For those in the US, the Olivier Awards are the equivalent of the Tony’s – Theatreland’s highest accolade. A previous show, “Something Wicked This Way Comes”, also won an Olivier, and was the first time that any sort of magic show had won such an esteemed award. Now Enigma is shortlisted, the show that Derren is about to reprise on a 5 month sell-out tour, his longest yet due to huge demand. It kicks off in Swansea this week, directed and co-written as ever by Andy Nyman.

Details for tickets are available on this blog. We believe extra tickets have now been made available in Torquay for Valentine’s weekend. If you find your theatre is sold out, you can try for returns or, if you wish, keep an eye on eBay, where they sometimes appear for huge amounts.

Derren says, “Touring with the stage show is by far my favourite part of the year. I’m so excited to get it up and running again. This tour had to double in size to accomodate demand, which makes it doubly fun to do. Particularly this show, which is such a massive pleasure to perform.” On the subject of a possible second Olivier, he added, “It’s amazing to be nominated. And if the show does win, it has the advantage that means that if you come and don’t like it, then you’re wrong and I can prove it.”

There are whispers of Derren hitting Broadway with a show in 2011. Nothing has been confirmed, and no details are being offered.

Coops and Iain, two of the small crew that travels with Derren, are personally requesting this year that the more “generous and sexy” fans bring them packets of Roast Beef Monster Munch. “They can be left at stage door before the show. Leave your details and we’ll announce a prize for the person who leaves the most…”

They don’t know what they’re letting themselves in for.

Anyone attending the show is respectfully asked by Derren to keep its contents secret…

“IF a rapid series of taps are applied first to your wrist and then to your elbow, you will experience a perceptual illusion, in which phantom sensations are felt along the skin connecting the two points that were actually touched. This feels as if a tiny rabbit is hopping along your skin from the wrist to the elbow, and is therefore referred to as the “cutaneous rabbit”. The illusion indicates that our perceptions of sensory inputs do not enter conscious awareness until after the integration of events occuring within a certain time window, and that the sensory events taking place at a certain point can be influenced by future events.

A group of Japanese researchers now shows that this illusion is not just confined to the body. In a new study published today in the Journal of Neuroscience, they report that the cutaneous rabbit can easily be induced to “hop out” of the body, so that the illusory sensations are perceived to originate not from the body itself, but from external objects that interact with it. ”

Read more at NeuroPhilosophy Blog

“Latvia sold a deserted town built around a Soviet-era radar station to a Russian investor who bid $3.1 million at an unusual auction yesterday, officials said.

The town formerly known as Skrunda-1 housed about 5,000 people during the Cold War. It was abandoned over a decade ago after the Russian military withdrew from Latvia following the Soviet collapse.

A representative of a Russian investor won the bidding contest in Latvia’s capital, Riga, with an offer of $3.1 million, said Anete Fridensteina-Bridina, a spokeswoman for the Baltic country’s privatization agency.

She said the buyer was Aleksejevskoje-Serviss, a Russia-based firm, though she could not provide details.

It was not immediately clear what plans the buyer had for the 110-acre property, which is located in western Latvia about 95 miles from Riga. The town contains about 70 dilapidated buildings, including apartment blocks, a school, barracks, and an officers’ club.”

Read more at the Boston Globe

“China’s reckless use of antibiotics in the health system and agricultural production is unleashing an explosion of drug resistant superbugs that endanger global health, according to leading scientists.

Chinese doctors routinely hand out multiple doses of antibiotics for simple maladies like the sore throats and the country’s farmers excessive dependence on the drugs has tainted the food chain.

Studies in China show a “frightening” increase in antibiotic-resistant bacteria such as staphylococcus aureus bacteria, also know as MRSA . There are warnings that new strains of antibiotic-resistant bugs will spread quickly through international air travel and internation food sourcing.”

Read more at The Telegraph

“Spray-on liquid glass is transparent, non-toxic, and can protect virtually any surface against almost any damage from hazards such as water, UV radiation, dirt, heat, and bacterial infections. The coating is also flexible and breathable, which makes it suitable for use on an enormous array of products.

The liquid glass spray (technically termed “SiO2 ultra-thin layering”) consists of almost pure silicon dioxide (silica, the normal compound in glass) extracted from quartz sand. Water or ethanol is added, depending on the type of surface to be coated. There are no additives, and the nano-scale glass coating bonds to the surface because of the quantum forces involved. According to the manufacturers, liquid glass has a long-lasting antibacterial effect because microbes landing on the surface cannot divide or replicate easily.

The liquid glass spray produces a water-resistant coating only around 100 nanometers (15-30 molecules) thick. On this nanoscale the glass is highly flexible and breathable. The coating is environmentally harmless and non-toxic, and easy to clean using only water or a simple wipe with a damp cloth. It repels bacteria, water and dirt, and resists heat, UV light and even acids.

