Baby Step
Researchers at Auckland University have uncovered a gene that may be linked to premature menopause, a condition that prevents up to 1% of women from bearing children.
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Splitting the Difference
Grant Dalton’s playing canny in the Race, “splitting the difference between east and west,” lying comfortably in second place.
Change your life
Get prepared for Rings-mania: Brush up on your Tolkien makes number 16 on the list of 99 ways to change your life.
Blue Star Buyout
International book-giant W H Smith is in negotiations to buy Whitcoull’s, New Zealand’s largest book-sellers.
Kingsley Link
Phil Kingsley-Jones manages Jonah – his son, Kingsley Jones, has been likened to All Black Josh Kronfeld.
Holiday high
New Zealander Russell Brice plans to build the world’s highest hotel – at base camp on Everest’s Tibetan flank. The hotel aims to be “a flagship of green construction techniques,” using solar power and…
Blinding Brilliance
New Zealand sociologist James Flynn is unconvinced that increasing IQ results (‘the Flynn effect’), actually means we’re getting smarter: “If people were really getting as smart as the test scores suggest, we should be…
Law-man
The New Zealand state schooling system set Jolyon Maugham on the path to barrister-hood in London – a profession he describes as “a great intellectual challenge”.
Dolly Good
Ron James, managing director of PPL and the closest thing Dolly has to a father, got his start at New Zealand-spawned pharmo-giant Glaxo. Now PPL is using New Zealand cows in research aiming to produce drugs to…
Rings v Potter
“If the budget on Lord of the Rings is sky-high, so are expectations surrounding the films. Fans of Tolkien’s 1,000-page trilogy about hobbits and elves in the fantasy land called Middle Earth are truly…
Burn Out
Earth hits the nadir of its orbit in summer – the mere 147 million kilometres between us and the sun mean New Zealanders face “extreme” ultra-violet levels.
Major Milk Player
New Zealand’s newly-minted Global Dairy Company has the size to “become a serious challenger to the likes of Nestle, Danone and Kraft” in world diary markets.
Bank on Campbell
Michael Campbell, in “irresistible” form, caps a brilliant year by claming the title of New Zealand’s best-paid sportsman from Steve Williams, caddy for Tiger Woods.
Robber Robbie
That’s “my intellectual property on his shoulder,” says leading haka specialist Pita Sharples, referring to the tattoo sported by Brit singer Robbie Williams.
Ocoloco in the Wairarapa
Wairarapa company Siliconblue has scooped venture funding for its Ocoloco software, designed to replace physical Web servers with a combination of software and service.
Spin the disc
Radio Pacific DJ Des Coppins hit the airwaves nude after losing his shirt, and his trousers, in an unwise bet.
Going Vertical
Kiwi filmed/helmed Vertical Limit gave star Chris O’Donnell a few moments of terror: “my next thought was, somebody better show me a copy of my paycheck again, so I can remember why I’m doing this…
Shear Mind-power
New Zealander Rodney Sutton holds three major shearing records. He credits his success to understanding “what nervous lambs do under pressure”.
Hunter Becomes Hunted
Diving for crayfish off the Coromandel, British diver Peter Fuller was hooked by a passing fisherman: “the idiot was rigged for marlin but caught me,” said Fuller, still nursing the hand he was hooked through.
Anzacs?
New Zealand voice in Sydney Bernard Lagan dissects the question of Federation with Australia: “It is unlikely that what modern New Zealanders most define themselves as – a nation of Pacific peoples – could have come…
Deadly Thorn
A thorn in your side could prove fatal according to doctors at Auckland’s Middlemore Hospital. The bug streptococcus pyogenes, present in soil, can enter the bloodstream through small wounds.
Precision Boat
Details of the construction Louis Vuitton challenger Young America, designed by Aucklander Bruce Farr.
Facelift, Mate?
Face peels and face-lifts are hot in rural New Zealand – sun-burned, nuggetty farmers are twice as likely as city-dwellers to put themselves under the plastic surgeon’s knife.
Demon Cricket
New Zealand giant wetas – also known as “demon crickets” – are among the most exotic animals at London Zoo.
Flying Doctor
Mama Daktari spent her life working for the African Medical Research Foundation, co-founded by Kiwi Sir Archibald McKindoe.
Born Free
New Zealand organisation has succeeded in liberating Sonny the chimp, a former performer with Ridgeways Circus. He has been reunited with his brother Buddy in Zambia.
Masai Milk
Milk from Asian and African cows is free of the heart disease-linked beta casein protein found in other milk, according to Professor Bob Elliott of the University of Auckland. The healthy hearts of the milk-drinking Masai switched Elliot…
Moving Opera
Diva Kiri Te Kanawa’s welcome to the millennium was “the first, and one of the relatively few, moving moments among a hailstorm of images bearing down from around the globe during marathon New Year’s…
First Wedding
Julie and Sean Humphrey “found out how beautiful New Zealand was and just decided to do something a little different” – traveling from Ohio to Christchurch for the first wedding of the (real) millennium.
