The Skeptic Blog – now with vodcast
It’s a little rough round the edges and some strange bald guy keeps shining his head at the screen, but I like the fact the guys all do this just to annoy the Catholics 
Visit the site to find out more about skeptic news and insider knowledge on just how the amazing trick in the video was performed.
Derek Acorah to conduct Michael Jackson Seance for Sky
Yes indeedy. You heard it here first. Unless you read Broadcast.
Can you honestly imagine anything – anything – more anus-invertingly unpalatable than this? I hate myself for drawing attention to it. “The shows were ordered by Sky 1 HD commissioning editor Clare Hollywood, who will also executive produce. Steve Regan and Melanie Leach exec produce for Twofour.” And we salute them for it.
So proud to be in telly.
DBx
Objectified film – excellent design documentary now available
I thought this one would be for the geeks, but after watching the first 10 minutes I was entirely hooked on Objectified. The subject of design is something we take so readily for granted, but here it is beautifully illustrated as one of the most important factors in everyday objects. It’s a wonderful DVD thats beautifully designed and comes with a whole load of extras.
Ironically there was a manufacturing problem and the releases were delayed – however ours just turned up and we’re very happy about it.
Well worth buying and passing on as a gift to look rather cool and intellectual.
Dyson invents a new type of fan – with no blades.
Few inventions have lent themselves to as little improvement over the years as the simple fan, with its whirring blades that blow air across a desk or through a room.
But now even the conventional fan has been transformed.
James Dyson, the British inventor behind the vacuums that bear his name, has come up with an incredibly simple-looking, circular fan that has no blades. It uses “Air Multiplier” technology to push 119 gallons of smooth air out every second.
The conventional fan relying on blades has been largely unchanged for about two centuries; the first mechanical fans are said to have been built in the Middle East in the early 19th century. Ceiling fans blew onto the scene in the 1860s, powered by running water and a setup that turned a series of belts with the ability to operate several fans at once (some of these still exist in old buildings). A personal electric fan hit the market in the 1880s.
This 10-inch fan is however $300!
Full article at LiveScience
Terracotta Army Museum Denies Major Discovery
The director of the Terracotta Army Museum (officially titled the Xi’An Terracotta Warriors and Horses Museum) and other officials at the institution denied local media reports that a major discovery of 100 new terracotta warriors has been made.
China’s state news agency Xinhua, and the AFP, reported that archaeologists have found 100 figures in the “number three” excavation pit at the museum’s site in Shaanxi Province, where work started one month ago.
Director of the museum, Chao Wei, told The Art Newspaper that “it is impossible, the pit is only 200 sq. m, if you were here and saw the site you would see it was not possible to have 100 figures in the pit. Potentially there are maybe ten figures, but work has only just begun”.
Liu, the museum’s vice director, told us: “We are not allowed to discuss this too much with outside sources—I think there has been a discovery, but there is no way there are so many figures.”
The Art Newspaper (thanks, SarahWoo)
Faith Healing ‘Risks Recovery’
A belief in faith healing could jeopardise recovery from illness, according to a new study by a University of Ulster researcher. Dr Tony Cassidy said he believes that some people who put their trust in faith healing may be less likely to adhere to medical advice.
He will be presenting his research at a British Psychological Society conference in Birmingham. The Coleraine-based academic’s research team questioned 766 people on their belief in and intention to use faith healing.
They were also surveyed about their intention to adhere to medical advice.
“We found that belief and intention to use faith healing was a significant predictor of self-reported non-adherence to a medication,” Dr Cassidy said. ”Participants who believed strongly in faith healing were also more likely to say they were less satisfied with their GP.
“Given that only about one-in-three people follow medical advice totally and about one in four put their lives at risk through non-adherence, it’s important that health care professionals understand their patients’ beliefs about alternative remedies, such as faith healing.”
BBC (thanks, Kirsty)
Artwork Gets Onlookers Asking – Will He Jump?
VIENNA – A small crowd of people wonder if the smart businessman clutching a briefcase will jump off the edge of a four-storey building in central Vienna — but he won’t. He can’t.
The man, dressed in a grey suit, dark shoes and a black hat, is a life-size plastic art installation, which will be perched atop the office of an investment and real estate company for the next year.
The artist, Austrian Ronald Kodritsch, says the piece — called “Reason to Believe” — is not necessarily about suicide.
“It’s not interesting whether he will jump or not. It’s all about having a different perspective on things and about what might cross his mind,” Kodritsch told Reuters. “Hyperrealism is boring!”
Reuters (thanks, Kirsty and SuZi)
Pointless Research: Top Ten Winners For Silly Science
As the government prepares to crack down on ‘irrelevant’ research, we look at some of the things we’ll be losing, courtesy of the Ig Nobel awards. The government has unveiled plans to allocate research funding according to how much “impact” the research has.
The plans have come under fire from academics, who say that curiosity-driven, speculative research has led to some of the most important breakthroughs in scientific history, including penicillin, relativity theory and the theory of evolution. More than that, though, it might bring an end to the quirky, sometimes daft, sometimes weirdly inspired research that brings harmless entertainment and occasional enlightenment to armchair boffins and science nerds everywhere.
