Derren Brown's Blog, page 33

Harvey Fineberg: Are we ready for neo-evolution?

Throats and floats

Losing The Voice. The fundamental fear of any touring performer.

After a week in Oxford working and rehearsing 10am-3am for a week, and then shouting every night with barely an evening off, the voice started to suffer. If it packs in, we have to start pulling shows, which is a nightmare to be avoided at all costs.

The first casualty is the signing queue. A few years ago, there were never more than fifteen or twenty people at the stage door, sometimes only four or five. Now there are normally seventy to a hundred lovely people who have decided to hang around in often freezing or rainy weather conditions to say hello and have me scribble illegibly on their programmes and/or chesty-parts. Already I've noted with sadness this year that this means I can't spend the relaxed time I previously enjoyed chatting with people after the show: to get through so many people means something of a conveyor belt of scribbling and asking people to take photos as we go along rather than stop. On top of this, the tour schedule is relentless and with several 6 am starts, so the pressure is on to get back to the hotel and wind down and get what sleep might come my way.

So there were a few nights when I was unable to come out and sign, and there will be a few more on tour, I'm sure. I know it makes no difference to anyone who comes on a rare night that I can't come out, but rest assured I do make more of an effort than most performers to spend time at stage door after a show. Most, sadly, devise ways to avoid people completely. I hope that in a run of around a hundred and fifty shows I'll be forgiven a few where health issues dictate I have to sneak away to a warm bed.

Now some of you may remember the chocolate martini fun from last year in Newcastle. This year on arrival, I was greeted by the Mal Maison with Chris (the bar manager's) latest version of what I now like to think is something of a classic. So top marks to them. The George Shaw exhibition at the Baltic in Gateshead (apologies for considering it to be Newcastle on Twitter) was just stunning. It may still be running. Running and stunning. Edinburgh provided the usual bright, lively and gorgeous audiences that it's known for. The huge Playhouse was packed out every night and was a particular joy. I met up with my pal Richard Wiseman and had an excellent lunch at the Café Royale, which, I decided, is where I would spend every afternoon if I lived in Edinburgh. What a great city. I also bought there my first cravat. After a few weeks of tucking my scarf inside my shirt and quite liking the foppish look, I am now the proud bearer of a spotty, sporty number. It's my 'thing', I've decided.

'Derren Brown? Who's that?', people will ask. 'The cravat guy', others will answer.

Getting to Scarborough with our massive set and trying to get it into that theatre for the show time caused the same problems we had in Grimsby. The show went up very late again. It's hugely embarrassing when this happens, and enormous, heartfelt apologies to those people who had to ask for refunds due to time restrictions. We have a harsh tour timetable and a walloping, time-demanding set which are not very compatible, and when we meet a theatre which is tricky to set up in, we do everything we can with all the tireless extra crew we have summoned, but have now twice been unable to make the start time. It was a real testament to the ladies and gents of Scarborough that they were still a hugely delightful, lively audience after that horrendous wait. Last night there also brought a series of odd outbursts from a lady in the stalls who then had to be asked to leave… a bit of drama, all rather exciting.

We're now in Sheffield, after another horrendous 'get-in' and realising that one of our major props had been severely damaged the night before on the way out of Scarborough. These setbacks caused us to start a little late and Coops to confide it was probably the worst day of his working life, but we got there in the end and the show went well. Today I am writing with Iain, my co-writer, on next year's TV projects. Finally, I am this morning visited by a mysterious flatulence of Wagnerian magnitude; the length, breadth and depth of which is pleasantly pervading the breakfast foyer of my hotel. Sadly, having arisen quite late, I am eating alone: my generosity is passing unnoticed. Perhaps I'll come out to sign tonight only to be sent straight back in by the queue.

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Truly stunning video of how hummingbirds drink

New high-speed videos of hummingbirds overturn nearly two centuries of conventional wisdom on how they drink.

Researchers previously thought tube-like channels in their tongues sucked up fluid by capillary action. But the new analysis shows that their tongues actually trap nectar by curling around it.

Via WIRED

Sony hacked, details from millions of users stolen – AGAIN!

REUTERS: Sony disclosed on Monday hackers had stolen the names, addresses and passwords of nearly 25 million more users than previously known less than a day after the Japanese company apologized for one of the worst break-ins in Internet history.

