Mark Hanna
Pluto and Charon Up Close - Honest Universe
Jul 16, 2015 •
I was born in June 1989. Just 2 months after that, the Voyager 2 spacecraft flew past Neptune on its way out of our solar system and for the first time ever we saw real close up pictures of the solar system’s outermost giant planet. Of course, I was too young to remember this, but […]
Ethical Pharmacy Practice 4: Paving the Way - Honest Universe
Jun 19, 2015 •
This year has not been a good year for homeopathy. There have been many blows to the industry in the form of more research finding it ineffective, position statements from organisations of health practitioners discouraging its use, and successful complaints to regulatory authorities. And this trend shows no signs of abating. In March, the Australian […]
Natural Curiosity: Stretching Reflections 2 - Unsorted
Jun 15, 2015 •
After my earlier post on this topic, I talked to a few people about why they thought these stretching reflections happened. There were a few different ideas, and when I talked to my brother about it he pointed out something in one of the images on my last post that was inconsistent with my explanation. […]
Natural Curiosity: Stretching Reflections - Honest Universe
Jun 09, 2015 •
On a rough reflective surface like the ocean or a dark wet road, reflections from bright lights like city lights, car brake lights, or the Moon appear stretched vertically. Why is this? When a surface is perfectly flat, like a regular mirror, the image we see in the reflection isn’t distorted at all. Even if […]
Natural Curiosity - Honest Universe
Jun 09, 2015 •
On the second Wednesday of every month, there’s a great Twitter chat on science communication in New Zealand: #SciCommNZ Unfortunately I’m always busy on Wednesday evenings while this is going on, but I’ve tried to participate as much as I can by joining in late and reading through each discussion. The questions that have been […]
Then and Now: The New Zealand Complementary Medicines Industry - Honest Universe
May 31, 2015 •
In 2007, the Ministry of Health undertook a review of the “complementary medicines industry” in New Zealand, and found that a significant majority of companies weren’t complying with consumer protection legislation. The review was never made public, but when I saw it mentioned in a recent article in North & South magazine I asked the […]
Press Council Complaint: Homeopathy in the Wairarapa Times-Age - Honest Universe
Apr 14, 2015 •
In February this year, an article was published in the Wairarapa Times-Age (both in print and online) headlined Use of natural remedies is on the rise. The article discussed some specific cases of so-called “natural remedies” being used to treat serious diseases, such as intravenous vitamin C for leukaemia and homeopathy to treat various forms […]
Finding Power and Balance: Proving and Disproving Claims - Honest Universe
Apr 09, 2015 •
I’m very happy to have had an article published on the website of the New Zealand Science Teacher, the official publication of the New Zealand Association of Science Educators. My article is about applied kinesiology, I’ve embedded the introduction below and you can read the whole thing on the NZST website: Finding Power and balance: […]
100% Natural and Chemical Free - Honest Universe
Mar 13, 2015 •
This afternoon, the Advertising Standards Authority released their decision to uphold an interesting complaint regarding advertisements for a couple of cleaning products on a website. Here is the ASA’s description of how the products were described on the website: The Wendyl’s website (http://wendyls.co.nz/) for “100% natural cleaning and beauty products” advertised their products as having […]
Ethical Pharmacy Practice 3: Running Out of Excuses - Honest Universe
Mar 12, 2015 •
Ethical pharmacy practice is something I have written about before. If you’ve read those posts, please bear with me as I cover some familiar background. In New Zealand, we are lucky enough to have an industry code of ethics for pharmacists, published by the Pharmacy Council of New Zealand, which holds pharmacists to high ethical […]