Science Special News

[Rasputin]

Rosslyn ghost sighting spooks Festival actors

Actors rehearsing at Midlothian's Rosslyn Chapel for a Festival play claim to have spotted two ghosts in the famous building. A cast member reported seeing a "fairy-like" figure in the grounds of the Chapel, while another said they spotted a person inside the building itself. The actors are preparing to perform A Midsummer Night's Dream, which is being produced by the Roslin-based Nonsense Room Productions. Producer Simon Beattie, who also works as a tour guide at the Chapel and appeared as an extra in Tom Hanks' blockbuster film The Da Vinci Code, said strange sightings were not unusual at Rosslyn Chapel. "Last year we were rehearsing for a Fringe show, and when I was locking up I heard a child's voice in the crypt and so I shouted down that I was locking up," he said. "When I went down there however, there was no-one there.

"We've no idea who the ghosts might be but it certainly seems that they are budding thespians and they have certainly livened up our rehearsals."

[Rasputin]

Pyramid pioneers were spot on

Archaeologists who measured the Egyptian pyramids at Giza more than 100 years ago were surprisingly accurate, a review of historical surveys has shown. The paper, posted online by Australia's Queensland University of Technology , reviews the major surveying projects of the pyramids Cheops, Chephren and Mycerinus, built around 2600 BC south of what's now Cairo."They weren't that far out; their surveys were quite diligent and systematic and we're getting fairly good agreement using modern technology," says the paper's co-author Robert Webb, a lecturer in surveying in the school of urban development.But Webb says laser scanning, computer modelling and other modern technology hasn't brought us any closer to answering one of the most intriguing questions about the pyramids.This is whether their position and measurements deliberately reflect the alignment of the planets and stars."[Earlier surveys have found] a very close relationship to the planet alignments and what we can measure on the ground," he says.

"But it's more of a theory and some people have also found while the similarities appear on the surface to be quite close, it's just really one of those mathematical flukes."According to the review, the two major historical surveys of the pyramids were made in 1880 and 1925 using wire, steel tape and mahogany rods.The most recent attempts to map the pyramids have used laser scanning, GPS, satellite imaging, digital technology and computer visualisation.

[Rasputin]

The secret's out: `Da Vinci' mania fading

It couldn't last forever, right? Simmered by three years of lawsuits, religious debates and conspiracy theories, brought to a boil in May by the Hollywood movie, the craze for all things "Da Vinci Code" is finally fading, publishers and booksellers agree. "I would definitely say it's slowing down," Barnes & Noble fiction buyer Sessalee Hensley says. "Once everybody got past the movie, the whole thing peaked.""The spring definitely was the hottest time for this kind of book," says editor Mark Tavani of Ballantine Books, which released Steve Berry's "The Templar Legacy," one of many "Da Vinci"-like novels to make best seller lists earlier this year. "It seems now that the wave has reached its end."Dan Brown's conspiracy thriller, with its suggestion that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married, came out in March 2003, has sold more than 60 million copies and produced a parade of critical scorn, church condemnation and (unsuccessful) allegations of ripping off other writers.Not only did "The Da Vinci Code" keep selling, but the market for anything similar — whether spin-offs such as "Cracking the Da Vinci Code" or thrillers like "The Templar Legacy" — kept growing, too. It was a phenomenon that apparently peaked with the May 19 release of the "Da Vinci Code" film, directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks. The movie was a box-office hit worldwide."`The Da Vinci Code' certainly created great opportunities for a number of authors to expand their readership, but in all likelihood we will not see a market like that again," says Allison Elsby, category manager of genre fiction for Borders and Waldenbooks.

"The Da Vinci Code" itself is still a best seller, in the top 5 on The New York Times' paperback fiction list, but no longer can a book simply be compared to Brown's and expect to catch on. Noting a drop in demand, Barnes & Noble is taking down the special display tables dedicated to "Da Vinci Code" games, puzzles and related books. Publishers also report a decline in the number of proposals that cite "Da Vinci" similarities."There was a point where I felt like every week I was getting something that mentioned `The Da Vinci Code,' and that has fallen off," says Mitch Hoffman, a senior editor at Dutton Books, an imprint of Penguin Group USA that published Raymond Khoury's "The Last Templar," a best-selling novel that came out in January.

