First With Pig Cells
New Zealand company Living Cell Technologies plans to implant pig cells in the human brain in clinical trials to treat Parkinson’s disease and help improve movement and brain functions in patients. The clinical trials,…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Loving the Vibes in the Bay
Logan Bell of Hamilton reggae band Katchafire talked to the Examiner’s Alyssa Tomfohrde ahead of their San Francisco show at the prestigious Mezzanine venue. “From humble beginnings ‘jamming’ in a garage, Katchafire is a…
Robotic Sex Machines
In their paper — Robots, Men And Sex Tourism — Ian Yeoman and Michelle Mars of Victoria Management School in Wellington, imagine what the sex industry will be like in the future. The year…
All Aboard for Seal Spotting
The Coastal Pacific train journey runs so close to the coast, for nearly 100km between Picton and Christchurch, that along one section of its route you can almost see the whiskers of scores of…
Feral Cats Out Tuatara In
Sixty tuatara have been released on Motuihe Island, which lies between Motutapu and Waiheke islands in the Hauraki Gulf. The New Zealand Department of Conservation (DOC) and the Motuihe Trust spent many years ridding…
Well-being in Advanced Age
Older Maori who are engaged in cultural practices and connected to their traditional community have a higher quality of life, according to a ground-breaking study by researchers at the University of Auckland called, “Life…
Little Aliens Land in LA Stores
New Zealand eyewear, clothing and jewellery designer Karen Walker – who was recently in Los Angeles to show her 2012 Little Aliens sunglasses collection at the West Hollywood hotel Chateau Marmont – talked to The…
Standing Out on Court
New Zealand high school basketball player 2.15m- (7 feet 1 inch) Steven Adams, who plays for Notre Dame Prep in Baltimore, is one of the top-ranked players in the Class of 2012 (No. 6…
Harpooning Hearts in Vegas
Auckland jazz singer Sarah Frances Johnston, 21, is this month beginning a two-month residency performing at Oscar’s Beef, Booze and Broads at the Plaza in Las Vegas. Johnston, who began acting at age 11…
Exposure to Chelsea Crowd
An exhibition of 25 New Zealand artists is on at New York’s Agora Gallery from 24 April through 15 May. “‘Made in New Zealand’ presents a fresh perspective on a country that provides continual…
New American Sci-fi Role
Oscar-nominated actress Keisha Castle-Hughes, 22, who starred in Niki Caro’s smash hit film Whale Rider, takes the role of Priya in an American sci-fi pilot called Rewind. Castle-Hughes will play a “behavioral anthropologist who…
Cool Little Boost in Dubai
Twenty-year-old freestyle motocross rider Levi Sherwood from Palmerston North has won the 2012 Red Bull X-Fighters series opener in Dubai. He finished Australian Rob Adelberg off with a run featuring a mix of old-school…
Tilly the Force of Nature
Wellington actor and artist Grant Tilly, well remembered for his performance in The Daylight Atheist, has died, aged 74. Having starred in many stage and television productions including Foreskin’s Lament and Gliding On, Tilly is known for being…
Stripes Under NZ lights
Early White Stripes footage from a concert the pair performed at Auckland’s Kings Arms Tavern in 2000 — some of the earliest footage of the band outside of the United States — will feature…
Truly International Ambition
Moa Beer founder Josh Scott’s vision is for Moa “to be New Zealand’s first true international beer”, with Australia and the US as prime export targets. “We recently refreshed the brand, including a redesign…
Crowned Mr Gay World
Andreas Derleth, 32, from Auckland was crowned the Mr Gay World in a gala event that took place for the first time in Johannesberg, South Africa. Originally from Germany, Derleth moved to New Zealand…
Recommended Listening
The release of Ladyhawke’s second album Anxiety is one of Guardian reviewer’s Alex Petridis’ “top picks of the spring.” Petridis writes: “The second album by this self-styled ‘pop superwoman creating radio-friendly songs with a single bound’ — aka…
Pursuit gold for Shanks
Dunedin-born Alison Shanks, 29, won the women’s Individual Pursuit title beating Britain’s Wendy Houvenaghel by more than two seconds at the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Melbourne this month. “It’s a great…
Quintessential Southern Tipple
Being a university town, there is no shortage of places in Dunedin that make beer, and taking pride of place is the city’s Speight’s Brewery. “Since 1876, the Speight’s Brewery has been supplying the…
In His Element
“When it comes to skateboarding, New Zealander Bjorn Johnston has put in work,” ESPN blogger Joel Rice writes. “Though he joined Element’s Australian team relatively recently, his resume runs quite deep. Prior to signing…
Stylish in Wedges on Bikes
