Tag: australia

New Zealand had a remarkable number of quacks and fraudsters active in the early 20th Century. They travelled the length and breadth of the country promoting their curative gadgets. The Cotter Collection includes many of these devices, and even a completed phrenology chart. A medicine chest contains pills and potions thought to provide cures for many common complaints. The outright quacks, who invariably came via Australia, once exposed in New Zealand returned to cause further mayhem there.

This week I'm taking a look at a cult-like organisation in Australia that's advertising itself on social media - The World Transformation Movement, or Human Condition. I'm left a little confused about how it's all meant to work.

Welcome to the NZ Skeptics newsletter.

Yes, the pandemic is still with us, and alarmingly new strains are emerging. Evolution does what evolution does.

Welcome to the NZ Skeptics newsletter.

The ABC News website published a story about a keto pill scam using a famous (in Australia) NZ born TV Doctor (Dr Brad McKay) to promote their nonsense without his knowledge. Dr McKay was not happy with the fact they had stolen his identity to promote their products, but is still struggling to get the posts removed as Facebook has given him the equivalent of a sorry-about-that shrug and taken no action. He has approached multiple authorities and agencies in Australia but (at the time of writing) is still waiting to hear back from them.

The Aussies have just had their skeptics conference, and have given out a Bent Spoon award to Sarah Stevenson, for her Sarah's Day brand of nonsense.

A new trend started recently, when IV "hydration" clinics opened in Australia late last year, called iv.me and the Hangover Clinic. The clinics offer customers a range of treatments, consisting of IV drips with various mixes of saline, vitamins, painkillers and oxygen.

Yet another sea monster has been found, this time in Swansea, NSW, Australia. Ethan Tipper posted the photo on Facebook, asking "What the f*** is this?".

Up to 80 kids - 1 in 4 - at Brunswick North West Primary School in Melbourne have contracted chicken pox. The school is tolerant or even welcoming of parents who choose not to vaccinate their kids. Newsletters have reiterated this view:

Zheng He is not a name that is well known in the west. However, his seven voyages from China, through the Indian Ocean to Africa between 1405 and 1435 would place him among the world's great explorers. Yet retired submarine captain Gavin Menzies is convinced Zheng He's feats were even greater. He believes a massive Chinese fleet conducted four simultaneous circumnavigations of the world between 1421 and 1423, during which they discovered the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, even Antarctica. But while they were away, the Chinese emperor turned his back on the outside world and, when the ships returned, had all mention of them erased. Why the records of Zheng He's other expeditions were kept, Menzies does not explain.