Contents

COVER : Animal, vegetable or mineral? Actually a small Niuean reef fish, the Indian fish, photographed on a coral head in about 20 metres of water near Niue’s wharf. The fish, between 70 and 80 mm long, can “walk” on its fins as well as swim, and soon after this photograph was taken it walked off to hide in a small crevice.
CONTENTS - Features :
EDGE CITY [Once home to orchards, oxidation ponds, prisons, a rubbish tip, Centrepoint Community and not much else. Albany, on Auckland’s northern fringe, is undergoing a speedy metamorphosis into a smart new city];
HOME DELIVERY [Midwives are back, supervising and assisting at that most intimate of human moments, birth, and many women are choosing midwives to help them have their babies amid the familiar cosiness and support of home];
LIFE ON THE ROCK [How do you become a viable nation when more than 80 per cent of your people live elsewhere? This is just one of the difficulties facing Niue, among the most sparsely populated and isolated of New Zealand’s Pacific neighbours];
A SCURVY BUSINESS [Over the centuries, scurvy claimed far more victims than were killed in contemporary wars. Yet whenever a legitimate cure seemed to be gaining ground, wrong-headed medical notions intervened and ushered the disease back to centre stage];
GROUNDED! WHY DO SOME BIRDS WALK [Flight is to birds as swimming is to fish. Well, not entirely, as it turns out. Over the aeons a fair number of birds have hung up their wings. What reasons could there be for reverting to a pedestrian existence?];
CONTENTS - Departments :
LETTERS; GEONEWS [a new birds discovery, science fairs, ocean currents around New Zealand]; WEATHER [Ice ahoy!]; PLACENAMES [Naming the fiords]; SPACE [navigation among the stars]; COMING UP;