John Gibb

Dr Margot Skinner, deputy dean of the University of Otago School of Physiotherapy, has been granted a rare honour by Physiotherapy New Zealand.

Professor Elizabeth Dean, a leading physical therapist from the University of British Columbia, is urging physiotherapists to help patients counter lifestyle diseases, including those linked with obesity.

New University of Otago research is casting doubt on oft-repeated claims that ''gung ho'' and ''cavalier'' attitudes by farmers are contributing strongly to quad bike accidents.

Information communications technology, including the internet, is providing ''exciting'' new possibilities for physiotherapists to boost community education and help deliver rehabilitation programmes, Dr Margot Skinner says.

Associate Health Minister Tariana Turia strongly defended the family-based Whanau Ora inter-agency approach to health and social services in a talk given at the University of Otago yesterday.

Nearly 50 years after leaving the University of Otago School of Physiotherapy to work in Australia, retired physiotherapy teacher Pamela Bell is finding it hard to absorb the massive changes at the university campus since she left.

Physiotherapy has become a ''vital part'' of the healthcare professions over the past 100 years, University of Otago health sciences pro-vice-chancellor Prof Peter Crampton said yesterday.

Protesters campaigning for the legalisation of cannabis will ''respect'' the University of Otago's planned campus-wide smoking ban next year, but will continue consuming cannabis by using inhalers rather than smoking the drug.

If you want to learn a thing or two about remarkable coincidences involving family reunions, you need look no further than Carol Ball.

Creating digital versions of natural history films made by pioneering royal albatross researcher Dr Lance Richdale will boost public awareness of this Dunedin ''seabird genius'', author Neville Peat believes.

Otago Heritage Bus Society organisers are ''absolutely delighted'' with the response from Dunedin passengers to a service the society offered, using two restored buses, on the Good Friday public holiday.

It is in New Zealand's best interests to know much more about how climate change is affecting the Antarctic, University of Otago Prof Gary Wilson says.

Retired Australian High Court justice Michael Kirby says improving animal protection laws is an idea whose time has come.

An nanotechnology pioneer Don Eigler is enthusiastic about New Zealand and says there is scope for this country to develop more high-technology industries.

University of Otago professor Jim Mann, an internationally respected researcher in human nutrition, has criticised ''so-called health foods'' that were actually ''not healthy'' and urged big reforms in supermarket food labelling.

Twenty people, including the main student organiser of the event, Jordan Taylor, recently took HIV tests at the University of Otago campus during an awareness-raising Sexual Health Week.

Solomon Island-born David Firisua has never forgotten that Dunedin teacher Jan Probert changed his life by helping teach him English as a youngster more than two decades ago.

Thursday late nights have proved popular at Toitu Otago Settlers Museum, attracting 1690 people since the redeveloped museum reopened to the public in December.