Below, we take a look at a few of the best. We have selected our favourites from the winners of the splendid Ig Nobel Awards – take a look yourselves on the Telegraph website. They include:
Digital rectal massage is a cure for hiccups, winner, Medicine, 2006
Chinstrap penguins can squirt poo up to 40cm, winner, Fluid Dynamics, 2005
Ducks can be homosexual necrophiliacs too (winner, Biology, 2003)
Suicide rates are linked to the amount of country music played on the radio, winner, Medicine, 2004
Why woodpeckers don’t get headaches – winner, Ornithology, 2006
And many more over at The Telegraph (thanks, Kirsty)
It was dear Phillis (@phillisdorris) who had the task of persuading your blogger to get onto Twitter, and she had a tricky task at that. I was very reticent. Why on earth would it be of any interest to anyone how I was conducting my days, and why on earth would I care how they went about theirs? It took much proselytising and a ready stream of drinks to have me reluctantly, whiningly, well-alright-I’ll-try-it-for a while-ly agree to pop my head round that particular door and see if it looked like a party I’d enjoy.
I twitter (I believe one twitters a tweet, but some seem to use ‘tweet’ as the verb, so I’m a little unsure) sporadically, with no particular agenda, mainly to pass on things that amuse. As this blog passes to the Twittersphere through the same feed, I figured less serious, personal tweets from me might balance out the grander posts from Mother Blog. Having said this, the number of my ‘followers’ (I prefer ‘disciples’, it’s just nattier) has grown to such proportions that I am, during quiet moments, wondering how I might go about embracing so many people to try something rather more nefarious. Bear with me, I’ll find something.
I try to scan at least my recent ‘mentions’ and replies as much as I can without endangering my career, getting run over or irritating my real-life companions to the point of violence. I’m aware that quite a proportion of these tweets boil down to people requesting I reply to them; a sadly insurmountable task given the numbers, were I to comply. So forgive me: I do read most tweets, and tend to DM a response to things I find interesting, but the numbers are huge and time is oftentimes sadly lacking.
I follow very few people, as I like to have only a manageable number of tweets pop up for worthwhile reading when I open up Twittelator, or Tweetie 2, or twatever. This is perhaps because I am a novice in this strange new world, and maybe I should throw myself in and follow anyone and everyone. For now, I have turned down requests to follow a good number of real-life friends for this reason, which shames me a little, and a million or so requests from friendly twitterers to do the same. As it is, I follow @stephenfry, because you get him free when you join Twitter; my co-conspirator and fluffer @andynyman, our own @lordcoopy and a small handful of other chums including the brilliant @serafinowicz.
As a performer with a public profile, Twitter puts me horribly close to real feedback, which is a mixed blessing. Very quickly one learns not to read reviews in order to remain sane (I don’t even read interviews or articles about myself any more), as one can skim past a hundred glowing comments and get to a single nasty dig which then eats away at one for days. And the internet has a habit of bringing out witless vitriol in people in a way that other fora tend not to. Politeness and decency are quickly abandoned by most when they are not face to face with those they criticise, and probably don’t even imagine that their comments might be read by the person in question. That one in a hundred comment, through some infuriating glitch in ones sensitivity, has a vastly disproportionate effect to the many positive ones which remain largely ignored. The lovely thing about Twitter is that, unlike reading blogs or online discussions, eighty percent of the comments are from people who are amiably disposed, and it warms the ego a little to delve into such kind thoughts, albeit sixty three times a day. The trick is to peripherally anticipate the occasional ‘@derrenbrown is a prick’ tweet, and jump past it still smiling, as it scrolls down into vision.
For those who find the thought of Twitter ridiculous, I do not presume to argue. Vapid and ludicrous, of course. I read a tweet from a tearful lady who had just received a hug from a person she didn’t know in the street and had decided on the spot to withdraw from Twitter (which had presumably taken up much of her time), implying that it was an empty place that bore no comparison to real-life relationships. Indeed it is, and should be no substitute for them. It is, most of the time, footling and featherbrained: luckily, we can enjoy plenty of things in life which are pretty inconsequential, and appreciate the wit and colour they add to our days. I can’t honestly think of a reason for the stuffed giraffe which is looking at me from my hallway other than I like it being there and it’s a fun place to hang scarves. But occasionally, with Twitter’s capacity to spread important ideas within moments, it can also be utterly majestic and invaluable. Though it has to be said you might not find that so much on my feed.
Right, I haven’t checked my mentions for almost twelve minutes now, so off you pop.
x
The missing: Each year, 275,000 Britons disappear
The number of people vanishing is at record levels, with the recession a key factor. Many soon return, but who helps the agonised families of those who stay away?
Odd place, Britain. Every day, 13 million CCTV cameras track our movements. We’re PIN-numbered, databased, credit-rated, nannied, Neighbourhood Watched, Facebooked, emailed and GPS-ed. You wouldn’t think any of us could slip away unnoticed. But we do, in ever-increasing quantities. An Independent on Sunday investigation has established that the numbers of Britons who disappear each year is now at record levels.
Missing People, the charity that helps both the disappeared and those left behind, told us that 250,000 missing persons reports each year – more than 30,000 higher than any previous total – is “probably an underestimate”; others put the total nearer 275,000. This, the equivalent of the entire population of Plymouth being spirited away, means that, across the country, one person goes missing every two minutes. The vast majority are swiftly found, or return of their own volition, but many don’t. Some disappear for decades, and sources, including some inside the police, say the number of people in Britain who have been missing from family, friends and usual haunts for more than a year is at least 16,000 and could be as many as 20,000.