Never Say Die
One of Briton’s most popular MPs before being expelled from the Labour party for communist sympathies, New Zealand-born John Platt-Mills is still a practicing lawyer at 94. “Is there anything else he wants to achieve? ‘Yes, I’d…
First Golf – Definitely
“Armed with a three iron, a luminous golf ball and a light strapped to his head, Ant Gear dashed around the course at North Island Manawatu Golf Club in 114 – eight shots better than his…
Life in a Te Kuiti Villa…
Hints for a best-seller: New Zealand that “far-off place where property is cheap and the good life is to be had on a modest income,” would be ideal for Year in Provence-style escapism.
Asparagus are from Mars, Potatoes are from Venus
Lincoln University researchers have successfully grown potatoes and asparagus in soil collected from Mars. “Space-based soils could potentially support future human expansion in the solar system,” according to Professor Michael Mautner. “I wouldn’t say very soon, but…
Dishy Neill
Sam Neill puts in a “terrific performance” in The Dish, a “little-known story of how an obscure Australian tracking station provided the crucial downlink for the worldwide broadcast of the 1969 moon walk”, which has…
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Design
The revolutionary John Britten V1 bike featured in a story in Germany’s top news magazine Focus on the ‘The Art of the Motorcycle’ exhibition at the new Rem Koolhaas designed Guggenheim, Las Vegas. And in CycleWorld the…
Sixties Icon
Check out Sixties Motor Racing for Bruce McLaren shots, including New Zealand’s greatest driver salon racing in a Jaguar (choose Catalogue on Palawan website). McLaren is also featured in British Esquire‘s quarterly sports supplement.
Tui Flower and ANZAC Biscuits
Tui Flower, the “Julia Child of New Zealand” shares her ANZAC biscuits recipe with readers of the Los Angeles Times.
They’re Off
The Race, featuring New Zealand skipper Grant Dalton, kicked off in Barcelona on December 31. The giant catamarans are expected to circumnavigate the globe in around 65 days.
Unblemished
“We did not spot a single blemish in New Zealand, where it’s hard to tell where the pristine national parks end and the rest of the country begins….We discovered why New Zealand’s Milford Track, with its…
Gender Tee-off
Michael Campbell is one of four top male golfing stars to meet women’s #1 Karrie Webb in a million dollar “Battle of the Sexes” series later this year.
Awards of Merit
Controversial clergyman and academic Lloyd Geering carried off the highest honour in the New Years’ list, Principal Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit. Colin “Pinetree” Meads, All Black 1957-71 and all-time greatest AB, is one…
Scots Bemused
“The strangeness of New Zealand is brought home to us the very first night of the tour. We’ve just bought our first round in a bar in Paihia, when this Maori guy rolls up to us…
Bungy-free Zone
“They’re funny things, kiwis – like big hedgehogs with bird bits sticking out, and they snuffle around with their heads to the ground.” An anxious Brit birdwatches as an adrenaline-free alternative to “catapulting about the place”.
Window Rescue
Christchurch window-cleaner Brent Harrington’s rescue provided a spectacle for 200 cheering tourist after his pulley-operated platform malfunctioned, stranding him outside the fifth floor of the BNZ.
Kreme de la Kreme
New Zealander Donald Henshall is the new president of international development for Krispy Kreme, makers of President Clinton’s favourite doughnuts.
Is That a Wallet in Your Sofa or Are You Just Pleased to See Me?
After 57 years apart US marine Chuck Herrler was reunited with his wallet, courtesy of Wellington woman Louise Alliston, who noticed a strange bulge in the arm of her second-hand sofa.
Tennis Ace
Since coming to New Zealand six years ago, 19 year old Ilke Gers has developed into a potential tennis champion, currently aiming to break into the world top 400.
Berg Ahoy!
Kiwi Nigel Jolly heads a team of eleven sailing into Antarctic waters in search of a giant iceberg. The crew are hoping to film the berg inside and out.
Smart Milk
Breast is best for premature babies according to Christchurch School of Medicine researchers. Brest-fed babies have a slighter higher IQ at ages 7 and 8, compared to their peers raised on the bottle.
Federate or Die?
“It is likely that the New Zealand situation will become so critical in the early years of this century that support for political union will rise rapidly.”
Resolute Squash
Ireland’s “cultural aspects” have drawn New Zealander Andrew Flemming away from exercise, but regular squash is on his New Year’s resolution list.
Woolly Luxury
Wools of New Zealand will be displaying the braided, cut-piled and knotted wares of 33 carpet-makers at the Surfaces 2001 convention in Las Vegas. They also announce four key Carpet Colour Sensations for 2001.
Controversial Language
The “anthropological treasure trove of the Pacific” is a breeding ground for academic debate. University of Auckland researchers Russell Gray and Fiona Jordan have adapted DNA mapping techniques and applied them to language families, creating a new…
