First Came the Floods, Then Came the Asbestos

Posted 10:08pm Sunday 24th August 2025 by Zoe Eckhoff

Things have gone from bad to worse for residents of Carrington College’s Dawson House. In July, flooding forced them to relocate to Toroa. Asbestos discovered under soggy tiles made them stay there. Adorning a metaphoric hazmat suit, Critic stepped in to assess the situation.  A few Read more...

Student Health Continues to Offer Same-Day Appointments Despite Wait-Time Pressures

Posted 10:21pm Sunday 24th August 2025 by Tilly Rumball-Smith

Student Health has the massive job of providing healthcare to eighteen thousand students at Otago University. If you don’t have a GP down in Dunedin (practically all of us) you’re going to Student Health for every cough, UTI, Covid test, and sick note. For mental health matters, however, Read more...

Vape Juice has More Nicotine than You Think

Posted 1:38pm Sunday 1st May 2022 by Fox Meyer

If you’ve always wondered why vapes are such a tough habit to kick, here’s a possible reason why: it contains a fuckton of nicotine. To be precise, you’d get as much nicotine from a bottle of 30mg vape juice as you would smoking almost ten pouches of rolling tobacco, or over 700 Read more...

Student Reports “Outrageous” Abortion Experience

Posted 12:49am Saturday 23rd April 2022 by Keegan Wells and Fox Meyer

A student trying to get an abortion has criticised Dunedin Hospital for a “disgusting” and “disrespectful” experience. She is currently undergoing her third procedure for the same pregnancy, which she believed could’ve been avoided if information was presented Read more...

OUSA Supports Ban on Conversion Therapy

Posted 1:13am Saturday 11th September 2021 by Erin Gourley

OUSA made a lengthy submission in favour of the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill, which proposes to ban conversion practices (including conversion therapy) in Aotearoa. They were one of over 100,000 submissions on the Bill.  The OUSA submission, written by Political Read more...

Uni Owns Shares in Weird Mouth-Clamp Device

Posted 12:55am Monday 9th August 2021 by Denzel Chung

Otago University, along with two researchers responsible for the DentalSlim Diet Control Device, holds shares in the company holding the global patent for the DentalSlim mouth-clamp.  The device uses magnets to clamp a patient’s jaw shut. It is designed to help weight-loss efforts. It Read more...

“No Real Ethical Issues” to Having Jaws Clamped Shut, Said Otago Researchers

Posted 1:24am Saturday 31st July 2021 by Denzel Chung

The Otago-led research team behind the ‘DentalSlim Diet Control Device’, a magnetised jaw clamp that prevents people from eating solid food, claimed in their ethics committee application that their product would have “no real ethical issues” and presents “no significant Read more...

Free Scooters for Jabs

Posted 1:29am Saturday 31st July 2021 by Denzel Chung

E-scooter operator Neuron announced that they will offer 10,000 $10 vouchers to people wanting to scooter to their Covid-19 vaccination appointments. They’re encouraging everyone eligible to take them up on the offer, including over-60s.  Beginning from July 30, people who have the Read more...

Goop on a Budget

Posted 6:47pm Sunday 30th May 2021 by Erin Gourley

Disclaimer: Do not follow any of these recommendations. Please.  Accredited health guru Gwyneth Paltrow has realised that Goop, her alternative lifestyle brand, isn’t accessible to people on a budget. What a shock! She advertises things like gold-plated vibrators for the low, low price Read more...

There Will Be Blood: The good, the bad, and the messy of period sex

Posted 9:04pm Sunday 23rd May 2021 by Erin Gourley

Most humans swap a lot of bodily fluids to show that we’re attracted to each other, but for some reason we don’t put period blood in that category. There’s a longstanding belief that periods are unclean or gross, with no evidence to back that up. And contrary to what a lot of Read more...