[Rasputin]

The death of parapsychologist John Beloff

T. Stokes: John Beloff was a psychologist who was so taken with J. B. Rhine’s landmark book,“Extrasensory Perception” which documented painstaking efforts to obtain experimental evidence for psychic functioning. His fascination with parapsychology produced his first book;“The Existence of mind” a philosophy of the mind and its concepts,and was a reaction against the now largely discredited behaviourists and positively favoured Dualism, and he used the paranormal to defend his literary position.The famous J.B. Rhine was so impressed with the book that he invited John Beloff toVisit his laboratory in North Carolina in 1965.Beloff had already been conducting experiments since 1961, in particular the use of will power over radio active random waves, which was a big step up from the falling dice and coins of previous tests, and is still used today and is still called,“Mind over Matter testing” ( M & M )Over the years I have witnessed much of this stuff, and I have seen false readings declared genuine, and some genuine dismissed as false, but John was good at disproving the paranormal, which was largely his intention, as a psychologist he was hardly impartial, using psychology to investigate the paranormal is like asking an electrician to look at a plumbing job.

John was famous for his off putting manner which can disrupt experiments, but in 1983 Arthur Keostler left his entire estate to establish a chair of parapsychology, and largely due to his friend John Beloff, it went to Edinburgh and is there to this day.In 1973 Beloff wrote the excellent; “Psychological Sciences” with a disappointing last chapter on the paranormal.Three more books followed, containing more and more on the paranormal as he saw it, he was over many years a member of the Psychical research society, and editor of its SPR Journal, he became president in 1974.A gentle studious man, he clamed he found no evidence of psychic functioning.Yet he epitomised the scholar who wears 2 hats, in his role as a psychic investigator he denies its validity, yet being from a family of strict Jews he would be aware that the books of the Old testament are full of, Astrology, Gematria, Palmistry, Necromancy etc, yet all this was O K and perfectly valid for his religious life,In fact he even secretly believed he had been born before.But the paranormal world is full of cross dressers, of the 186 scientists that condemned Astrology recently, a large number of those believed that Christ was born in a stable to a virgin, was crucified on a cross and rose from the dead,And that it was right to eat his body and drink his blood in the communion rites.Until we can get proper unbiased experts to examine the fields of the paranormal who do not come with a pre-determined outlook, the whole arena of the paranormal sciences will be a playground to the biased and uneducated.

[Rasputin]

SETI urged to fess up over alien signals

Alien hunters today pounded the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute with e-mails and phone calls, following claims made this weekend that the organization has covered up the detection of signals from space. Allegations of a SETI cover up were made last night on the fringe-friendly Coast to Coast radio show hosted by Art Bell. During the broadcast, professional SETI watcher Steven Greer, the CEO of Space Energy Access Systems, claimed that insiders told him that SETI discovered a high concentration of signals from space, and that another organization stepped in to block those signals. SETI, however, maintains that it has not seen any signals of note.According to Greer, the space communications have caused a major stir at SETI, which hunts for intelligent life in outer space."They have had numerous extraterrestrial signals," Greer said, during the radio broadcast. "They were apparently searching in a spectrum or in an area . . . where they hit the mother lode. The signals were so numerous that they began to have their systems externally jammed by some sort of human agency that did not want them to continue receiving those signals."And where did Greer get this fantastic information?

Apparently, from a well-known source within SETI."This person, if I were to say who he is, almost every one your listeners would probably known the name," Greer said.Bell's Coast to Coast show is famed for dealing with matters that many would consider far from reality. The radio host has enjoyed a phenomenal career discussing ghosts, UFOs and things that go berserk in the night with an eclectic set of guests. But it's worth noting that Bell, who only hosts the show on the weekends now, and regular host George Noory often break stories such as the Dubai ports deal well before the national media.That's not the case this time around, according to SETI.