Gretchen Bunny, 32, owner of Martinborough company March Hare Cycling, which rents bikes to visitors eager to explore the cluster of wineries in this section of the Wairarapa Wine Trail, has a simple rule…
Currency Sharing Insanity
Perhaps the most “absurd” thing to cross Forbes’ contributor Tim Worstall’s desk on this particular morning was a report on how New Zealand and Australia might merge their currencies to create a single trans-Tasman currency…
Hollywood Star Cellaring Well
An interview with New Zealand actor and vigneron Sam Neill has been Huffington Post freelancer Mike Matthews’ most viewed wine blog entry. To celebrate Matthews’ blog’s birthday, the November 2011 piece, about Neill’s vineyard Two Paddocks,…
Gauging Health Performance
New Zealand has rated sixth worst in new rankings focusing on preventable deaths due to treatable conditions in 19 leading industrialised nations. According to researchers writing in the journal Health Affairs, Ellen Nolte and Martin…
Big Screen, Big Bucks
The local screen industry contributed $3 billion in gross revenues to the New Zealand economy in 2011, an increase of 4 per cent over 2010, fueled by a boost in feature film production, according…
Less Talking More Chalking
Rocky “The Technician” Lane, world record holding professional New Zealand pool champion, is profiled in Air Macau’s in-flight magazine this month. “Upon agreeing to an interview, Lane suggests meeting at Bar 171 in Taipa,…
Lye’s primitive symptoms
Animation film Tuslava (1929), created by Christchurch-born artist Len Lye, is part of a an exhibition entitled ‘Animism’ on from 26 April through 28 July at Berlin’s Haus der Kulturen der Welt. The exhibition examines the…
As Close to Nature as You Can be
“It was my third night in a camper van, a miniaturized recreational vehicle – mine was about the size of a plumber’s van with a raised ceiling – and New Zealand’s mobile lodging of…
Banking on International Fees
International education is now New Zealand’s fifth biggest export, annually worth $2.5 billion. Chief executive of Education New Zealand Grant McPherson said China, Japan and South Korea were New Zealand’s top markets for international…
Innovation Drive
Wellington software developers Resn, a “company celebrated worldwide for its creative excellence”, is included in a Monocle feature about the capital city’s drive “to establish itself as a major…
First For Parliament
New Zealand features as part of the Oceania briefing of Monocle this month in which the publication highlights issues surrounding foreign land purchases and the election of New Zealand’s first deaf minister…
Best Dream Holidays
New Zealand’s 3000km Te Araroa — the Long Pathway is one of leading American active-lifestyle and adventure-travel magazine Outdoor’s all-time favourite dream vacations. Headlined as a “new long-distance trail to…
Entering The Pacific Century
“Characterized by initiative and aggressiveness combined with a chivalric ethos, a respect for the intellect, and an impatience with rank and hierarchy, New Zealand’s martial virtues have imbued Kiwis’ sense of fairness and decency…
Well-Respected Senator Farewelled
Picton-born Western Australian senator Judith Adams has died in Perth, aged 68. The former nurse, midwife and farmer was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1998. “Senator Adams had many friends in the Australian Parliament,…
Far Flung Fashion Report
Dunedin’s distance from the rest of the fashion world “does not stop it being far-thinking in creativity”, reports the Telegraph’s fashion director New Zealand-born Hilary Alexander, who was front row at the iD Emerging Designers Award…
Finding the Famous Five
When he was last in New Zealand British zoologist Mark Carwardine spent two weeks travelling the length and breadth of the country, “in search of an outlandish menagerie of animals known as the ‘Small…
Not From Concentrate, Folks
When Monteiths cider drinkers found twigs in their six-pack boxes their complaints streamed into radio stations and newspapers and the country buzzed with the “contamination” story. At which point Monteiths launched its Colenso BBDO-developed…
Pristine Property For Sale
A Queenstown “French-country-style” property on Franklin Road features in the Wall Street Journal’s ‘Open House’ section. Owners, American retired couple Gerald and Carolyne Johnson, are asking $4.5 million for the five-bedroom home. ‘It’s whistle-clean air, whistle-clean…
Women Standing Out in Walker
Karen Walker eyewear is impressing the likes of singers Florence Welch and Rihanna with both stars recently spotted in her frames. “They are for girls who have a fun and flashy style and don’t…
Riding Roughshod
Tanks for Everything in Christchurch is offering frustrated drivers the chance to crush a car with a tank, armoured personnel carrier or Jeep, the largest of which can easily flatten a family sedan….
