Derren Brown's Blog, page 39

Royal Mail release magical stamps

This week, Royal Mail released a special set of stamps featuring some of the world's most famous wizards, witches and enchanters, from Morgan le Fay to Albus Dumbledore.

And before you ask – no, Derren isn't included. All of the above wizards are of course completely fictional.

More at The Guardian

Two Suns Appear on Camera in China: Mystery or Mirage?

"They appear in the video indicated below, one slightly higher than the other. There are two different colors; one of the sun's is fuzzy orange while the other is an almost neon yellow.

"The double sun image is an effect of optical refraction, but it's a pretty darn rare one, and one not fully explained by science… I doubt it's been computer modeled. There must have been some blob of atmosphere somewhere that caused this truly spectacular phenomenon, which in a sense is a mirage," said Jim Kaler, University of Illinois astronomer.

Mirages are the result of a refraction (bending) of light particles in the atmosphere. Due to the fact that air is often denser near the horizon, more often they appear there.

If these two suns are merely strange objects in the sky or a mirage, they are unlike other of their ilk as usually mirages are aligned vertically above or below the original source of light and not beside the light as these two images appear to be.

The famous Flemish astronomer, Marcel Minnaert, published a book recording previous sightings of horizontally affixed double images called Light and Color in the Outdoors. Published in 1993, this book remains the most accurate reference on the appearance of double suns.

Many atmospheric optical effects such as sun dogs, sunset mirages, sun pillars and sun halos, can be explained away by science, but not this one.

Not this one.

Check out this amazing video below. Although it is not in English, the visual is astounding and trumps language."

Via Weird Asia News

Researchers Use Avatar Camera Technology to Try to Understand Kangaroo's Hop

"At first glance, biologists slapping motion capture gear onto kangaroos sounds like a scientific foray into the 3-D-movie craze. But James Cameron can rest assured: The scientists are merely performing their day jobs, studying kangaroos—and using a nifty new camera to do it."

"As kangaroos mosey along at low speeds, they walk, using their tail as a fifth limb. But as they speed up, they slip into their signature bounce. The mystery for scientists is why such large animals—some being over six feet tall—are so darn springy, and as Alexis Wiktorowicz-Conroy, a researcher at the Royal Veterinary College, told the BBC, "We can't really explain … why their bones don't break at high speeds."So the question here isn't only why and how roos hop, but also why they don't fall apart when they do. To tackle these questions anew, a team of international scientists is trying out a new gadget on kangaroos at Australia's Alma Park Zoo, in Brisbane: an outdoor motion-capture camera that uses infrared light—much like how a sonar uses sound—to study the kangaroos' bodies movements in detail. After the scientists place several plastic-ball markers on the joints of kangaroos (a feat unto itself), they turn on the infrared light, which is strongly reflected by the markers, and let the cameras roll. They then entice the marsupials to hop onto force plates, which measure the pushing forces of the kangaroos' feet, thereby capturing both their movements and the way their bodies distribute force.

The new camera used by the researchers provides a couple of benefits over other models. One major point is that most infrared cameras have trouble observing kangaroos outside, in their normal setting, because of the plentiful infrared coming emitted the sun. The camera used in this study, on loan from the fiber-optics firm Vicon, can sort out sunlight from artificial infrared.

Now that they have a way to study roos in a natural setting, they hope to address a couple of puzzles about their biomechanics"

Read more at Discover

Dalai Lama ready to give up political power

"(CNN) — The Dalai Lama announced Thursday his plan to retire as political head of the exiled movement, according to his website.

"Tibetans need a leader, elected freely by the Tibetan people, to whom I can devolve power," the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader said in a statement. "Now, we have clearly reached the time to put this into effect."

He said he will formally propose amendments to the Charter for Tibetans in Exile to make the change at the upcoming session of the Tibetan Parliament in Exile that begins Monday. If the changes are made, leadership of the group would be passed to an elected leader.

The Dalai Lama told CNN in October that he would like to retire at some point.

"I'm also a human being. … Retirement is also my right," he said while on a speaking tour of North America.

Without saying exactly when, he said, "Sooner or later, I have to go. I'm over 75, so next 10 years, next 20 years, one day I will go."

The Dalai Lama fled China in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule. The exile group is headquartered in Dharamsala in northern India."

Via CNN

Top UK businessmen among 9 arrested in bank probe

Yahoo: Police have arrested nine people, including two of Britain's wealthiest entrepreneurs, on suspicion of fraud in connection with the 2008 collapse of Iceland's Kaupthing bank during the global financial crisis.

Britain's Serious Fraud Office said seven men aged between 42 and 54 were held in raids on two businesses and eight homes in London. The properties were being searched and the suspects questioned at police stations in the city. Two men, aged 42 and 43, were arrested in the Icelandic capital, Reykjavik.

Entrepreneurs Robert and Vincent Tchenguiz confirmed they were among those arrested in London and said they were "cooperating fully" with authorities. A police van was parked outside the office of the brothers' investment firm, Rotch Property, in the upmarket Mayfair area.

The Tchenguiz brothers amassed a large property portfolio and had investments in some of Britain's best-known retail brands, including grocer J. Sainsbury PLC and pub chain Mitchells & Butlers. But the business borrowed more than 1 billion pounds ($1.62 billion) from Kaupthing, and was plunged into crisis when the bank collapsed.

Icelandic media said former Kaupthing chairman Sigurdur Einarsson was also arrested in London.