[Rasputin]

Medical 'miracles' not supported by science

The phrase "medical miracle" is a newsroom cliche. It means a situation in which a person makes an unexpected recovery despite great odds or a pessimistic prognosis. Yet often the phrase is used much more broadly to describe a seemingly supernatural or paranormal healing or curing event such as faith healing. While to many people it may seem obvious that a miracle has occurred, in reality such miracles are rarely as impressive as they seem. A recent segment on the popular ABC newsmagazine Primetime shows a good example. A Canadian teenager named Adam Dreamhealer claims to cure cancer, coax the comatose to consciousness, and drive out infection. He has written books, sells DVDs, and offers seminars. Dreamhealer says he can heal people using his hands, mind, and mystical energies. Those who tout his powers include celebrities such as astronaut Edgar Mitchell and musician Ronnie Hawkins. Many people continue to believe in miracle cures despite no good evidence that they occurred. When modern medicine fails to heal, many desperate people turn to unproven or "alternative" healers.

What is the evidence that he can actually heal people? Many of the miraculous "healings" attributed to Dreamhealer seem to be simply the result of misunderstandings, poor logic, errors in critical thinking, and the common uncertainty of medical knowledge. For example, one woman identified as Debbie believes that Dreamhealer saved her fiance's life. Her fiance Trevor was severely wounded in Afghanistan, and Debbie was told that Trevor probably would not recover from his comatose state. Debbie says she was convinced the doctors were wrong, and when she heard about Dreamhealer's self-proclaimed powers, she asked him to heal Trevor from a distance.

[Rasputin]

Searching for signs of life after death

Nearly every Friday night, a team of self-described ghost hunters hits the cemetery and spookiest spots in Tracy to look for signs of life after death. They call themselves Project Mayhem, and so far, they've haven't had a face-to-face meeting with anything that even resembles a quivering, howling ectoplasm or ghost — unless you consider the strange, soft whisperings of unseen people as evidence of contact with another world. The work is called "electronic voice phenomena," or EVP, as portrayed in the 2005 movie "White Noise," and the people involved try to pick up communication by spirits through tape recorders and other electronic devices."We lost; we lost them all," one disembodied voice said recently — recorded on a tiny pocket-sized flash memory device during a foray into Tracy's cemetery."Lost what?" You might ask. "The big game? A series of big games?""We really don't understand what we record," 19-year-old Kevin Grigsby said.He said the team, which includes Brad Corbet, 18; Ricky Hyppa, 18; and Cohen DeYoung, 18; are simply out to collect evidence and bring it back to a skeptical and scared world.

"Most people are too afraid to go out and do it themselves," Corbet admits. So he's got himself a niche market. In a way, the teens are budding entrepreneurs, convinced that people are willing to pay to have "experts" spend a few hours in places where even the brave dare not go.But mostly, it seems like the boys are having harmless fun. The police have warned them to be careful, they said, and they've found themselves explaining why they're hanging around abandoned hotels and cemeteries.

[Rasputin]

Secrets of a neolithic time machine

A spectacular discovery of Stone Age menhirs in Brittany could unlock the code to one of the most puzzling chapters of human development, and transform our knowledge of mankind's early history. Some months ago builders were clearing a piece of wasteland in southern Brittany when they struck an enormous hunk of granite. The developer was no historian but he knew instantly what the obstacle must be: the remains of a buried "menhir" or neolithic standing stone. He ordered a bulldozer to shove the stone underground again before any passing busybody spotted it. He did not want the work on his six seaside bungalows to be halted for a prolonged archaeological dig.Brittany, he probably reasoned, is crammed with old stones. At Carnac - the largest neolithic site in the world, just down the road - there is a linear forest of 3,000 menhirs in the space of four kilometres. Was that not enough ancient monuments to satisfy the historians, the tourists and the Ministry of Culture in Paris?

Too late. A passing busy-body had noticed the unearthed menhir. Work on the bungalows was halted. An archaeological dig was ordered.As a result, our knowledge of early human history may be transformed - or at least deeply enriched. Preliminary exploration of the site has just been completed. One of France's foremost experts on neolithic times calls the results a "miracle". Other experts speak of a "time machine".

