Nail ’em Up
Calcium supplements don’t prevent broken nails according to an Auckland study. Back to the snake oil…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Download a Friend
Auckland-developed virtual faces read your email in your own voice. Download for free at lifeFX.com.
Dot.com Dream
Kiwi Victoria Davies is among the silicon dolls burnt by the dot.com crash. She’s now on a $100,000+ salary, but has less confidence in stock options, “I don’t look at it as my ticket to being…
Nobel Award
New Zealander and Nobel laureate for Chemistry, Dr Alan MacDiarmid, receives his award from His Majesty the King of Sweden.
Into Africa
“These flying doctors, as they are sometimes known, were the inspiration of Wood, Sir Archibald McIndoe of New Zealand and Tom Rees of America. They perceived that the only way to cope with casualties and sickness…
Avalanche Warning
IT staffing company Avalanche plans to open a branch in New Zealand. The attraction? “English is a native language … and there is a first world infrastructure”.
Virtual Success
Virtual Spectator, the New Zealand company behind the America’s Cup graphics, plans to revolutionise the way all sport is viewed, allowing spectators to view reconstructed plays from every angle.
Temping It
An influx of hard-working New Zealand and Australian temps has lifted industry standards in the UK.
Heartening News
New Zealand researchers have found Pravastatin, a drug that helps control cholesterol, also helps ward off heart disease. Bring on the Xmas pav…
E-tax
IRD sets a dodgy precedent, requiring Dominz to hand over personal details linked to all .NZ domain names.
Cut Short
Can you catch apotemnophilia, the desire to become an amputee? A spate of recent “voluntary amputations” performed in Britain take their cue from work by ground-breaking but controversial New Zealand sexologist John Money.
Menopause Rescue
University of Auckland scientists have identified a gene potentially responsible for thousands of cases of premature menopause world-wide.
Meteorologist Dies
James M. Austin, Dunedin-born and educated TV meteorologist, MIT teacher and D-day weatherman, died in Boston aged 85.
Sweaty Surgeons
Operations are hot work: surgeons sweat, drop skin flakes and contaminate their patients, according to an Auckland study. Space suits are a possible solution.
Pot Luck
Marijuana causes disease, phlegm and coughing fits, as well as mild euphoria. The wacky backy is as damaging to the lungs as tobacco according to research studiously carried out at Otago University.
Come Here, Deer
Deer velvet’s aphrodisiac properties are being scientifically tested. Positive results will lift an already firm export market.
Root Problem
ICANN, the US agency that registers regional suffixes like .nz, is trying to charge for its services. The Internet Society of New Zealand has threatened to look elsewhere for root service, raising the spectre of an…
Digital Planet
New Zealand is the leading edge of the digital planet, with the highest IT spending (per capita) in the world.
Milk Flows South
Kiwi Milk, one of New Zealand’s big dairy players, has swallowed Kaikoura Co-operative Dairy Co. The merger will “assist with increased milk flows”.
Wave Action
A South Pacific-style reef in Bournemouth is the brain child of Prof Kerry Black of Waikato University. The big waves will help turn the resort into the next “coolest city in the universe”.
Kosher Washer
Dishdrawers by Fisher & Paykel are taking the American Jewish market by storm. The separate compartments make them the kosher washer of choice according to New Zealand sources close to the Paykel family.
Versatile Machine
Pakistani engineers have developed a “bed shaper cum seed drill”, and are exporting the all-purpose agri-tool to Uzbekistan thanks to New Zealand sponsorship.
Ideas on IQ
1994’s The Bell Curve suggested that Black Americans have a lower average IQ than other groups – a suggestion that appalled Waikato academic James Flynn. Flynn suggests IQ tests reflect environment as much inherent “intelligence”, calculating that…
NZ-edged NuTech
Matt Michalewicz, 24, founder and CEO of NuTech Solutions Inc fled to New Zealand from his native Poland at age six. He became “the only student I know of who drove to class every day in a…
Unsubsidised Exuberance
New Zealand farmers are spreading the anti-subsidy word to Canuks: “We were regarded as leeches in society. Now we take our place. We’ve earned the respect of society,” says Fed. Famers’ Pres. Alistair Polson in Ottawa.
Jet #2
easyJet CEO, Kiwi Ray Webster owns around £2m in easyJet stock after the company floated on the London Exchange.
SPF15+ Orchards
The phrase apple-red cheeks will no longer apply to New Zealand apples coated in kaolin clay to ward of the sun. “The kaolin-based product has cut sunburn damage on apples in half.”
Brickwork Brierley
“It was a scene from yesteryear. Sir Ron Brierley, armour dusted off and polished and gauntlet raised, charged into the battle …”
Pain Buster
Dr Abbey recommends New Zealander Robin MacKenzie’s Seven Steps to a Pain-Free Life to tame the back pain of Chicago.
