Derren Brown's Blog, page 44

Svengali coming to London's Shaftesbury Theatre – Tickets On Sale Tomorrow!

Be prepared for a theatrical roller-coaster ride as the acknowledged master of psychological illusion comes to the West End with his brand new show DERREN BROWN: SVENGALI.

Following a 73 date national tour SVENGALI will reside at the Shaftesbury Theatre, from June 8 – July 16 2011.

Tickets go on sale Friday 11 Feb.

Derren, who professes that he loves writing and performing on stage more than anything else, promises Londoners an evening of mind-melting based around audience participation.

"More than that I wouldn't want to say", he says. "I ask audiences to keep the contents of the show a secret so as not to spoil it for others, and I have to do the same. But I hope it's fun and freaky and a great night out".

Svengali is written by Derren Brown and Iain Sharkey with Stephen Long and produced by Michael Vine, Andrew O'Connor & Corrie McGuire for Objective Talent Management.

On stage as well as on TV Derren is in a class of his own, exhilarating audiences with his unique brand of intelligent and theatrical entertainment. His Mind Control, Trick of the Mind, Trick or Treat and Events programmes have garnered rave reviews and awards. His specials have provoked much controversy and acclaim and further consolidated his reputation as a performer prepared to constantly challenge and break boundaries. He has also received much praise for his best-selling books, Tricks of the Mind and Confessions of a Conjuror. He has also enjoyed considerable success in America, when his show Derren Brown: Mind Control, was screened on NBC's Sci-Fi Channel. In Jan 2011 Channel 4 celebrated ten years of Derren Brown on TV with Behind The Mischief, an exclusive behind-the-scenes documentary, followed by the best ever Derren Brown special as chosen by his fans online – a fitting tribute to the man and his amazing talents.

LISTINGS

Shaftesbury Theatre

210 Shaftesbury Avenue

London

WC2H 8DP

June 8th to July 16th

6 shows per week

Prices £50-00 to £25-00 + Booking fees

Phone Booking: 020 7379 5399

Performance times: 7-30pm

Online address: www.shaftesburytheatre.com

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

Jerusalem UFO video debunked

Here's the original video that's been circulating with more here.

t's pretty cool, but an obvious hoax. Imagine you're standing late at night videotaping the scene with a friend because it's so pretty. Out of nowhere a bright light comes down out of the sky, hovers over one of the most famous temples on the planet, then flashes brilliantly and shoots straight up at fantastic speed.

Would you just stand there like a lump without showing any reaction at all, like the guy in the video?

Also, it seems a little weird that such an incredibly bright object could hang over this heavily visited site, even in the middle of the night, and there were no reports of any eyewitnesses. Just one video that turns up, and a few days later a couple more. Seriously?

And now this video has been conclusively shown to be faked.

(Via Wired Mag)

Float: a truly unusual documentary

My inner nerd is crying. via Boing Biong

Walking improves your memory

Exercise training increases the size of our hippocampus and improves memory. They divided 120 sedentary healthy adults in their mid-60s into two groups. From a summary:

One group walked around a track three times a week, building up to 40 minutes at a stretch; the other did a variety of less aerobic exercises, including yoga and resistance training with bands. After a year, brain scans showed that among the walkers, the hippocampus had increased in volume by about 2 percent on average; in the others, it had declined by about 1.4 percent. Such a decline is normal in older adults.

For the full article visit the glorious Deric Bonws' Mind Blog

Magic meets Mysticism in Tanzania

Swaziland police have said they will keep a registry of every albino in the country to help protect them from witch doctors who wish to use their body parts for rituals, the Christian Science Monitor reports. The move comes after the killing of an 11-year-old albino girl, which many fear is the first in the expansion of a deadly superstition already prevalent in eastern Africa.

Some are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars for the body parts of albinos—which they believe will cure diseases or bring political power—on the black market. "Swaziland, which has been identified as a destination, source, and transit point for human trafficking, which also occurs for trade in body parts, is clearly no longer exempt of this type of crime, where young albinos are targeted" says an abuse group.

"Witchcraft today in the West might be a relic of history and filed as a bygone chapter of the 16th century, but still today throughout Africa – the belief in witchcraft and the brutal effects of those beliefs are being felt strongly – some say more strongly than ever."

In August of this year British magician Drummond Money-Coutts set out to investigate the extent to which witchcraft and witch doctors still hold a grip over the people of Tanzania in East Africa where, according to the BBC, belief rates in witchcraft are at 93% – the highest in the world.

