Science Special News

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Britain's last witch trial

In 1944, medium Helen Duncan became the last woman in Britain to be convicted of witchcraft when one of her seances exposed a government attempt to cover up the deaths of 861 sailors. Now, campaigners aim to clear her name. It started much the same as her other seances. With a chilling moan and strange white substance leaking from her mouth, Helen Duncan began communicating with the dead...But suddenly, the eerie calm was pierced by a police whistle and officers piled into the house, in Portsmouth, Hants, to arrest Britain's top medium.The following morning Helen, known as Hellish Nell, was charged under section four of the 1735 Witchcraft Act.It was 1944, and, astonishingly, officials had ordered her arrest because they were afraid she would reveal top-secret plans for the D-Day landings.They had been monitoring her since she had revealed the sinking of a British battleship earlier in the war - even though the government had suppressed the news to maintain morale at home.

It took a jury just 30 minutes to find her guilty and she became the last person to be convicted of witchcraft in Britain.As she was led away to start her nine-month sentence in London's Holloway Prison, the housewife cried out in her broad Scottish accent: "I never heard so many lies in all my life!"Helen's "gift" had long put her on a collision course with the authorities and led to one of the most bizarre chapters in British judicial history.Today, exactly 50 years after her death, campaigners hope to persuade Home Secretary John Reid to overturn the verdict. "Helen Duncan was one of the world's top mediums, a woman who gave hope and comfort to many," says Ray Taylor, editor of Psychic World.

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Planet-detector nears its launch

The hunt for Earth-like planets is to be stepped-up as a new mission prepares for launch. Corot will be the first spacecraft capable of detecting rocky planets just a few times bigger than Earth that are orbiting neighbouring stars. It will also uncover information on the stars themselves, determining their mass, age and chemical composition. The multinational mission, led by the French space agency Cnes, is due to launch on the 26 or 27 December. Thien Lam Trong, Corot Project Manager from Cnes, said: "Man has been thinking about other worlds since the beginning of astronomy. Corot will help us to understand whether Earth-like exoplanets are a reality or dream." The 650kg (1,400lb) satellite will be launched on the Soyuz-2-1b vehicle from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, into a polar orbit 827km (514 miles) above the Earth. Corot carries a 27cm (11in) telescope and a four-charge-coupled-device (CCD) camera, sensitive to tiny changes in the brightness of stars.

"There are two main science objectives for this mission," said Ian Roxburgh, professor of astronomy at Queen Mary, University of London, who is the European Space Agency (Esa) scientist on Corot. Esa is a partner on Corot along with Austria, Spain, Germany, Belgium and Brazil. And one of these, he said, would be to monitor about 60,000 stars to find some of the planets orbiting them. "As a planet comes inbetween us, the observer, and the star, it goes across the front of the star and blocks out some of the light - this is called a transit, like the transit of Venus. "So we will be measuring the light from the stars, looking for decreases in brightness to detect if a planet is in orbit."

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'Snippy' the horse goes up for auction

Snippy, a horse that died mysteriously in an Alamosa field in 1967, is back in the news thanks to eBay. The Appaloosa mare's death drew international media attention when her owner, Nellie Lewis, said the 3-year-old was mutilated by space aliens. There were no tracks or blood on the ground, but the skin and flesh from the withers to the head were removed, exposing the bone. Lewis told the world media there was a strange, sweet odor that she likened to incense on the rural ranch in the area where Snippy's remains were found. The stories grew - the heart and brain were missing, too - and Snippy became the first reported case of animal mutilation by visitors from space. Snippy, or Snippy's skeleton, dropped out of sight for decades, only to surface last week on eBay with a minimum bid of $50,000.

"Whether it was a UFO or aliens or not, it is history," said Frank Duran, a marketing specialist for Dell's Insurance in Alamosa. Duran said he posted Snippy on eBay after an attorney for a local man's estate asked him to market the famed set of bones. But Monday, Duran put the Snippy bidding on hold because the local chamber of commerce and a relative of Lewis' have claimed ownership.

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Planet-detector nears its launch

The hunt for Earth-like planets is to be stepped-up as a new mission prepares for launch. Corot will be the first spacecraft capable of detecting rocky planets just a few times bigger than Earth that are orbiting neighbouring stars. It will also uncover information on the stars themselves, determining their mass, age and chemical composition. The multinational mission, led by the French space agency Cnes, is due to launch on the 26 or 27 December. Thien Lam Trong, Corot Project Manager from Cnes, said: "Man has been thinking about other worlds since the beginning of astronomy. Corot will help us to understand whether Earth-like exoplanets are a reality or dream." The 650kg (1,400lb) satellite will be launched on the Soyuz-2-1b vehicle from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, into a polar orbit 827km (514 miles) above the Earth. Corot carries a 27cm (11in) telescope and a four-charge-coupled-device (CCD) camera, sensitive to tiny changes in the brightness of stars.

