Derren Brown's Blog, page 45

The last uncontacted tribe in Brazilian Jungle under threat

Video of an uncontacted tribe spotted in the Brazilian jungle has been released, bringing them to life in ways that photographs alone cannot.

The tribe, believed to be Panoa Indians, have been monitored from a distance by Brazil's National Indian Foundation, a government agency charged with handling the nation's indigenous communities. Many of the world's 100 or so uncontacted tribes live in the Amazon.

Until 1987, it was government policy to contact such people. But contact is fraught with problems, especially disease; people who have stayed isolated from the mainstream world have stayed isolated from its pathogens, and have little immunity to our diseases. Brazilian government policy is now to watch from afar, and — at least in principle — to protect uncontacted tribes from intrusion.

Via Wired Science

Federico Uribe Makes Art On A Literal Shoestring Budget

"At first glance, Federico Uribe's "paintings" look like they were done up with oil or pastel on canvas. Look closer, though, and you'll find they are actually shoelaces pinned on a canvas to form intricate pictures. Yes, those same shoelaces you use to tie your sneakers every morning.

According to the Colombian artist, he first chanced upon the idea while working on some pieces that used training shoes. For some reason, Puma ended up sending him a bunch of shoelaces, instead of trainers. After wondering what he'll do with all that string, he decided he might actually be able to "paint" with them.

Federico Uribe's process is as painstaking as you can imagine. He carefully selects the string colors to use, weaves them together and pins each one to the canvas at various points so it doesn't fall off. Each creation can take up to 30 days (on a 10-hours a day schedule) to finish as a result of the intricate process.

From afar, it's hard to imagine the pieces as being produced with anything but conventional mediums. I mean, shoelaces, literally, would have been the last thing on my mind."

Read more at Cool Things (Thanks Christopher C)

Why Letting Yourself Make Mistakes Means Making Fewer of Them

"Think back to the last time your boss assigned you a new project or task at work, or the last time you tried to tackle something really difficult in your personal life. How did it feel? I'm guessing scary, right?

While some people seem eager to tackle new challenges, many of us are really just trying to survive without committing any major screw-ups. Taking on something totally new and unfamiliar is understandably frightening, since the odds of making a mistake are good when you are inexperienced. Small wonder that we greet new challenges with so little enthusiasm.

How can we learn to see things differently? How can we shift our thinking, and approach new responsibilities and challenges with more confidence and energy?

The answer is simple, though perhaps a little surprising: Give yourself permission to screw-up. Start any new project by saying "I'm not going to be good at this right away, I'm going to make mistakes, and that's okay."

So now you're probably thinking, "If I take your advice and actually let myself screw up, there will be consequences. I'm going to pay for it." Fair enough. But you really needn't worry about that, because studies show that when people are allowed to make mistakes, they are significantly less likely to actually make them! Let me explain."

Read more at Psychology Today (Thanks Annette M)

Found In The Archives: 'Modern' Elephant Taxidermy

"Time spent at the American Museum of Natural History is always time well spent. The dioramas alone could keep a person busy looking and admiring for a lifetime.

Less well-known but just as rewarding is the museum's film collection, which contains glimpses into some of the most beautiful corners that the world has to offer — both natural and human endeavor. (There are also quite a few peculiarities, such as the film of mime interpretations of Piltdown Man and other anthropological hoaxes.)

Modern Taxidermy: Mounting the Indian Elephant (shown here in abridged form) is a 1927 silent film that documents Carl Akeley's taxidermy process from the raw hide — fresh from the Faunthorpe-Vernay collection expedition — to finished display."

Read more at NPR (Thanks Dan)

How Meditation May Change the Brain

"Over the December holidays, my husband went on a 10-day silent meditation retreat. Not my idea of fun, but he came back rejuvenated and energetic.

He said the experience was so transformational that he has committed to meditating for two hours daily, one hour in the morning and one in the evening, until the end of March. He's running an experiment to determine whether and how meditation actually improves the quality of his life.

I'll admit I'm a skeptic.

But now, scientists say that meditators like my husband may be benefiting from changes in their brains. The researchers report that those who meditated for about 30 minutes a day for eight weeks had measurable changes in gray-matter density in parts of the brain associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress. The findings will appear in the Jan. 30 issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging.

M.R.I. brain scans taken before and after the participants' meditation regimen found increased gray matter in the hippocampus, an area important for learning and memory. The images also showed a reduction of gray matter in the amygdala, a region connected to anxiety and stress. A control group that did not practice meditation showed no such changes."

Read more at NY Times (Thanks Christopher C)

Meet the Woman Who Eats Couch Cushions

"Compulsions drive people to do very strange and unusual things. But eating couch cushions? That may very well be the strangest yet.

Adele, a 30-year-old woman from Bradenton, Fla., recently came forward on a TV show about her bizarre taste for foam materials.