[Rasputin]

USAF 'secrets' revealed

Don't dismiss all those flying saucer stories you've read in the tabloids until you hear what military aerospace historian Michael Schratt has to say. He addressed a small audience Sunday at the Experimental Aircraft Association's AirVenture museum to discuss the United States' long-running classified military aircraft programs. Schratt of Illinois passed out a postcard depicting a curious-looking U.S. Air Force circular-wing jet aircraft that had supposedly been spotted by a jet pilot and later photographed outside the MacDill AFB salvage yard in 1967. They measured 20, 40, 70 and 116 feet in diameter and all had tricycle landing gear with control surfaces running along the circumference of the disc. Schratt said some aircraft projects are so top secret that not event the President knows about them. He suggested the Air Force was able to finance these programs by siphoning money from other documented programs throughout the years. It's high time for the Air Force to declassify information on this aircraft and others, he said.

It would not be a threat to public safety to do so, and could improve life on this planet by furthering a better understanding of space flight, he said. Jim Upton of California had seen Schratt's website, www.usafflyingsaucers.com and wanted to hear him speak. When he finished listening to Schratt's hour-long talk Upton wasn't so sure he bought it all. "He gave a good survey of various (Air Force) programs over time, but some of that stuff is just way out there," Upton said. Upton questioned the authenticity of the photo of the circular aircraft on the postcard Schratt handed out. Schratt spoke about various secret aircraft programs and the costs for some of them. He said each B-2 stealth bomber costs $2.3 billion or "more than its own weight in gold." Upton had no quibble with some of Schratt's observations. "The second half of his talk was just a whole lot of speculation," Upton said.

[Rasputin]

Visualising invisibility

Invisibility has been an ingredient of myths, novels and films for millennia – from Perseus versus Medusa in Greek legend to James Bond’s latest car and Harry Potter’s cloak. A new study published today by the Institute of Physics reveals that invisibility is closer than we think. The paper, Notes on conformal invisibility devices, published in the New Journal of Physics describes the physics of several theoretical devices that could create the ultimate illusion – invisibility. “Objects are visible because they reflect light rays” says author Dr Ulf Leonhardt at St Andrews University, Scotland. “To be invisible, an object would have to let light pass through it, like H. G. Well’s Invisible Man. Alternatively light would have to bend around an object for it to be invisible. The ideas in this paper are based around devices that will bend light or radio waves around a hole inside the device. Any object placed inside the hole will become invisible. The light would flow round the hole like water around an obstacle.”

The bending of light is the cause of many optical illusions, such as mirages in the desert. Light bends in the hotter air near the ground in the desert and this causes a reflection of the sky on the ground – a mirage. Dr Leonhardt went on to say “The devices work by bending light, as in a mirage. However, a mirage involves the reflection of light which produces the shiny image that can be seen: an invisibility device bends light without producing an image. To do this, the devices must have carefully designed refractive index profiles. The paper explains the physics and mathematics behind the devices using images rather than complex equations: it visualizes invisibility.”

[donsaeid]

خانوم « لنا هائو » برای اولين بار توانست نور را فريز کند و يا به عبارت ديگر نور را متوقف کند ! بدين روش ميشود اطلاعات را در نور برنامه ريزی کرد و سپس آن را بطريق کابلهای نوری انتقال داد ! در حالت اطلاعات بسيار سريع و ارزان جابجا خواهد شد .

ولـــــــي استفاده بسيار عجيب و جالبي نيز ميتوان از اين اختراع بزرگ کرد ! پژوهشگران مدعي هستند که با کامپيوترهای بسيار قوی آينده که برای ساخت آنها از تراشه های جاندار استفاده خواهد شد، ميشود اجسام را به کمک نور که در حال حاضر ميشود آن را از حرکت متوقف کرد، جابجا کرد ! مثل اينکه اين آرزوی بشری که هميشه ميخواسته اجسام را از جايي به جای ديگر در آن واحد منتقل کند عملي ميشود !

