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For the average middle-aged man, nothing short of a severed limb or full-blown cardiac arrest would convince them to see the doctor, something that will be highly familiar to concerned wives up and down the country. This reluctance has been captured in a new survey from AXA Global Healthcare which showed that while 88 per cent would fix a car issue within a week, only 47 per cent would seek to act as swiftly in response to a health problem. …

After months of anticipation, the Government has unveiled its electricity market reforms. The verdict from across the political spectrum is damning: the package is a damp squib. Despite soaring power prices and an energy crisis that saw factories shuttered and households shivering, the coalition’s package is startlingly modest. Newsroom journalist Marc Daalder was the first to label the plan a “damp squib” that ignores 8 of the 10 key…

**Maorification – Racism** If I was to promote a Pakeha only political party you would hear the screams of protest from around the world not just here in New Zealand, yet we still put up with a political party which is race based; “Te Pati Maori”. This is nothing more than racism cloaked as some sort of obligatory right for Maori. The Maori Party is only in Parliament because they have guaranteed Maori seats, but in today’s times this is an…

A vegetarian moussaka rich with chunks of delicious butternut pumpkin. Ingredients For the lentils - 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil - 1 large onion, finely chopped - 1 celery stick, diced - 2 garlic cloves, crushed - 250g puy lentils - 2 x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes - 1 bay leaf - ½ tsp dried oregano - 5cm piece of cinnamon For the other vegetables - 700g pumpkin or squash, peeled and deseeded (prepared weight) - Extra-virgin olive oil,…

Dr. Judy Wood earned a Ph.D. Degree from Virginia Tech and is a former professor of mechanical engineering. She has research expertise in experimental stress analysis, structural mechanics, deformation analysis, materials characterization and materials engineering science. Her research has involved testing materials, including complex-material systems, in the area of photomechanics, or the use of optical and image-analysis methods to determine…

Higher education across the world is facing a panoply of challenges that threaten to undermine or drastically alter its future. In the United States, universities are grappling with huge cuts to federal funding and pressure from the government to change their teaching and research agendas. In the United Kingdom, financial pressures are pushing some institutions to the brink of bankruptcy. Universities elsewhere, including in Germany and the…

A one-time gene therapy can markedly slow the progression of Huntington’s disease, potentially paving the way for the first ever treatment to alter the course of this rare, inherited brain disorder. In a small trial of 29 people who were in the early stages of Huntington’s-related decline, participants who received a high dose of the therapy directly into their brains saw the disease slow by 75% over three years, compared with those in a…

This three-ingredient recipe is sweet and silky – and quick and easy to make Based on a classic Turkish recipe, this pudding is sweet and silky, almost like a fig custard. The magic is that it only contains three ingredients: fibre-dense dried figs, milk and yogurt. You can add warm, earthy spices like cinnamon if you wish, but I like the natural flavour of the figs to come through. Ingredients - 200g soft dried figs - 250ml whole milk…

For centuries, the Lighthouse of Alexandria guided mariners to the bustling Mediterranean port and capital of Ptolemaic Egypt—a beacon of human ingenuity and a symbol of the ambition of the Hellenistic age. The Lighthouse, also known as the Pharos of Alexandria, was named after the tiny island at the harbor's mouth where it was built. Ancient Greek writers hailed it as one of the Seven Wonders of the World, and it stood from the early third…

**Losing the popular vote** Recent polls show the Coalition Government is losing the popular voter. In fact based on those recent polls, if an election was held now, the Coalition Government would be relegated to the opposition benches. So, why is this happening? Why is that even after the two-terms of the last Labour Government where we saw the cost of living reach record highs, the rate of inflation reach record highs and the highest…

Finance Minister Nicola Willis has pushed back against calls for her resignation from former Labour Finance Minister Sir Roger Douglas and economist Robert MacCulloch, telling The Platform she is sticking to a cautious fiscal path. Willis said it was “surprising” to be singled out, arguing the government is doing what it was elected to do. “Our fiscal plan has us getting the books back into surplus by the 2028/29 year,” she said, adding that…

Alzheimer’s New Zealand is warning the country is “dangerously unprepared” for the coming surge in dementia cases, expected to more than double to 170,000 by 2050. Chief executive Catherine Hall said community-based rehabilitative services run by 17 organisations are “woefully underfunded and under-resourced,” despite keeping people out of “much more expensive” hospital and aged-care systems. She estimated more than 30,000 people living with…

Usually affectionate, it was when Bruce Willis started to become indifferent to his family that his wife, Emma, started to worry about him. In her new book, The Unexpected Journey, she describes how, along with the changes in his personality, it was the small and subtle things, such as struggling with speech and developing a stutter, that made her realise that there might be something wrong. The Die Hard actor has frontotemporal dementia…

There's new evidence that cruciferous vegetables blunt spikes in blood sugar levels, which could be particularly important for those with type 2 diabetes or are at risk of developing the condition. It's another feather in the health cap of these foods, which have been shown to fight colon cancer and high blood pressure. In a randomized, controlled, crossover trial led by Edith Cowan University (ECU), 18 participants with an average age of 68…

On the remote Yamal and Gydan peninsulas of western Siberia, the landscape is marked by massive craters that look as though the Earth has blown holes in itself. While the origin story of these gas-emission craters (GECs) has remained somewhat of a mystery since the first one was discovered back in 2014, scientists now believe they know what's causing them. These fascinating GECs – all rocky cylinders plunging as deep as 164 m (538 ft) and…

Family First has written to Associate Health Minister Matt Doocey, urging the government to restrict the use of puberty blockers in under-18s, citing the Ministry of Health’s own Evidence Brief. It found “significant limitations in the quality of evidence” for their safety, efficacy, or reversibility. In the letter, CEO Bob McCoskrie and strategic director Simon O’Connor said: “We strongly believe … that the government must regulate under…

During the Tāmaki Makaurau by-election, Te Pāti Māori MP Tākuta Ferris posted a campaign image of Labour volunteers with the caption: “This blows my mind!! Indians, Asians, Black and Pākehā campaigning to take a Māori seat from Māori.” The post was rightly decried as racist, but it also exposed a key contradiction: Ferris had no way of knowing their whakapapa. Instead, he applied the appearance test, blood quantum by another name, long…

A new artificial intelligence (AI) tool can forecast a person’s risk of developing more than 1,000 diseases, in some cases providing a prediction decades in advance1. The model, called Delphi-2M, uses health records and lifestyle factors to estimate the likelihood that a person will develop diseases such as cancer, skin diseases and immune conditions up to 20 years ahead of time. Although Delphi-2M was trained only on one data set from the…

In 2021, there were 99 fatal crashes in New Zealand where drugs were detected in a driver’s blood. Drugs are present in nearly one-third of all fatal crashes on New Zealand roads. Methamphetamine and cannabis are considered the two substances most commonly linked to impaired driving. Wastewater testing has shown meth use doubling nationally over the past year, while New Zealand continues to rank among the world’s highest consumers of…

**Are we being Lied to?** **In my considered opinion the answer is definitely yes!** So let’s look at why and how. It could just be a lack of sufficient Knowledge or a lack of accurate information. What are we talking about? I am talking about the decision to implement Plan Change 1! The Waikato Regional Council has been saying that because the plan change is before the environment court that they have to put it into place after the court…