Sony's latest revelation comes after Sony No. 2 Kazuo Hirai announced measures had been put in place to avert another Playstation-type cyberattack, hoping to repair its tarnished image and reassure customers who might be pondering a shift to Microsoft's Xbox.

The Japanese electronics company said it discovered the break-in of its Sony Online Entertainment PC games network also led to the theft of 10,700 direct debit records from customers in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain and 12,700 non-U.S. credit or debit card numbers.

Full Story at REUTERS

 

Mr Wang's 100 Terabit internet connection

THINK your broadband internet connection is fast? Two separate research groups have just lapped the field, setting a world record by sending more than 100 terabits of information per second through a single optical fibre. That's enough to deliver three solid months of HD video- or the contents of 250 double-sided Blu-ray discs.

This marks "a critical milestone in fibre capacity", says Ting Wang at NEC Laboratories in Princeton, New Jersey.

Such lab results are far beyond today's commercial needs. Total capacity between New York and Washington DC, one of the world's busiest routes, is only a few terabits per second, says Tim Strong, of Telegeography Researchin Washington. But "traffic has been growing about 50 per cent a year for the last few years", he adds. With bandwidth-hungry video-streaming and social media growing relentlessly, network planners are always searching for ways to expand capacity.

Today's fibre optics use several tricks to enhance bandwidth. Like the radio band, the optical spectrum can be sliced into many distinct channels that can simultaneously carry information at different frequencies. The laser light is pulsed on and off rapidly, with each pulse further sliced up into different polarities, amplitudes and phases of light, each of which contains a bit of information. The trick is to pack all these signals together in one fibre so that they hit the receiver as one pulse without interference.

New Scientist

Left handed people are more affected by fear

Psychologists found that people who watched an eight minute clip from a scary movie suffered more symptoms associated with post traumatic stress if they were left handed than if they were right handed.

When asked to recall events from the film clip, taken from near the tense climax of thriller Silence of the Lambs, left handed volunteers gave more fragmented accounts filled with more repetition than their right handed counterparts.

This effect is common in people suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The scientists now believe their results could provide new insights into how people develop post traumatic stress and the way the brain deals with fear.

Dr Carolyn Choudhary, who led the research at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh, said: "The prevalence of post traumatic stress disorder is almost double in left handers compared to right handers.

Telegraph

Monkeys show signs of advanced memory powers

Ben Basile of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, placed five rhesus monkeys in front of a touchscreen that briefly showed a blue square and two red ones. After an interval of up to 2 minutes, the blue square reappeared in a different place, and the monkeys had to replicate the pattern in its new position by tapping the screen to place red squares.

Their success rate was significantly better than chance, showing for the first time that they are able to recall things from memory. This is more advanced than recognising a familiar object, and could be a precursor to long-term memory.

New Scientist

Richard Dawkins and Dr Yan on genetic ancestry

From Bang Goes The Theory

Svengali 2012 – Manchester and Southampton

Some dates for the 2012 Svengali tour are starting to appear. We are happy to confirm that the following dates are on sale now:

Manchester – The Lowry:

5, 6, 7, 8 9, 10 March 2012

Click HERE for tickets

Southampton – The Mayflower:

12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 March 2012

Click HERE for tickets

The performance is not suitable for children under 12 years of age.

PLEASE NOTE: We cannot confirm or deny ANY other dates or venues at this point. A lot of fans are emailing to find out if Derren will be coming to a certain town and we're sorry we can't confirm anything until it is officially announced. We also can't confirm when tickets go on sale, this is decided by the venue.

China Announces It Will Build Its Own Space Station Within 10 Years

On Monday, China unveiled its plan to build a manned space station in the next decade. This announcement comes from a space program whose development has been, well, skyrocketing; China launched its first astronaut into Earth orbitin 2003 and completed itsfirst spacewalk in 2008. If things go as planned, the station would be the third ever multi-module space station, after Russia's Mir and the International Space Station.

The space station is currently dubbed Tiangong, meaning "heavenly palace," but that moniker may not be permanent; China's space agency is taking suggestions for new names via email.
Designed for a three-person crew, the space station will consist of one core module and two lab units for conducting experiments in astronomy, biology (particularly as it pertains to space radiation), and microgravity.
Weighing in at 60 tons, Tiangong is significantly smaller than its predecessors (the ISS weighs 419 tons; Mir weighed 137).

For the full article head to Discover Magazine