The woman is featured on the TLC program "My Strange Addiction" munching on bite-sized pieces of sofa stuffing — and even going so far as to prepare snack-sized servings of couch cushions.

The show has already highlighted people who are addicted to tanning booths, ventriloquism and rock collecting, and others who eat any manner of strange things, including toilet paper and kitchen cleanser, but the episode on Adele's couch-consuming habit might be the most compelling yet.

According to psychologist Jason Mihalko, Adele's behavior presents very much like a condition called pica.

"[Pica is] characterized by an individual having a desire to eat nonfood substances," Mihalko told AOL News. "It's most often seen in young children and women.""

Read more at AOL News (Thanks Annette M)

DIY Medicine: Motivated Engineer Designs His Own Heart Implant

"What to you do if a doctor says your heart's aortic root had ballooned to nearly two inches, and that a heart attack is imminent unless you receive a mechanical valve–a fix that requires blood-thinning drugs for the rest of one's life? Easy–just invent your own heart implant.

This was the scenario facing Tal Golesworthy in 2000. An engineer from Tewkesbury, England, Golesworthy has the same tissue disorder that afflicts over 12,000 people in the UK: Marfan syndrome. But Golesworthy decided that the valve wasn't his only option. As The Engineer reports:

What excited him was the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computer-aided design (CAD). He believed that by combining these technologies with rapid prototyping (RP) techniques he could manufacture a tailor-made support that would act as an internal bandage to keep his aorta in place…. "It seemed to me to be pretty obvious that you could scan the heart structure, model it with a CAD routine, then use RP to create a former on which to manufacture a device," explained Golesworthy. "In a sense, conceptually, it was very simple to do. Actually engineering that was significantly more complex."

The main difficulty was that the scanners had trouble imaging his beating heart, and since you can't tell your heart to "hold still" for the camera, Golesworthy did the next best thing: he created multiple images of his heart at the same cardiac cycle. With CAD helping him design the implant, the next obstacle was how to translate a digital design to a workable heart implant. As The Engineer reports:

The team looked at a number of different processes, such as 3D embroidery, but ended up using a standard medical polymer, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) in a textile solution that allowed them to form a mesh directly onto the former. The mesh weighed less than 5g, was an exact fit for the ascending aorta and could be sutured into place by the surgeon. The process, from proposal to final product, took just under two years.

All the while, Golesworthy was working against the clock, knowing that a heart attack could rear its head at any point. From The Engineer:

"My aorta was dilating all through that period," said Golesworthy. "When you've got the scalpel of Damocles hanging over your sternum, it motivates you into making things happen and so they do…"

And they did. Golesworthy created his implant and surgeons implanted it into his heart in 2004. Since then 23 other patients have had the same surgery, and the implant has the potential to become the standard for valve-surgery in the coming years–all thanks to a man who could have died from a big heart, but instead decided to share it."

Read more at Discover Magazine (Thanks Annette M)

Man claims to be Derren Brown, or does he?

This is Trevor Silvester. He claims to be "Derren Brown without the  jazz hands". Or does he?

In an apparently spectacular bit of bad reporting he's somehow ended up the focus of rather critical emails from a lot of you. The words were not only crowbarred in to his mouth, they've been rejected by his lower intestine and forced him to issue an online apology – one that we don't feel is needed.

Derren is an entertainer who tours the country with his live show and also makes TV programs of a similar nature. Trevor works in Cognitive Hypnotherapy. They both have goatees, are male and could do with a little extra hair – and that's the only thing they have in common.

Hopefully this is something a journalist can latch on to when creating a piece that's riddled with many other inaccuracies, but we won't steal Trevor's thunder.

Head over to his website for the full story, it will either make you chuckle or snort.

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After a large wave of you hitting his website at once it's gone down. So here's his post reproduced for you all to read. Do head over to his site and leave your comments once it's up and running  - please note – WE KNOW Trevor never maid that claim, so be nice [image error]

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"I'm Derren Brown without the 'jazz hands', apparently.

Feb 1st, 2011 by Trevor Silvester.

"You're in the Evening Standard on page 3!"

After over ten years of working bloody hard to develop Cognitive Hypnotherapy into an approach that not only works, but which the public come to recognise, that has got to be a great message to get, so you can imagine how much I was looking forward to reading it.

The headline read: "You are feeling very slim: Hypnotist who wants to help Met lose weight". Exsqueeze me? The interview with the journalist had been about the use of Cognitive Hypnotherapy as an alternative to gastric bands. This can't be right…

I describe myself as "Derren Brown without the Jazz hands." Errm, no I don't. I vaguely remember the reporter suggesting the similarity and me, a bit embarrassed at the comparison, saying something dismissive like "well, without the jazziness", meaning the needs of showbiz to spangle things up. I think I may have said that. But 'Jazz hands'? What does that mean? Seriously, write and let me know. It's the kind of thing an arse would say. Brilliant, so now people who don't know me, up to and probably including Derren Brown, think I'm an arse. And I had hopes of us having a coffee together one day.

