Reiki’n It In

Posted 12:22pm Sunday 20th March 2016

Reiki is a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation that adherents believe also promotes healing. Reiki (rhymes with nakey) was developed in 1922 by Japanese Buddhist Mikao Usui. It uses a technique often called “palm healing” or “hands-on-healing”. Read more...

Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl

Posted 2:41pm Sunday 13th March 2016

I only wanted one thing on tour: to slam my hand in a door and break my fingers. Then I would go home.” The opening line of Sleater-Kinney guitarist and singer Carrie Brownstein’s autobiography smashes you into the tedium and discomfort involved in touring in a cramped car with a band, Read more...

Steve Jobs

Posted 1:59pm Sunday 6th March 2016

Rating: C+ We didn’t need another film about Steve Jobs. This latest work shows us behind the scenes of the digital revolution, where we see the man at its epicentre, the late Steve Jobs, portrayed by Michael Fassbender. The film’s plot unfolds backstage at three iconic product Read more...

What's The Deal With Christian Science?

Posted 12:38pm Sunday 6th March 2016

Heal the sick. Raise the dead. Cleanse the lepers. Cast out demons,” reads the proud emblem of the Church of Christian Scientists. No wonder a man at the first service I went to told me that being a Christian Scientist is “very difficult”.  Most people who have heard of Read more...

Do Not Induce Vomiting

Posted 11:53am Sunday 28th February 2016

If you have accidently swallowed something poisonous, or are trying to help somebody who has, do not make them vomit. It is not an effective way to remove poison from the system. The stomach contractions that cause vomiting can make the poison absorb more rapidly into the bloodstream. If the Read more...

Dignity In Death

Posted 1:12pm Sunday 20th September 2015

"Say you want to leave your body to us, we may get it almost straight away, within a couple of months, or we may wait several decades for it” says the friendly operator at the anatomy museum on Tuesday morning. Chris Smith is responsible for the operation, maintenance, and guided tours Read more...

A History of Sex in Medicine

Posted 12:25pm Sunday 13th September 2015

Aha! It’s “a chancre on the penis!” not “a chamber on the lines”, it’s “a chancre on the penis!” This is the joyous thought process I had while decoding the terrible handwriting of a Victorian doctor from a huge leather-bound book in the Dunedin Read more...

Freedom to offend

Posted 11:58pm Sunday 12th October 2014

"Don't read it. I don't think you should read it,” said my friend while reading American Psycho. “It will upset you. There’s eye-gouging and ... stuff.” He meant it as a well-intentioned warning. But immediately my mind went to “‘Stuff,’ huh? What could this ‘stuff’ be?” As someone who is a Read more...

Alien speculations and human chauvinism

Posted 2:58pm Sunday 28th September 2014

On 24 June 1947, private pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing a string of nine, shiny, unidentified flying objects flying past Mount Rainier at speeds of over 2,000 kilometres per hour. He described the objects’ movement as being “erratic, like a saucer skipping over water.” A newspaper journalist Read more...

Social hair

Posted 11:52pm Sunday 7th September 2014

By looking at a person’s hair you can make assumptions about their age, ethnicity, gender, occupation, political views, their taste in music, income, lifestyle, religion, health, and sexuality. All from something that makes you want to puke if you find it in your meal. Hair matters. For Read more...