff. AS a professed skeptic I have been unconvinced by psychics who claim they can communicate with dead people. However, those who do believe such a ... (2513 words)

Do we really need a name change? Given that we're called the NZ Skeptics in virtually all instances-our website, journal, the flyers, the publicity posters etc-do we need to go through a formal ... (775 words)