Food processing companies in Germany have already carried out trials of the spray, and found sterile surfaces that usually needed to be cleaned with strong bleach to keep them sterile needed only a hot water rinse if they were coated with liquid glass. The levels of sterility were higher for the glass-coated surfaces, and the surfaces remained sterile for months.”

Read more at Physorg.com

Prosecutors say it’s a blatant case of manslaughter by a man who recklessly crammed dozens of people in a 400-square-foot sweat lodge and chided them for wanting to leave, even as people were vomiting, getting burned by hot rocks and lying lifeless on the ground.

The ceremony was intended to be almost a religious awakening and the highlight of Ray’s “Spiritual Warrior” retreat. About halfway through the ceremony, people began feeling ill, vomiting and collapsing. Three people who never regained consciousness died at hospitals — Kirby Brown, 38, of Westtown, N.Y.; James Shore, 40, of Milwaukee; and Liz Neuman, 49, of Prior Lake, Minn. Eighteen others were hospitalized.

The sweat lodge was built in 2008 specifically for Ray’s event and used numerous other times without incident. What happened inside of the pitch-black structure last October depends on who you ask.

Some participants said Ray highly encouraged them to stay inside, scolded them for leaving and ignored repeated pleas for help. His attorneys say participants were free to leave as they pleased and Ray was unaware of any problems until after the two-hour ceremony ended.”

Read more at The Guardian (Thanks Tammy)

“The British Homeopathic Association has been accused of misrepresenting scientific evidence on alternative medicine in documents it gave to a parliamentary inquiry.

The organisation claimed several scientific reviews offered support for homeopathy in material submitted to the cross-party science and technology select committee, which is holding an investigation into the products. Robert Mathie, a researcher at the BHA, said the reviews found evidence for a difference between homeopathic remedies and sugar pills, which contain no active ingredients.

But the claim has dismayed some of the scientists who wrote the reviews and angered MPs on the committee who are in the final stages of writing their report.

One review cited was written by Edzard Ernst, a scientist who investigates complementary medicine at the Penisula Medical School in Exeter. He said the BHA’s interpretation of his study was “grossly misleading” because they failed to mention important caveats published in the study. Another review, by Jean-Pierre Boissel at the Hospitals of Lyon and University Claude Bernard in France, was quoted as evidence that homeopathic treatments differ to placebos. Boissel said his conclusion was that homeopathy tended to fare worse in the best-designed studies.

“It is extremely disappointing to be fed misrepresentations of science, whether it’s deliberate or incompetence,” said Evan Harris MP, science spokesman for the Lib Dems and a member of the parliamentary committee.

Homeopathic treatments are usually made by diluting a substance so much there are no molecules of the original ingredient left. In November the chief pharmacist at Boots, Paul Bennett, told the inquiry he had no evidence that homeopathy works. At the weekend, hundreds of people took part in a “mass overdose” of homeopathic pills outside branches of Boots to protest against the company selling the products.

The row emerged as a survey for the medical journal, Pulse, found 80% of GPs want the Health Department to stop funding homeopathy on the NHS. Only 14% were in favour of the health service continuing to provide the treatments.”

Read more at The Guardian (Thanks Tammy)

Mumnesia, preg head, baby brain. Call it what you like, but a new study says the popular belief that pregnancy reduces memory is a myth.

Published in the latest issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry, the study, led by Helen Christensen at the Australian National University, found no evidence that pregnancy or motherhood affects a women’s brain power.

According to the Times Online, the findings contradict previous studies claiming that women’s brains decline in size by up to 4 per cent while they are pregnant, potentially leading to worse performance on tests of memory and verbal skills.

“Professor Christensen’s team recruited 1,241 women aged 20-24 in 1999 and 2003 and asked them to perform a series of tasks. The women were followed up at four-year intervals and asked to perform the same cognitive tests. A total of 77 women were pregnant at the follow-up assessments, 188 had become mothers [but were not pregnant at the time of the interviews] and 542 remained childless. The researchers found no significant differences in cognitive change for women who were pregnant and those who were not.”

New Scientist

“Many conspiracy theorists seem very keen on the idea of hidden messages or codes secretly embedded within ancient writings. Believers claim hidden prophecies of significant world events and disasters can be uncovered and deciphered by analysing the Bible. By simply selecting a random paragraph and taking out the punctuation and merely inserting the passage into a matrix a skeptic, if suitably motivated, and with the benefit of hindsight is easily able to uncover whatever it is they fancy. Believers see predictions of the assassination of President Kennedy and the 9/11 twin towers terrorist attack uncovered in the bible as irrefutable evidence of divine revelation even though rational thinkers can locate predictions of the death of Leon Trotsky and Princess Diana secreted within “Moby Dick”.” – [Science, Reason and Critical Thinking]

This is one of the many great posts from forgetomori – a great blog well worth following – please visit and enjoy.

UPDATE: I recently found out this was from Crispian Jago in reference to the Bible Code. You may remember Crispian for his wonderful set of Simpson’s Skeptics Top Trumps.