Full article at Yahoo

People don't know when they're lying to themselves

""I am on a drug. It's called Charlie Sheen. It's not available because if you try it, you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body." – Charlie Sheen

"We put our fingers in the eyes of those who doubt that Libya is ruled by anyone other than its people." – Muammar Gaddafi

You don't have to look far for instances of people lying to themselves. Whether it's a drug-addled actor or an almost-toppled dictator, some people seem to have an endless capacity for rationalising what they did, no matter how questionable. We might imagine that these people really know that they're deceiving themselves, and that their words are mere bravado. But Zoe Chance from Harvard Business School thinks otherwise.

Using experiments where people could cheat on a test, Chance has found that cheaters not only deceive themselves, but are largely oblivious to their own lies. Their ruse is so potent that they'll continue to overestimate their abilities in the future, even if they suffer for it. Cheaters continue to prosper in their own heads, even if they fail in reality.

Chance asked 76 students to take a maths test, half of whom could see an answer key at the bottom of their sheets. Afterwards, they had to predict their scores on a second longer test. Even though they knew that they wouldn't be able to see the answers this time round, they imagined higher scores for themselves (81%) if they had the answers on the first test than if they hadn't (72%). They might have deliberately cheated, or they might have told themselves that they were only looking to "check" the answers they knew all along. Either way, they had fooled themselves into thinking that their strong performance reflected their own intellect, rather than the presence of the answers.

And they were wrong – when Chance asked her recruits to actually take the hypothetical second test, neither group outperformed the other. Those who had used the answers the first-time round were labouring under an inflated view of their abilities.

Chance also found that the students weren't aware that they were deceiving themselves. She asked 36 fresh recruits to run through the same hypothetical scenario in their heads. Those who imagined having the answers predicted that they'd get a higher score, but not that they would also expect a better score in the second test. They knew that they would cheat the test, but not that they would cheat themselves.

Some people are more prone to this than others. Before the second test, Chance gave the students a questionnaire designed to measure their capacity for deceiving themselves. The "high self-deceivers" not only predicted that they would get better scores in the second test, but they were especially prone to "taking credit for their answers-aided performance"."

Read more at Discover (Thanks Annette M)

Latest Geminoid Is Incredibly Realistic

"Okay, I admit it… I found myself wondering whether this was in fact a real robot, or actually a person pretending to be a robot or even a fake robot.

It's not a fake. This is the latest iteration of Geminoid series of ultra-realistic androids, from Kokoro and Hiroshi Ishiguro. Specifically, this is Geminoid DK, which was constructed to look exactly like Associate Professor Henrik Scharfe of Aalborg University in Denmark.

When we wrote Prof. Scharfe inquiring about the android, he confirmed: "No, it is not a hoax," adding that they've been working on the project for about a year now. His Geminoid was built by Kokoro in Tokyo and is now at Japan's Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR) in Nara for setup and testing. "In a couple of weeks I will go back to Japan to participate in the experiments," he says. "After that, the robot is shipped to Denmark to inhabit a newly designed lab."

If you're wondering why on Earth someone would want an exact robotic double of themselves, besides being TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY AWESOME, the Geminoid is going to be used for researching "emotional affordances" in human-robot interaction, the novel notion of "blended presence," as well as cultural differences (from different continents) in the perception of robots."

Read more at ieee Spectrum (Thanks Christopher C)

Cory Doctorow denounces Jediism

The Register: When Cory Doctorow, creative freedoms campaigner, author of Little Brother and co-editor of the massive Boing Boing blog, tweeted yesterday that "we're all going to put our #religion down as #Jedi", the response was instantaneous.

A flurry of counter-tweets followed, with reaction typified by the likes of Andrew Carter, who tweeted: "NO! It screws up the demographics and makes it look like there are fewer 'Non-religious' than there are!"

Doctorow thought about it, and shortly after, his blog conceded an absolute about-turn. He wrote: "When I joked on Twitter that my family were going to list ourselves as Jedi, I was deluged with outraged responses from atheists asking me to tick the 'no religion' box; this is part of a larger campaign to get people who tick 'Christian' out of habit (though they have no faith) to switch to 'no religion' as well, as some atheists believe that the number of religious people in the UK is misreported through a combination of habitual box-ticking and smart-alecky 'Jedi' like me." He concluded: "I'm convinced; we're atheists and we will list ourselves as such."

Full Story at The Register

Benny Hinn Sued For Adultery

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Scam artist "faith healer" and mega-millionaire Pastor Benny Hinn is being sued by a Christian book publisher who says Hinn violated the "immorality" clause in their contract when he had an adulterous affair with fellow preacher Paula White.

Hinn is estimated to be worth hundreds of millions, money largely scraped out of the Social Security checks of the gullible elderly and the desperately ill. He travels the world in a $36M personal Gulfstream jet in between stays at his numerous opulent mansions.

Full details at JoeMyGod

Up-Inspired Floating House

"Our awesome partners over at National Geographic sent over these incredible photos, as they just wrapped up creating a real-life version of Pixar's animated hit film Up. It's pretty amazing what human beings are capable of…

Yesterday morning, March 5 at dawn, National Geographic Channel and a team of scientists, engineers, and two world-class balloon pilots successfully launched a 16′ X 16′ house 18′ tall with 300 8′ colored weather balloons from a private airfield east of Los Angeles, and set a new world record for the largest balloon cluster flight ever attempted. The entire experimental aircraft was more than 10 stories high, reached an altitude of over 10,000 feet, and flew for approximately one hour.

The filming of the event, from a private airstrip, will be part of a new National Geographic Channel series called How Hard Can it Be?, which will premiere in fall 2011."

See more photos over at My Modern Met (Thanks Duncan)