[Rasputin]

Abductee shares proof that we are not alone

Craig Jacocks’ Aware of Their Presence is set to be the first major book about alien abduction since Whitley Streiber’s best seller Communion. But, Jacocks has something even Streiber did not: proof. In the book, Jacocks recounts details from the many times he was abducted by aliens, beginning when he was a young child. He details how the encounters grew in intensity and how he began to realize he was dealing with humanoid beings with amazing abilities. Gradually, he began to hear their voices and see them. Recently at work, a scanner reacted to an unknown code inside his body. X-rays revealed two needle-like objects, which he now believes to be tracking devices. These experiences, Jacocks suggests, are not only real, but they should be explored as proof of alien existence, rather than mocked or hidden away in secrecy.An in-demand speaker on alien abduction, Jacocks has also written articles about his experiences for both UFO Magazine and Mysteries Magazine.

Aware of Their Presence has been considered as recommended reading by the highly influential Mutual UFO Network state director, Richard Lee. We can’t deny the existence of alien abduction any longer, says Jacocks, and this startling, frank, and brutally honest book can prove it.

[Rasputin]

Star Jelly: Biological slime from space

Ken Korczak: It’s soon time to be on the watch for biological slime from outer space! Less than two weeks from today stargazers will be out in force to observe the annual Perseid meteor shower, which grace the night skies every Aug. 12. But if you go out to have a look, be on your guard the next morning for blobs of extraterrestrial slime scattered upon the earth. Some call it “star jelly.” Centuries ago, the Welsh called it “pwdre ser” which means “rot of the stars.” Whatever it’s called, the star jelly phenomenon represents one of the most persistent and baffling enigmas in science history.Throughout the ages, there have been dozens of reports of eerie deposits of gelatinous blobs found on the ground the morning following the sighting of a bright meteor, or the occasional meteor shower. In fact, the campy 1958 science fiction movie classic “The Blob” is said to have been inspired by a giant mass of star jelly which was discovered by Philadelphia police in 1950.

The cops described the gunk as "a domed disk of quivering jelly, 6 feet in diameter, one foot thick at the center and an inch or two near the edge." It dissolved into an odorless, sticky scum when they touched it. A bright meteor was seen by many witnesses the night before in the area.Although biological slime from outer space arriving on the backs of meteors seems too incredible and sensational to believe, persistence reports of star jelly sightings across many centuries are tantalizing in the extreme. Dozens of references to star jelly can be found in an array of poems, scientific journals and literary publications. For example, as far back as 1641, a Brit with the fantastic name Sir John Suckling included these lines in a poem:As he whose quicker eye doth traceA false star shot to a mark'd placeDo's run apace,And, thinking it to catch,A jelly up do snatchThe literary great Sir Walter Scott wrote in his novel, the Talisman:"Seek a fallen star," said the hermit, "and thou shalt only light on some foul jelly, which, in shooting through the horizon, has assumed for a moment an appearance of splendour.”While many references to star jelly can be found throughout the centuries, modern reports are just as numerous. On the evening of November 3, 1996, for example, a meteor was seen blazing across the sky of Kempton, Australia. The next morning, white translucent slime was discovered on the lawns and sidewalks of the town. But it’s not just gooey slime that seems to be falling from space to earth. In 2001, a blood-red rain fell across Kerala, India, dumping tons of biological material which appears to made up of thick-walled, red-tinted cell-like microbes. Studies of the red rain material found that the particles lacked DNA, yet seemed able to reproduce -- even in water that was superheated to 600?F!