Conducting Lifelong Love
New Zealand-born conductor Andrew Sewell is in contention to replace the current Illinois Symphony Orchestra’s music director and is profiled ahead of his Springfield audition in the State Journal-Register. Sewell, who lives in Wisconsin, previously…
Lynch Pin Performs Wonder
Originally from Auckland, SF Jazz Collective bassist Matt Penman studied at Boston’s Berklee College of Music before relocating to New York in 1995. Penman, 37, is a longtime lynch pin of the Collective, which…
Gifted Goalkeeper Qualifies
Christchurch-born Michael O’Keeffe, a junior goalkeeper for Connecticut’s Fairfield University soccer team the Stags, has qualified to play in the 2012 London Summer Olympics as a member of the New Zealand Under-23 team. According…
Fair Shake For All
“There is a place in the world where moderate Republicans still exist – unfortunately, you have to take a 13-hour flight from Los Angeles to get there,” New York Times’ columnist Thomas Friedman writes. “Indeed, to…
Lo-fi Musical Shift
New Zealand chanteuse Ladyhawke, 32, talks to Vogue Australia about her new album Anxiety and the musical shift between this recording and her self-titled debut. She’s progressed from the synth-heavy 1980s to the gritty guitars of the 90s….
Challenge of Mandarin Libretto
Dunedin-born opera singer Jonathan Lemalu, 36, tells the Guardian how he learnt to sing in Mandarin for the New Zealand International Festival of the Arts premiere of Three Poems by Mu Xin, which he and the New Zealand…
Locking Up The Problem
New Zealand has one of the highest rates of imprisonment in the world and imprisons people at a rate second only to the United States, according to a study conducted by the…
Distinguished Scientist
Molecular physicist Sir Paul Callaghan, who was best known for his work with magnetic resonance, a field that has practical applications in everything from health care to industrial production, has died. He was 64….
Harmonious Sanctuaries
Woodbridge, Hortensia House and Ayrlies Garden are three of New Zealand’s “stand out” gardens, which Go Upstate’s Betty Montgomery visited on an “unforgettable trip” to summer south of the equator. “Woodbridge was started in…
Intense Appreciation
New Zealand filmmaker and artist Vincent Ward’s multimedia exhibition “Breath: The Fleeting Intensity of Life” is drawing attention from China. “During the Govett-Brewster exhibition, we had a professor of art from the…
Final Leap Beneath Blue
Teenager Alex Colvin features in the Guardian’s regular gallery ‘24 Hours in Pictures’, competing in the under-17 men’s long jump final on day one of the 2012 New Zealand National Athletics Championships…
Attractive Investment
“A little bit of PayPal founder Peter Thiel’s wealth will help New Zealand technology businesses thanks to the launch of a new venture capital project,” Lucy Craymer writes for the Wall Street…
Reversal Of The Right
“New Zealand is finally yielding to the rest of the world when it comes to its unique set of road rules, after decades of confounding drivers from overseas,” Nick Perry writes for…
Betty Fondly Remembered
New Zealand freshwater algae expert Dr Elizabeth Flint, known as Betty, who was still at the wheel of her 1958 Ford Consul in her 90s, has died, aged 102. Flint’s friend Catherine Haines writes…
Marmageddon Strikes
This month, the manufacturer of Marmite says its supplies of the yeast-extract product ran out, four months after earthquakes forced it to close the only factory that made New Zealand’s version. “Don’t…
Sharing Aviation Abilities
New Zealand, which claims to have the highest per capita ratio of aircraft, one per thousand people, is to assist India in airport development and pilot training to achieve its growth potential…
