Articles from ‘elocal magazine’

Vaping has failed to cut teen smoking in New Zealand, according to new research published in The Lancet. The study shows that from 1999 to 2023, the decline in daily smoking among 14- to 15-year-olds continued at a similar rate despite the rise of e-cigarettes. · This contradicts a widely cited 2020 study, which claimed vaping may have displaced smoking between 2014 and 2019. · Asthma and Respiratory Foundation NZ CEO Letitia Harding said the…

The coalition government has passed changes to sentencing laws aimed at ending what it calls a “culture of excuses” for violent crime. · Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says the reforms reflect public frustration with lenient sentencing and send a clear message to the courts. · Judges will now be limited to a maximum 40% discount in sentencing, with repeat deductions for youth and remorse scrapped. New aggravating factors have been introduced,…

The Australia–New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement, better known as CER, was New Zealand’s first comprehensive bilateral trade agreement, and one of the first such agreements in the world. · CER came into force on 1 January 1983, but the agreement was not formally signed until 28 March, by New Zealand’s High Commissioner in Canberra, Laurie Francis, and Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade, Lionel Bowen. CER…

The US Space Force has a contract worth up to US$60 million to develop and fly a kind-of aircraft carrier in space. No, it's not the result of a major typo. It's intended as a way to station space vehicles to quickly counter orbital threats. · During the last century, as wars raged on the surface of the Earth, space was seen as something of a sanctuary – a safe haven free of conflict. Even during the Cold War and the Space Race, weaponry in…

Poliomyelitis as an epidemic disease passed through the Western world like some great comet. Recognised only sporadically before 1900, epidemics of polio appeared in Western communities with increasing frequency and intensity in the first half of the twentieth century. Thousands died, many more were paralysed for life. Yet by 1960 the disease was no longer feared and indeed, within a decade, was all but forgotten except by those whose lives had…

A brief story, if you will, about modern movie industry madness. In 2019, Will Smith and Tom Holland lent their voices to Spies In Disguise – a big-budget animation about a secret agent who turns into a pigeon. The film was pleasant enough: “a bird-brained Bond pastiche will have kids giggling for weeks” was this paper’s review. But more memorable than the movie itself is the bizarre story of its creation, emblematic of contemporary Hollywood’s…

In seeking new antibiotic sources, researchers have turned to an unlikely source: a whiffy frog known as Odorrana andersonii. By unclumping a compound it produces naturally, they've found a potential gut-friendly ally in the fight against superbugs. · Frogs aren't known for living in the cleanest environments. The mud and muck they typically inhabit are crawling with a pretty impressive range of microbes. Yet the amphibians thrive in a huge…

For centuries, women have gone to unnatural and even deadly lengths for beauty. Commoners and queens have covered their faces in lead, ingested arsenic and stuffed their feet, waists and breasts into various binds, all in the name of an ever-shifting ideal. Yet, the history of beauty is also one of agency. Women have leveraged the burden of beauty standards to build community and businesses—and to assert power through their own appearance. ·…

Researchers at Korea's Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science & Technology have created a nuclear battery that could turn radiation directly into electricity for decades – but without all the scary stuff associated with nuclear radiation. · Called a dye-sensitized betavoltaic cell, this battery uses beta particles, which are just high-energy electrons. The magic in this battery is the material carbon-14, a radioactive isotope that emits beta…

The location of a chest believed to contain the Ten Commandments has long been a mystery, but CIA documents claims the Ark of the Covenant has been found. · According to the Bible, the Ark of the Covenant was built by the Israelites shortly after they fled Egypt around the 13th century BC. Moses then placed the Ten Commandments inside. · The CIA conducted experiments in the 1980s with individuals who claimed they could perceive information…