Guest Author • Apr 17, 2018 •
Aphrodite Kantsa, University of the Aegean and Adrian Dyer, RMIT University This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Watching plants and pollinators such as bees can teach us a lot about how complex networks work in nature. There are thousands of species of bees around the world, and they … Read More
Public Health Expert • Feb 16, 2018 •
Professor Janet Hoek, Dr Lindsay Robertson, Ms Mei-Ling Blank, Dr Rosalina Richards Although most smokers want to quit, many of those who begin vaping continue to smoke. We recently probed this perplexing ambiguity and explored dual use of cigarettes and electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) [1]. In this blog, we summarise our findings and consider interventions that could encourage … Read More
Eric Crampton • Feb 09, 2018 •
New Zealand’s in a fun legal limbo right now on e-cigarettes. Everybody knows that the Ministry of Health is soon to be liberalising, so the de jure restrictions that prevent selling of nicotine-containing e-liquids aren’t being enforced. It’s pretty easy to get vaping liquid. In some ways, whatever regulatory regime comes out of this will be more restrictive than the … Read More
Eric Crampton • Oct 12, 2017 •
It is difficult to see what good purpose was served by this study. The Otago people (in conjunction with Auckland’s public health group) put cameras on kids that would take snapshots every six seconds. Then they poured through the footage to see how often the cameras, and presumably the kids, saw things that Otago people have long wanted to have … Read More
Mark Hanna • Apr 19, 2017 •
New Zealand has several layers of regulation to protect us against misleading health claims. Sometimes they all fail. My struggle against quackery over the last few years has given me some familiarity with the ways we’re protected against it, and with their shortcomings. Misleading people about their healthcare options is something that is clearly unethical. To quote the alt text … Read More
Guest Author • Mar 16, 2017 •
By David Evans Bailey, Auckland University of Technology By some estimates virtual reality (VR) will be a US$162 billion industry by 2020. Only 50% of this figure is projected to come from hardware sales; the rest will be revenue from software, content and services. It’s not just the size of the market that advertisers cannot afford to … Read More
John Kerr • Dec 18, 2016 •
As the big day approaches, there is no shortage of scientists turning their inquisitive minds to the mysteries of Christmas. In the spirit of the festive season, Sciblogs brings you a tinsel entwined ‘wrap-up’ of Noel-related research. Naughty or nice? Not so important for Santa Santa pays a visit to the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children. Source: BelfastLive. Read More
Guest Author • Dec 12, 2016 •
By Cathrine Jansson-Boyd, Anglia Ruskin University Christmas is traditionally a time for giving. And for most of us, giving means buying – the perfect excuse for major retailers to conduct an advertising assault that pulls on our heart strings and empties our pockets. Seasonal TV adverts are usually full of signs and symbols playing on our subconscious, and … Read More
Ken Perrott • May 13, 2016 •
How often do we see ads like this promoting a product by claiming scientific support that doesn’t exist. All in the interest of profit. We are all wrong at times – usually a lot more often than we think, or are happy to acknowledge. But the only person who doesn’t make a mistake is the person who … Read More
Guest Author • Dec 21, 2015 •
Leslie Hallam, Lancaster University The Australian federal court has accused Reckitt Benckiser of misleading consumers. The UK-based company has been marketing products in their Nurofen range for specific types of pain. The truth is, they all contain the same active ingredient: an analgesic drug called ibuprofen. Ibuprofen can’t be targeted at any specific pains. No real … Read More