International Treasure
Enterprising techno-toy hounds have devised a use for hand-held GPS systems: geocaching. 120 caches have been laid in 31 states and 13 countries, including Australia, New Zealand and Chile.
Guru Gilson
Clive Gilson, University of Waikato Professor, co-author of Peak Performance: Business Lessons From the World’s Top Sports Organisations, and motivational coach, “is to turn the Football Association from its traditional home for semi-retired blazers into…
Honey Cures Tummy
New Woman confirms a “traditional New Zealand cure”: eating manuka honey to banish stomach ulcers.
A Teaspoon of Honey
Search under ‘Honey New Zealand’ to view Waikato scientist Peter Molan thinks honey doesn’t just help the medicine go down, it is the medicine. Honey from New Zealand’s Leptospermum tree kills bacteria, reduces inflammation and encourages re-growth…
Gender Bender
Questions continue to be raised about surgical gender re-assignment, a la Kiwi sexologist John Money.
Kiwi in the House
Kiwifruit-based products from Evolu rate with Estee Lauder, Chanel and Givenchy as a key product line at the House of Fraser, Oxford Street’s newest beauty arena.
BSE Breakthrough
Professor Roger Morris of Massey University suggests Britain’s BSE epidemic may have come from “a wild animal commonly found outside Britain that was chopped up for cattle feed”.
Drink Up
High-calcium milk Anlene, manufactured by New Zealand Milk, is shown to ward off osteoporosis in Asian women. Dairy exporters will have to bone up on their Asian languages to spread the word.
Forbes Gets a Bargain
Forbes Global have included New Zealand company The Warehouse Group in their 2000 list of Best Small Companies: “Dynamism is all about growth and profits; in our opinion these 300 are among the best the world has…
Disease Beaten
Polio has been eradicated in the Western Pacific, which stretches from China to New Zealand to French Polynesia.
Clean Green Methane
While some countries battle automobile emissions, New Zealand scientists at the Rumen Microbiology Unit, Palmerston North, are working on producing a gas-less sheep. It’s a tricky business though: “There’s no point in getting rid of the methane…
Out Out Damn E-mail!
Deleted files may come back to haunt you, says Peter Gutmann of Auckland University. “It is possible to install a computer that overwrites data when you hit the Delete key, making it much harder to recover….
Macpac Knack
Macpacs made their reputation being hauled up and down New Zealand mountains. They’re also good for gentle English country walks.
A Little to the Right…
New Zealand entrepreneur James Sampson is launching a live sex site based in Christchurch. Viewers will be able to issue instructions to the workers.
Avvid Attention
New Zealand Government Departments can talk to each other with maximum efficiency, thanks to AVVID, “one of the largest end-to-end IP telephony networks in the world.”
Against the Grain
New Zealand scholar Aurelia Mulgan’s The Politics of Agriculture in Japan launches a “brutal assault on antifactual strategies such as rational-choice theory, but also brusque rejection of social science as science”.
Great Steaming Geysers!
18 year old Rawiri Waru’s developed a system to check Rotorua’s geysers don’t run out of steam, winning himself a Grand Award and an internship at Bayer AG in Singapore at the Worldwide Young Researchers for…
Frankenfood
New Zealand’s Royal Commission on Genetic Engineering is being watched closely as the first chance for citizens of any country to say what they think about Frankenfood.
E-e-e-e-readiness
Kiwis are on to it online. This has been confirmed by a Vic University study that lists NZ among the top four countries in the world for e-commerce and connectivity. The edge has the world’s fastest…
Dr MacDiarmid and His Fantastic Electric Plastic
New Zealand’s Nobel duo becomes a trio; Masterton-born and Wellington-educated chemist Alan MacDiarmid has joined Ernest Rutherford and Maurice Wilkins as a Nobel Prize (chemistry) laureate. MacDiarmid and his two colleagues discovere conductive plastics which have been…
Repair Bill
New Zealand vet Deborah Saunders describes the revolutioary bill-binding putty she used on Deidre the duck: “it’s nice and hard and keeps the two parts of the bill together and well supported”.
High Stakes
Christchurch Casinos Limited and international affiliate CryptoLogic have debuted Kiwi Casino on the net. Punters drop their dollars surrounded by “the exotic sub-tropical rainforests of New Zealand”.
V Good
New Zealand company Frucor, dominant in the NZ and Australian energy drinks market, feels V ready to compete with international behemoth Coca-Cola. “We believe we can grow the market fivefold in Australia,” says CEO Mark Cowsill.
TAPping into Productivity
Synapse TAP, the alternative computer input system designed by Kiwi Neil Scott of Stanford, doesn’t just allow disabled workers to perform jobs: TAP’s voice and gesture-guided system gives users a edge over their able-bodied counterparts.
Through Now
Seepower, global/ Wellington IT company Compudigm’s data visualisation software, delivered smooth connection of more than 500,000 calls from Stadium Australia on the opening day of the Olympics.