"There are two main science objectives for this mission," said Ian Roxburgh, professor of astronomy at Queen Mary, University of London, who is the European Space Agency (Esa) scientist on Corot. Esa is a partner on Corot along with Austria, Spain, Germany, Belgium and Brazil. And one of these, he said, would be to monitor about 60,000 stars to find some of the planets orbiting them. "As a planet comes inbetween us, the observer, and the star, it goes across the front of the star and blocks out some of the light - this is called a transit, like the transit of Venus. "So we will be measuring the light from the stars, looking for decreases in brightness to detect if a planet is in orbit."

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Maya Indians wary of `Apocalypto'

Scenes of enslaved Maya Indians building temples for a violent, decadent culture in Mel Gibson's new film "Apocalypto" may ring true for many of today's Mayas, who earn meager wages in construction camps, building huge tourist resorts on land they once owned. Some Mayas are excited at the prospect of the first feature film made in their native tongue, Yucatec Maya. But others among the 800,000 surviving Mayans are worried that Gibson's hyper-violent, apocalyptic film could be just the latest misreading of their culture by outsiders."There has been a lot of concern among Mayan groups from Mexico, Guatemala and Belize, because we don't know what his treatment or take on this is going to be," said Amadeo Cool May of the Indian defense group "Mayaon," or "We are Maya.""This could be an attempt to merchandize or sell the image of a culture, or its people, that often differs from what that people needs, or wants," Cool May said.Gibson employed Mayas, most of whom live on Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, in the filming of the movie, and says he wants to make the Mayan language "cool" again, and encourage young people "to speak it with pride."The film has been screened for some U.S. Indians, who praised the use of Indian actors.

The Mayas haven't seen it yet, but like Indians north of the border, they have seen others co-opt their culture, as in high-class Caribbean resorts like the Maya Coast and the Maya Riviera.But Indians are largely absent from those beach resorts, where vacationers tour mock Mayan Villages or watch culturally inaccurate mishmashes with "Mayan Dancers" performing in feather headdresses and face paint.

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Developing false memories

Virtual reality can apparently prompt the development of false memories. At least, that's according to experiments carried out by Ann Schlosser at the University of Washington. Schlosser wanted to see how well students could learn to use a digital camera by using an interactive virtual version, instead of simply following instructions with static pictures and text. The result? Those who used the virtual camera were better at recalling what it could do. But, they also had significantly more false memories about its abilities.It seems that virtual experiences can trick the brain into making things up.Schlosser thinks this might be because, when asked to reconstruct a virtual experience rather than a real one, we are more inclined to accidentally include the feature we are being asked about in our recollection. Her paper is published in the December 2006 edition of the Journal of Consumer Research. Could this be a significant problem in future?

Perhaps Schlosser should do some experiments in Second Life, to see if users come away with false memories concerning the people they've met and what they've done? What might that mean for the ever-growing Second Life economy ? And what could the false memory effect mean for soldiers and other people increasingly trained in VR environments ?

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Space Shuttle lifts off in night launch

The space shuttle Discovery has lifted off from Cape Canaveral - the first night shuttle launch in four years. Discovery launched at 2047 (0147 GMT on Sunday), two days after poor weather forced a lift-off to be cancelled. Rocket flares from the shuttle were visible in the night sky across much of the south-eastern United States. The shuttle is heading to the International Space Station (ISS), which Nasa is racing to complete before the shuttle fleet is retired in 2010. This is the third shuttle mission in six months and first night launch since the Columbia disaster in 2003. While in orbit with the space station, Discovery astronauts will carry out three spacewalks and will rewire electrical systems inside the ISS. Cloudy skies earlier on Sunday cleared as night fell in Florida, allowing mission controllers to proceed with the launch. There were no reported complications on launch as Discovery soared away from the Kennedy Space Center. It quickly reached a speed of 6,500 mph (10,500 km/h) as it headed through the Earth's atmosphere. Acknowledging a message of congratulations from the ground, commander Mark Polansky replied: "There are a lot of happy, smiling faces up here".

"Forty-eight hours makes a tremendous difference," launch director Mike Leinbach told the crew. "Everything just clicked. Everything felt good today," he said later. Two days earlier the crew of two women and five men were seated inside the shuttle at the scheduled launch time of 2135 (0235 GMT), but low clouds prevented lift-off.

