A couple of weeks ago I was browsing Reddit images (I guess it's my old-school version of Tik Tok), when I came across a post extolling the virtues of the Throckmorton Sign as a diagnostic tool. This tool is named after Thomas Bentley Throckmorton, an early 20th century American neurologist.
The first batch of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccinations hit New Zealand in February 2021. That means we have now had 3.5 years to study the side effects.
A couple of months ago a friend messaged me with an article from Glamour magazine that extolled the virtues of jade rollers. Although I have no idea how he ended up reading the article in the first place, I think it piqued his interest because the byline mentioned “skeptics”. Our conversation went like this:
I popped into the High Court last week to sit in on a court case where the Jehovah's Witnesses are attempting to argue that they should be exempt from the current Royal Commission enquiry in Abuse in Care. Sara Passmore and I (we're both NZ Skeptics committee members) visited for an hour, and we seem to have accidentally sat on the “wrong” side of the courtroom. Having sat down, we looked around and realised that our side of the room was mostly men in suits (including, I think, Alfred Ngaro - more on him in the article below), whereas the other side of the room was mainly women, including one with bright pink hair.
At this very moment, there is a war going on in my body.
We've been promoting the up-coming conference in conjunction with the Australian Skeptics for a few months now.
Elon Musk's company SpaceX successfully launched their first Falcon Heavy rocket this week, after a recent successful launch in New Zealand by RocketLab. It's been a good time for private space companies.
Rod Parsley of the World Harvest church isn't relying on his healing abilities to treat his throat cancer but is seeking actual medical treatments.
Englishwoman Doris Stokes was a medium - by which I don't mean her dress size was between small and large. She claimed she spoke to people "on the other side," to use the euphemistic jargon of the darkened drawing room. She was a sort of cosmic Telecom operator, only I suspect her charges were a good deal higher than 99c a minute plus GST.
THE 2009 annual NZ Skeptics Conference in Wellington was its usual mix of good times and thought-provoking material, though with some unique touches. The Kingsgate Hotel was a rather more luxurious venue than we're used to; the few problems that arose were mostly due to the high number of late enrolments, making this one of the largest gatherings in recent years.
Sceptics have put up $100,000 in a bid to make a controversial Australian spiritualist eat her words over claims she does not need food.
A recent leading article in The New Zealand Medical Journal looked at Diet and Behaviour. Food intolerance was strongly associated with the mother's level of education. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing? As regards the putative link between sugar and problem behaviours the article says "'...it is just as likely that restless or aggressive children seek out more sugar as that sugar causes the inappropriate behaviour." The authors conclude "...it should be recognized that modification of a particular child's diet is almost always accompanied by changes in management."