I'm described as a 'cognitive hypnotherapist'. When I complained to the managing editor about the inaccuracies of the piece he replied that the article contained no criticism, either explicit or implicit. Predictably disingenuous. If I refer to the 'reporter' Tom Harper, you all understand I'm implying something by the inverted commas, don't you?

He used Tom Harper's notes to reject my complaint . Presumably the same notes that recorded the following comment, allegedly from me: "Supt Kholi wants to do the hypnotherapy programme. He was blown away by the idea as the Met are on a big health drive at the moment." Both Supt Kohli and I are in complete agreement that we've never met or communicated. I didn't even know his name, I just knew vaguely that he had spoken to my ThinkingSlimmer partner about the possibility of running a pilot study. I have no idea if the Met has an obesity problem. I did say, on the basis of personal experience, that it's difficult to eat well and exercise on shift work.

So, it's clear that the 'reporter' has been economical with the truth, but why? There were two positive bits of news here. The first is that the Met were investigating a promising method of improving the health of their officers at very little cost, and the second that Cognitive Hypnotherapy could provide an alternative, cheaper and non-invasive method of helping obese people compared to gastric band surgery. Why work so hard to make the story, "Met waste public money on wacky therapist? I rarely read newspapers – they never leave me feeling better – so I don't know if my friends claim that the Evening Standard has an anti-police agenda is true. Whatever the reason, it's a shame, and I was left deflated and feeling that I'd let my network of hardworking therapists down.

But on Saturday night I went for a meal with an ex-client. She reminded me, as she tucked into her goats cheese salad and garlic bread, that it was ten years ago that she first saw me. Her name is Chloe. Back then she was 17 and weighed 5 stone 2lb. She had anorexia and was going to be sectioned if her weight fell below 5 stone. She was told she would never have children as a result of the damage she had done to her body. Today, over 8 years since I saw her professionally, she is a mother of three lovely girls. She trained with me to be a Cognitive Hypnotherapist and now specialises in helping people with eating disorders. I didn't watch her eat, the meal was just a natural medium to catch up in, but her plate was empty by the end. She used to cut her peas into four. Imagine how that meal made me feel. I mean it, imagine it. I love what I do. I believe it what it can achieve. So does she. So do the thousands of people who've been helped by this method over the last ten years by me or the people I've trained. So am I going to let inaccurate, lazy or dishonest 'reporters' stop me from banging our drum? Of course not. Onward and upward. And I haven't given up hope on that cup of coffee.

I don't believe for a minute that a 'reporter' like Tom Harper can get the same feeling from writing his stories that I do from being a 'cognitive hypnotherapist'. And if he does, he needs to see one."

Vatican to launch dialogue with atheists

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VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Vatican announced a new initiative aimed at promoting dialogue between theists and atheists to be launched with a two-day event this March in Paris.

The Vatican's Pontifical Council for Culture will sponsor a series of seminars on the theme of "Religion, Light and Common Reason," at various locations in the city, including Paris-Sorbonne University.

The events will conclude with a party for youth in the courtyard of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, followed by prayer and meditation inside the cathedral.

The initiative, called "Courtyard of the Gentiles," takes its name from a section of the ancient Temple of Jerusalem accessible to non-Jews, which Pope Benedict XVI has used as a metaphor for dialogue between Catholics and non-believers.

"I believe that the church should also today open a sort of `courtyard of the gentiles' where men can in some way hook on to God, without knowing him and before having gained access to his mystery," Benedict said in Dec. 2009.

The pope has made turning back the tide of Western secularism one of the major campaigns of his papacy. The Vatican last year established the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization to focus especially on promoting Christianity in Europe.

We say good luck to him on that one. [image error]

Via ChristianCentury

My new Art Show

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From the 24th February until the 12th March, your infrequent blogger has an exhibition of his more recent portraits at the Hossack Gallery, 28 Charlotte St, London. It'll be a small show – perhaps six or so large pieces, for sale if you wish and general perusalment. An online gallery of my paintings – mainly the earlier caricatures – is viewable online at derrenbrownart.com, where prints are for sale if you are considering a gift for a least loved relative.

For those of you who are talented and attractive enough to follow me upon the Twitter, you may have seen I've been tweeting a work-in-progress of my father in real time as it comes together. The plan is to include this and one of my mother, as well as some of the recent ones I have posted on this here blog.

Some of you do enquire very kindly about buying originals. I sell the originals through the Hossack Gallery and I'm sure they'd be delighted to take any enquiries. They are big though (the ones above are each five feet high), so you've got to REALLY want one in your room.

Any enquiries about the art show, please call the gallery on +44 (0) 20 7255 2828.

Thanking you kindly.