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Exorcism: Psychiatry meets faith

Alone in her bedroom, the black-dressed woman thumbed through her binder of spells and contemplated her next victim. The baritone voice of Satan rumbled in her mind, enticing her deeper into the dark side."Satan told me in a deep, demonic voice, 'You belong to me,'" said Samantha Wheeler, who believes she's been possessed since age 12.But recently, Wheeler met a charismatic pastor from Kenya who promised her deliverance."When I first talked with her, I could see the manifestation of demons," said Paul Mbugua, a preacher and exorcist at Operation Fresh Start Apostolic Church in Oildale."Every Sunday, we were casting devils out of her," he said of the 18-year-old Bakersfield woman. "She was very possessed."Belief in demonic possession has been part of the Christian walk since Jesus' exorcisms in the Gospels 2,000 years ago.Once regarded as frightening procedures marked by form and ritual, as described by the Vatican and seen in Hollywood movies like "The Exorcist," many evangelical churches have sanitized and streamlined exorcisms for 21st-century parishes.

These days, Lucifer is being cast out somewhat easily during altar calls in the worship center, in group sessions at retreats and during private office visits -- with nary a sign of growling demonic voices, supernatural feats of strength or people freaking out at holy images.Yet modern advances in psychology and medicine continue to scrape against the ancient practice.

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Before the Wright brothers..there were UFOs

Dayton, Ohio brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright were always interested in being able to soar in the skies. Being influenced by printed material of early German attempts with gliders, the two experimenters built their own glider in 1900. Early on, they tested different types of wing shapes, while honing their plane making skills. By 1903, the brothers had built a 12-horsepower engine and two propellers. Late in the year, on December 17, they finally made their first flight. Though tagged as a plane, their first success in flight was actually done in a motorized glider. The flying apparatus had no way to steer it. The two had gained experience in motors while experimenting with motorized bicycles operating their own bicycle shop. The first historic flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina lasted only twelve seconds, but it was a start. By 1905, the brothers could stay in the air for up to 30 minutes, and even steer their plane.As far as we know, no one else had developed the capability of sustained air flight, at least on this planet. But early accounts of our first settlers included an occasional report of something flying in the sky.

These happen chance sightings were normally made when one would check the sky for weather conditions, or see birds fly over. One of the very first American sightings of what could be a UFO occurred as early as 1865, over 35 years before the first known flight at Kitty Hawk. Fortunately, there are still newspaper accounts of this and other early sightings of days long since passed.

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Bigfoot on campus

At a glance, Professor D. Jeffrey Meldrum would seem to be a star on the Idaho State University campus here. A popular instructor, Meldrum has written or edited five books, written dozens of articles in academic journals, and ranged across the American West and Canada for his field research. Primatologist Jane Goodall wrote a blurb for his latest book, which she said "brings a much-needed level of scientific analysis" to a raging debate. The problem is the subject of the debate: Bigfoot. Meldrum is in pursuit of the legendary ape-man also known as Sasquatch. Some of his colleagues are not amused. They liken his research to a hunt for Santa Claus, and 20 of them signed a letter earlier this year expressing worry that Idaho State "may be perceived as a university that endorses fringe science over fundamental scientific perspectives that have withstood critical inquiry." Or, in the words of physics professor Douglas Wells: "One could do deep-ocean research for SpongeBob SquarePants.

That doesn't make it science." Meldrum, 48, who earned his doctorate from Stony Brook University, declines to say whether he believes Sasquatch exists, but adds that based on the evidence he's gathered in the past decade, he thinks the likely answer is yes.

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The consequences of a nuclear war

Even a small-scale, regional nuclear war could produce as many direct fatalities as all of World War II and disrupt the global climate for a decade or more, with environmental effects that could be devastating for everyone on Earth, university researchers have found. These powerful conclusions were presented during a press conference and a special technical session at the annual meeting of American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. The research also appears in twin papers posted on Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions, an online journal. A team of scientists at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey; the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU-Boulder); and UCLA conducted the rigorous scientific studies reported. Against the backdrop of growing tensions in the Middle East and nuclear "saber rattling" elsewhere in Asia, the authors point out that even the smallest nuclear powers today and in the near future may have as many as 50 or more Hiroshima-size (15 kiloton) weapons in their arsenals; all told, about 40 countries possess enough plutonium and/or uranium to construct substantial nuclear arsenals. Owen "Brian" Toon, chair of the department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences and a member of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at CU-Boulder, oversaw the analysis of potential fatalities based on an assessment of current nuclear weapons inventories and population densities in large urban complexes. His team focused on scenarios of smoke emissions that urban firestorms could produce.

"The results described in one of the new papers represent the first comprehensive quantitative study of the consequences of a nuclear conflict between smaller nuclear states," said Toon and his co-authors. "A small country is likely to direct its weapons against population centers to maximize damage and achieve the greatest advantage," Toon said. Fatality estimates for a plausible regional conflict ranged from 2.6 million to 16.7 million per country.