Reports of killings, said to be as many as 3 a day or roughly 1000 a year, appear to be reliable however the number doesn't appear to be declining. "The demographics of the victims are varied", says Drummond, "but largely focused on those most defenceless – the very young and the very old.  It's astonishing to think that today in a world that has easy access to information there are still pockets of the world falling prey to the wild and savage claims of such people."

Whilst mystic ritual might be understandable in a poor country like Tanzania, Swaziland is oddly advanced. It's mostly tropical climate – is landlocked in Southern Africa, bordered to the north, south and west by South Africa, and to the east by Mozambique. It's tiny size of just 7000 square miles is inhabited by over 1.2Million people. Despite the low average income they don't suffer the terrible deprivations that has driven those in much of Africa to cruelty.

Despite the usual tribal stereotypes the most common religion in the region is Christianity which totals 80% of the population. Various Protestant and indigenous African churches, including African Zionist constitute the majority, followed closely by Roman Catholicism. All groups take a very literal interpretation of the bible and yet despite this the use of witch doctors is widespread and well accepted.

Twice whilst filming Drummond and his crew were followed and threatened by small groups of locals, and as a source of major income to those prepared to abuse these beliefs. "The first instance was when we had performed in the capital – Dar es Salaam.  They noticed the camera and quickly became very aggressive. On the second occasion one individual felt I was performing on his territory.  Same reaction again – trying to take our camera, shouting, waving arms and fists and hurling stones as we drove away in the car.  That was a bad moment."

The magician Drummond Money-Coutts and fellow wizard and film maker Tom Lyon have released several movies documenting their travels to some of the poorest places on earth. Using magic as a way to engage the local populations their travels to Kenya, India, Tanzania and Swaziland are available online and in DVD with the proceeds going to local charities, helping to build schools and educate younger generations.

For More information and videos visit the DMC You Tube Channel

New, Much Smaller Cousin To T-Rex Unveiled

Having only one claw on each forelimb and standing about the size of a parrot, a tiny distant cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex was discovered in China and named Linhenykus monodactylus, after the city of Linhe in Inner Mongolia where the fossilized remains were found.

The remains of the dinosaur representing a sub-branch of the theropods, which include a partial skeleton, bones of the vertebrae, forelimb, hind limbs, and a partial pelvis, were removed from sediments between 84 and 75 million years old in what archaeologists have dubbed: The Upper Cretaceous Wulansuhai Formation.

Besides T-Rex, therapods also include the Velociraptor, from which scientists believe the bird kingdom, as we know it today evolved. Details surrounding the process were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This small cousin of the terrifying T-Rex did have unusual claws but its presence would hardly have raised a hair of fright on any creature crossing its path.

Weird Asia

Astrologers angered by stars

"Professor Brian Cox and Dara O'Briain have unleashed the wrath of Britain's astrologers with their comments about the ancient art on BBC2′s "Stargazing Live" show, with the result that the Astrological Association of Great Britain have started a petition they plan to send to the BBC.

The section of the program that caused the fuss has been described in truly harrowing terms by 'respected astrologer' Angela Cornish, in an e-mail that was published by the SkyScript blog:

"If you didn't happen to see it, there were two presenters, Professor Brian Cox and Dara O'Briain. All was going well until they got to a part where they had models of the planets in our solar system on a table and Dara was explaining that all of the planets orbit at different speeds and distances away from the Sun. He said only the earth orbits the Sun in 365 days and returns to its own place, showing that horoscopes are nonsense. He then went on to add "Let's get this straight once and for all, Astrology is rubbish" The other presenter, Brian Cox, then agreed and said "in the interests of balance on the BBC, yes astrology is nonsense."

Shocking stuff, I think you'll agree.

This is not the first time that Brian Cox has waded into the astrology controversy that has raged in science for literally almost none of the last couple of centuries. The hackles of Britain's astrologers were raised last year, when Cox took a moment during his Wonders of the Solar System series to explain to the public that "astrology is a load of rubbish," a statement which pretty much echoes the scientific consensus on the matter, which says that, "astrology is a load of rubbish." It's a position that was first reached by Islamic scholars at least 650 years ago, and has been studiously ignored by such great minds as Jonathan Cainer ever since.

Since then, TV's most clean-shaven male Professor has become a bit of a lightning rod for astrologically-guided criticism, and the Astrological Association of Great Britain's new petition names him personally:

The Association will be requesting that the BBC make a public apology and a statement that they do not support the personal views of Professor Brian Cox or Dara O'Briains on the subject of astrology. We also request that the BBC will commit to making a fair and balanced representation of astrology when aired in the future.