All attempts to conclusively identify what the stuff is have proved fruitless to date, leading some top and reputable scientists to suggest the red rain is from outer space. Stay tuned.But perhaps the most bizarre case of a biological mass that seems to have fallen from space involves a discovery made by a team of researchers near the small town of Moose Knuckle, Saskatchewan. On the morning of May 8, 1988, the morning after a huge fireball meteor was seen streaking across the Canadian sky, scientists found a large pale mass of blobby stuff formed into a shape which very precisely resembled the dead punk rocker Sid Vicious. Ha! Ha! I’m just making that last one up!But seriously, most scientists remain highly skeptical of the star jelly phenomenon, even though finding a solid explanation has proven difficult. Some have suggested that star jelly is actually the excretion of certain amphibious animals, such as frogs, or plant-like funguses, or perhaps the remains of jelly fish like creatures which people have discovered only coincidentally after the sighting of a meteor. Other suggest industrial pollution as the source, although this would not explain star jelly sightings across hundreds of years. Whatever the case, I plan to be out under the stars on August 12 again this year to watch the green-tinted, fiery trails of the Perseid meteors, as I have done every cloudless night for the past 35 years, or so. On many of those nights, I have seen some spectacular light shows in the heavens. And who knows, maybe one day I’ll greet the morning after sheathed in a putrid coating of extraterrestrial slime.

[Rasputin]

Real-life werewolves

We've all heard the werewolf legends: When the moon grows full, so goes the legend, a man is transformed into a beast — he grows hair, and acquires awesome powers. But what if it weren't the light of the moon but rather genetics that gave the werewolves of legend all that hair? The powers, though, remain the stuff of myth. For Danny Ramos Gomez, 23, genetics is the reason people call him "the wolf man." Danny has a condition called hypertrichosis, which causes his body to produce an abnormal amount of hair everywhere.Danny's 26-year-old brother, Larry, also has hypertrichosis. The brothers are known for their daredevil feats in a Mexican circus. But when they were little, it was different. They were both part of a freak show, exhibited like animals and called "wolf children.""They kept them locked up, and they wouldn't let them come out until show time," said Betty Tampa, a circus performer partner of Danny's. "They were locked up inside a trailer. They couldn't even go near the curtains."

Danny said he was too young to remember how it felt being in the circus. But Mundo Campo, whose father owns the circus in which Danny now performs, will never forget. "So [the brothers] were in a cage inside, and they were sitting in two chairs," Campo said. "I told my father about it and said, 'You know, the saddest part of this is they're never going to be out of this cage, right? They are going to be in the cages forever.'" Campo convinced his father to hire the boys and train them in the circus arts. "We began working as magicians. Then I started on the trampoline, and from the trampoline I went to become a trapeze artist," Danny said. "Someday I want to work in the large circuses in order to be more popular, not with the public but with the circus people."

[Rasputin]

Psychic schools more popular than ever

The psychic schools have never been so busy, and it's not the Doris Stokes brigade who want to learn, but the young, the prosperous and the educated. Stephen Armstrong uncovers a paranormal boom. It's a hot evening and the west London traffic is moving at a slow, sweaty pace. Above it, in a scruffy attic room near the Natural History Museum, a small group of young women gathers to talk about life and death. One has funky dreadlocks piled high on her head, another is an earnest social worker from New Zealand who leans forward urgently when she talks, and a third - a marketing consultant - has the crisp enunciation of the very well educated. All in their twenties, they might be studying in adult education. And in a sense, they are. The course they're on is called "Starting Your Spiritual Journey". One of these women wants to open her eyes to the spiritual world; one hopes to become a healer; and one - the social worker - wants to develop her psychic potential and use it at work to help the children she sees. We are in the College of Psychic Studies, founded in 1884 by the spiritualist movement with support from Arthur Conan Doyle, and in all its 122 years the place has never been busier.

Ten years ago, according to the "Spiritual Journey" tutor Kay Stirling, it was offering around 12 courses to a slow trickle of students. In the past few years, the trickle has swelled to a river. The college now offers more than 50 courses - all of them packed - called such things as "Psychic Beginnings", "Opening Psychic Sensitivity", "Heart Centred Soul Healing", "Intuitive Living for Success and Fulfilment", "Sensing Energy" and "First Steps as a Psychic and Medium". And it's not alone. In Essex, the Intuition Psychic Centre teaches tarot reading, psychic development and medium ship, while in Swansea the Academy of Psychic and Spiritual Studies offers lessons in mediumship training, spirit guides and angels. There are similar colleges in Winchester, Darlington, Leeds and Glasgow. All are booming - with a new kind of student.