Derren Brown denies influencing Premier League goal chances
We take allegations like these very seriously. So read on about this article at the spoof whilst I contact the lawyers and perform my “angry matron” routine.
Urban Legends
This one has been doing the rounds again from 2001. Read it and then have a look at this link about poor George Turklbaum.
Woman uses new forced marriage laws against father
Lancashire Police obtained its first ever Forced Marriage Protection Order against the unnamed woman’s father. The woman approached police after her father informed her in a “bolt out of the blue” that she was to be married last month.
She became engaged to a relative of her father’s three years ago during a trip to Pakistan. A Lancashire Police spokeswoman said: “She went on a family holiday and was betrothed but didn’t think anything would come of it and she went through with the ceremony.
“It was put to her that at the end of the month ‘you are going to Pakistan to get married’. ”It came as a bolt out of the blue that all of a sudden she would have to go to Pakistan.”
The woman approached police and officers applied for an order on her behalf. On Thursday, a judge at Blackburn County Court granted the order against her father. If he breaks the terms of the order he faces immediate arrest.
Independent Minds (Thanks Lotte)
Russian and US satellites collide
US and Russian communications satellites have collided in space in the first such reported accident.
A satellite owned by the US company Iridium hit a defunct Russian satellite at high speed nearly 780km (485 miles) over Siberia on Tuesday, Nasa said. The risk to the International Space Station and a shuttle launch planned for later this month is said to be low.
The impact produced massive clouds of debris, and the magnitude of the crash is not expected to be clear for weeks. There are thousands of man-made objects orbiting the earth, but this is thought to be the first time two intact spacecraft have hit each other, the BBC’s Andy Gallacher in Miami says.
Vatican buries the hatchet with Charles Darwin
The Vatican has admitted that Charles Darwin was on the right track when he claimed that Man descended from apes.
A leading official declared yesterday that Darwin’s theory of evolution was compatible with Christian faith, and could even be traced to St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas. “In fact, what we mean by evolution is the world as created by God,” said Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture. The Vatican also dealt the final blow to speculation that Pope Benedict XVI might be prepared to endorse the theory of Intelligent Design, whose advocates credit a “higher power” for the complexities of life.
Organisers of a papal-backed conference next month marking the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species said that at first it had even been proposed to ban Intelligent Design from the event, as “poor theology and poor science”. Intelligent Design would be discussed at the fringes of the conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University, but merely as a “cultural phenomenon”, rather than a scientific or theological issue, organisers said.
The conference is seen as a landmark in relations between faith and science. Three years ago advocates of Intelligent Design seized on the Pope’s reference to an “intelligent project” as proof that he favoured their views.
Why Do We Dream?
Horizon uncovers the secret world of our dreams. In a series of cutting-edge experiments and personal stories, we go in search of the science behind this most enduring mystery and ask: where do dreams come from? Do they have meaning? And ultimately, why do we dream?
What the film reveals is that much of what we thought we knew no longer stands true. Dreams are not simply wild imaginings but play a significant part in all our lives as they have an impact on our memories, the ability to learn, and our mental health. Most surprisingly, we find nightmares, too, are beneficial and may even explain the survival of our species.
Video: Robot uses human mind tricks to navigate
What an awesome title for a wednesday morning…
Engineers in Germany have been studying human brain activity to improve the way moving robots avoid obstacles. Watch our exclusive video above to see the system in action.
The team at Ulm University lead by Heiko Neumann and Cornelia Beck analysed how human brains respond to visual information as they move around, and designed software that does the same thing for a wheeled robot with a human-like head with two cameras for eyes.
The robot head was built at the PERCRO laboratory led by Antonio Frisoli and Massimo Bergamasco at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Italy. When it is using the new brain-inspired software, the robot chooses similar paths to humans around obstacles. It could help create systems that can guide visually-impaired people and eventually help robots make their way through cluttered environments as well as we do.
New Scientist (Thanks Katherine)
Angry monkeys turn tables on cruel trainer and beat him senseless
Angry monkeys turned on their cruel trainer – and beat him senseless with his own stick.
They went ape when their owner handed out a vicious beating to one of the trio during a performance riding mini bicycles in a market in Sizhou, eastern China.
While one twisted his ears, another pulled his hair out in handfuls and bit his neck.
Then when he dropped his cane, the third snatched it up and began beating the trainer around the head until he broke the stick.
Mirror (Thanks H, Chris, June, Matt)
Scientists create ‘living’ doll made of human cancer cells
The 5mm high figure – which bears a passing resemblance to a jelly baby – was created from liver cancer cells held in place with the help of 100,000 capsules of collagen.
Each capsule was also coated with special cells that secreted a protein which helped bind the 3D structure.
The entity’s humorous shape was created with a specially-made mould, but scientists at the University of Tokyo say that the technique has serious medical applications.
Telegraph (Thanks H)
Arresting image: Obama poster artist on graffiti charge
The street artist famous for his red, white and blue “Hope” posters of President Barack Obama has been arrested and accused of tagging property with graffiti, police said this weekend.
Shepard Fairey was arrested on Friday on his way to the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston for an event marking the opening of his first solo exhibition, Supply and Demand.
Fairey, 38, of Los Angeles, has spent the past two weeks in the city installing the exhibition and creating outdoor art, including a 6 metre by 15 metre banner on the side of city hall, according to the museum. He was released a few hours after his arrest.
“Shepard Fairey was completely unaware that there were any warrants for his arrest. Had he known, he would have resolved all such issues before the opening of his art exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston,” his lawyer, Jeffrey Wiesner, said.
Fairey has been arrested numerous times for painting on buildings and other private property without permission.
His Obama image has been sold on hundreds of thousands of stickers and posters, and was unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington before Obama’s inauguration.
The image is the subject of a copyright dispute with the Associated Press. Fairey argues his use of the AP photo is protected by “fair use”, which allows exceptions to copyright laws based on, among other factors, how much of the original is used, what the new work is used for and how the original is affected by the new work.