On the second sentence at least I think we can all agree. I'd love to see the BBC give a fair and balanced representation of astrology. In fact sod it, let's extend that to all newspapers as well.

Such a representation would depict astrology as a pseudoscience with no real basis in evidence that was already being ridiculed in the Dark Ages, and note that after thousands of years astrologers still can't produce statistically meaningful results."

Read more at The Guardian (Thanks Annette M)

Thomas Thwaites: How I built a toaster — from scratch

"It takes an entire civilization to build a toaster. Designer Thomas Thwaites found out the hard way, by attempting to build one from scratch: mining ore for steel, deriving plastic from oil … it's frankly amazing he got as far as he got. A parable of our interconnected society, for designers and consumers alike."

Via TED (Thanks Sara)

The secret to commanding lightning

"Mouths agape, a crowd stare at two men with lightning bolts firing from their heads and hands. I am at the Big Day Out, a music festival in Sydney, Australia, and touring alongside the likes of Iggy Pop and MIA are the Lords of Lightning.

The display is indeed stunning to watch. "It was like two wizards fighting," says Toby, a Sydney hipster who quickly scampers back to the festival's pounding music. Little did he wonder: how came these mere humans to create and command lightning?

The secret to the Lords' power is Tesla Coils. The ones they use are two metres wide, on which they stand while thick blue bolts fly around them. First developed in 1891 by Nicola Tesla, a Tesla Coil is in fact two coils – one sitting inside the other. When an alternating current builds up in the smaller coil it creates a magnetic field that induces a current in the larger one.

In the show, one primary coil is wound around two secondary coils which service the two towers. This ensures both towers vibrate at the same frequency. Voltage in the larger coil can build up into millions of volts once the coils vibrate at precisely the same frequency. "That's what causes the huge voltage rises that you see in the way of lightning," says Carlos Van Camp, the creator of Lords of Lightning.

To ramp the voltage further, he winds the coils so the towers are pumped with opposing charges. "So, at maximum, one tower reaches two million volts and the other reaches negative two million," says Van Camp. The massive voltage generated by the Tesla Coil rips surrounding air molecules into charged ions, allowing a current to flow through the air. This is similar to what it is believed happens in nature. While there is some debate, it's believed that lightning is caused by the sudden release of charge from thunderclouds, which get electrically riled up by collisions between ice particles. Since most of the charge is negative, the ground becomes positive. Once the electric charge becomes large enough to ionise the air, a current will flow as a lightning bolt.

So, how can Van Camp stand atop these massively charged structures and walk away unscathed? He wears a conductive suit made of very small metal links connected together which protects him from the voltage. Electricity runs through the suit rather than through his body, and discharges out of his hands and head.

"If the suit has all the connections in place then you don't feel anything," says Van Camp. But, when there are loose connections electrical charges can move off track. When this happens, Van Camp says he can "feel little tingles to thumping shocks inside the suit". But perhaps it is this danger that entices crowds."

Read more at New Scientist (Thanks Annette M)

Our brains forget information at a rate of 1 bit per second per neuron

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"The human brain is incredibly complex and something we are nowhere near close to simulating with nerual networks using the computing power on offer today. While we can't simulate how the brain deals with information, we can continue to experiment and learn more about how it functions.

What we do know is that the brain stores information in neurons. Research being carried out at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization at the University of Gottingen and the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience has discovered some surprising things about how we both activate those neurons and how quickly they, and therefore we, forget information.

Neurons are electrically excitable and in order for a neuron to be activated an electrical pulse has to enter a neuron. According to Fred Wolf, head of the Theoretical Neurophysics research group at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization:

The brain codes information in the form of electrical pulses, known as spikes. Each of the brain's approximately 100 billion interconnected neurons acts as both a receiver and transmitter: these bundle all incoming electrical pulses and, under certain circumstances, forward a pulse of their own to their neighbours. In this way, each piece of information processed by the brain generates its own activity pattern.

But the researchers found in their latest realistic model of neurons that a second electrical potential forms on the membrane of the cell. Unless that potential increases past a certain point the neuron won't become active.

Before now this electrical potential was not know about, making it difficult to understand how neurons functioned within the cerebral cortex. But now it is understood to exist the researchers were able to better track information across the brain as an activity pattern. This in turn led them to discover how quickly neurons forget information.

You'll be surprised to discover it is incredibly fast. Our brains forget information at a rate of 1 bit per second per active neuron."

Read more at Geek.com (Thanks Waseem S)