Worlds youngest pregnancy.
What do you reckon? 12,11,10….? Try FIVE years old!
Atheist bus adverts claiming ‘There’s probably no God’ are reported to watchdog
An atheist advertising campaign claiming ‘there’s probably no God’ has been reported to the regulator.
Hundreds of buses are due to carry the slogan in a four-week £140,000 campaign, backed by the British Humanist Association.
But Christian Voice has complained the ads break the Advertising Standards Authority’s codes on substantiation and truthfulness.
Stephen Green, national director of Christian Voice, complained to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) saying the adverts break the ASA’s codes on substantiation and truthfulness.
‘It is given as a statement of fact and that means it must be capable of substantiation if it is not to break the rules.’
Top 10 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2007-08
Here is a brief overview of the most frequently challenged books of 2007-08 along with what have been the most commonly made objections for each one.
- And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell. Reasons stated for challenging the book’s suitability for schools and libraries: Anti-Ethnic, Sexism, Homosexuality, Anti-Family, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group
- The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier. Reasons stated for challenging the book’s suitability for schools and libraries: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Violence
- Olive’s Ocean by Kevin Henkes. Reasons stated for challenging the book’s suitability for schools and libraries: Sexually Explicit and Offensive Language.
- The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. Reasons stated for challenging the book’s suitability for schools and libraries: Religious Viewpoint
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Reasons stated for challenging the book’s suitability for schools and libraries: Racism
- The Color Purple by Alice Walker.Reasons stated for challenging the book’s suitability for schools and libraries: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language
- TTYL by Lauren Myracle.Reasons stated for challenging the book’s suitability for schools and libraries: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. Reasons stated for challenging the book’s suitability for schools and libraries: Sexually Explicit
- It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris. Reasons stated for challenging the book’s suitability for schools and libraries: Sex Education, Sexually Explicit
- The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. Reasons stated for challenging the book’s suitability for schools and libraries: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group
Magonia – one of Britain’s oldest established magazines in the fields of ufology, Forteana and contemporary beliefs.
It began in 1966 as a small stencil-duplicated bulletin put out by the Merseyside UFO Research Group called, rather predictably, the Merseyside UFO Research group Bulletin. The magazine rapidly gained a reputation amongst the conservatively-minded UFO community of the time as being a sceptical and disrespectful commentator of the foibles of the UFO scene.
As the editors increasingly realised that the UFO mystery was only a small part of a greater set of phenomena the coverage of the magazine widened, and MUFOB was a pioneer in Britain of the study of folklore in relation to UFOs. The work of controversial American researchers of the era, such as John Keel, and Frenchman Jacques Vallee, found an enthusiastic reception with MUFOB.
This change in direction, and a keen sense of the ridiculous kept the magazine in the forefront of controversy as a voice of the New Ufology, and kept the editors well supplied with letters of apopleptic fury from outraged readers like Fred O. Gardner. The range of topics the new MUFOB covered now spread far beyond UFOs (although ufology has always been central to the magazine) a new name was needed. With a nod to Jacques Vallee the title changed to “Magonia,” but the coverage and philosophy remained the same.
Now approaching thirty years of continuous publication the MUFOB/Magonia tradition of open-mindedness, sensible scepticism and a keen sense of humour helps to keep Magonia at the forefront of independent UFO and Fortean journalism in Britain and around the world.
Amazing enhanced human perception abilities are emerging, say researchers
The emerging awareness in many segments of society about what is
sometimes called “anomalous cognition” is an interesting development
that seems to hold much promise.
In fact, knowledge about this topic seems to be spreading throughout
the U.S. and around the world.
Anomalous cognition is a term that refers to various kinds of human
perception which can be highly effective and useful in a wide range of
endeavors and activities.
Included under this umbrella term are several human perceptual
abilities and skills. These include, but are not limited to:
Enhanced intuition and instincts
Increased awareness of one’s surroundings and environment
Improved insight into challenges and solutions
Acquisition of information and understanding about remote situations
The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines “anomalous” as
“inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or
expected – irregular, unusual – of uncertain nature or classification
marked by incongruity or contradiction – paradoxical.”
“Cognition” is defined as “to become acquainted with, know – to come
to know – cognitive mental processes – a product of these processes.”
We may soon need to change the word “anomalous” when referring to
enhanced human intelligence of this kind, because it may no longer be
“unusual.”
It may become very normal and routine for all of us.
In fact, it may be very useful to expand communication and education
about research findings in this area as far and wide as possible, and
in a timely manner.
Amanda Palmer “Creep” Live On Uke From Red Peters’ ODDVILLE
This version of Creep highlights just how simple and beautiful the song is – even when stripped back and delivered in this way. Amanda Palmers version on a Uke is both unusual and wonderful at the same time and brightened up my day – please enjoy.
Be sure to check out more of the same at ODDVILLE.
Testing Natural Selection with Genetics
Some ideas are discovered late in the history of a scientific discipline because they are subtle, complex or otherwise difficult. Natural selection was not one of these. Although compared with other revolutionary scientific ideas it was discovered fairly recently—Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace wrote on the subject in 1858, and Darwin’s On the Origin of Species appeared in 1859—the idea of natural selection is simplicity itself.
Some kinds of organisms survive better in certain conditions than others do; such organisms leave more progeny and so become more common with time. The environment thus “selects” those organisms best adapted to present conditions.
If environmental conditions change, organisms that happen to possess the most adaptive characteristics for those new conditions will come to predominate. Darwinism was revolutionary not because it made arcane claims about biology but because it suggested that nature’s underlying logic might be surprisingly simple.
HAMLEYS
Here I am at 5am this morning in the foyer of Hamleys, after a 2 hour night’s sleep. The ’247 years old’ sign behind me refers to how I feel. The crew had spent the entire night setting up the shoot, and had slept a little amongst the toys. I understand that nothing came alive, which is disappointing This was the last day of filming ‘VTs’ for the sort-of-series for this September. It’ll be four one-hours rather than six half-hours.
Now off for a weekend with Andy, my trusty sidekick, to come up with the stage show that you’ve all paid good money to come and see. From mid-Feb we begin writing and rehearsing it: the next couple of days is just to get our heads around it and find its themes. On Monday off to Liverpool to film for a week, so maybe see one or two of you around and about up there.
Going to have an afternoon sleep before heading off. I do hope the rest of you are a little more rested. X
Richard Wiseman – Blog
From the fantastic owner of the Quirkology experiments – Richard Wiseman – comes his fantastic new blog. He sent us all a message:
Thanks to everyone who has taken part in the New Scientist Face Experiment -
we are now looking at the data and hope to have something out by the middle
of February.
Also, I have just started a new blog about all things quirky at:
http://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/
At the moment there are posts on how to hypnotize various animals, outtakes
of quirkology videos, new work on the classic Milgram shock experiments, an
amazing ball trick, and lots more.
So, feel free to come and browse, and post a comment or two. As ever, thanks for your continued support and interest.
Best wishes
Richard
Catwalk clergy
The organisers of the Christian Resources Exhibition in Exeter are looking for Westcountry clergy who want to take part in their catwalk fashion show.
Apparently Clergy on the Catwalk, “invariably leads to interesting discussions on faith, fashion and Christian symbolism.”
