Derren Brown's Blog, page 63

The night sky as you've never seen it before

"TimeScapes," a modern portrait of the American Southwest

Via Sunday Mercury (Thanks @XxLadyClaireXx)

Fear doctors (mad scientists?) use tarantulas to terrify

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"What's scarier than bats in the belfry? Easy: tarantulas in an MRI tube.

To observe the brain's panic-response network in full freak, British researchers asked 20 volunteers to lie inside a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine. One by one, the scientists then had each person view a screen that showed a tarantula crawling closer … and … closer to the subject's feet. As the spider advanced, MRI scans allowed researchers to see flashes of activity switch from the volunteer's prefrontal cortex – a region associated with anxiety – to a spot in the midbrain known to involve intense fear. But the neural terror waned when the tarantula retreated, "regardless of the spider's absolute proximity," wrote the study's authors. In other words, as long as the spider was moving away, no matter how close it still was, the volunteers relaxed.

Titled "Neural Activity associated with monitoring the oscillating threat value of a Tarantula," the study was published today by the National Academy of Sciences. They could simply have dubbed their paper: "Watching the Willies." What the researchers glimpsed, they say, was the brain's danger-tracking system at work."

Read more at Body Odd (Thanks @XxLadyClaireXx)

Science finds the plane truth about in-flight meals

"The inexplicable blandness of airline food has been pondered at 30,000 feet by generations of travellers. Now an explanation has been offered in the form of research showing that people lose their sense of taste when listening to the sort of "white noise" heard inside an aircraft's cabin.

White noise consists of random collections of sounds at different frequencies – such as the muffled noise of aircraft engines – and scientists have demonstrated that it is capable of diminishing the taste of salt and sugar.

The findings could explain a phenomenon well known to airline companies: passengers tend to lose their sense of taste when they are in the air. For this reason, airline meals are often "improved" with extra salt, sugar and other flavourings.

The study also lends further support to the idea that sound plays an important role in the perception of taste. Heston Blumenthal, the celebrity chef, has exploited the trait in a specially designed seafood dish which is served while diners hooked up to iPods listen to the sound of surf crashing on a beach.

Ellen Poliakoff of Manchester University said the study investigated how background noise influenced a person's perception of food.

The scientists found that certain sounds not only affected people's sense of saltiness or sweetness, they also influenced how crunchy some types of food sounded to the diners – which in turn affected their perceptions of freshness and palatability."

Read more at The Independent (Thanks Shaun H)

Porpoises rescue Dick Van Dyke

"On screen, Dick Van Dyke has been rescued from untimely death by flying cars and magical nannies. Off screen, the veteran star of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Mary Poppins had to rely on the help of a pod of porpoises after apparently dozing off aboard his surfboard. "I'm not kidding," he said afterwards.

Van Dyke's ordeal began during an ill-fated trip to his local beach. "I woke up out of sight of land," the 84-year-old actor told reporters. "I started paddling with the swells and I started seeing fins swimming around me and I thought 'I'm dead!'"

Van Dyke was wrong. "They turned out to be porpoises," he said. "And they pushed me all the way to shore." The porpoises were unavailable for comment.

Van Dyke made his screen debut on the Phil Silvers Show before bagging his own TV sitcom in 1961. His film credits include Bye Bye Birdie, Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Dick Tracy, while his TV drama Diagnosis: Murder ran from 1993 to 2001. In recent years he has appeared on screen in Night at the Museum and its 2009 sequel."

Read more at The Guardian (Thanks Duncan)

Access denied. I don't like the way you look at me!

"A small security company has developed a system which can identify people by the way they look at the world. The system, created by the firm ID-U based in Israel, is said to be both simple and reliable. It asks the user to follow a target on a display while tracking the movement of his eyes with a low-resolution camera, reports Technology Review.

The eye movement pattern is as unique as fingerprints. At the moment the system is 97 per cent accurate, says ID-U CEO Palti-Wasserman, who holds a PhD from the faculty of biomedical engineering from the Technion Israel Institute of Technology. A potential impostor would have trouble fooling the system. With a fingerprint or retina scanner it is possible to make an accurate copy of the biometrical feature and pass identification. But ID-U does a different test every time, so having a record of the rightful owner passing a test will not help.

As a bonus, the system only needs a display and a regular digital camera, both of which are already in many potential hosts like laptops or ATMs. Once the software is installed, it is ready to be used. The company is working on an iStore app using their algorithms. However ID-U is yet to demonstrate its scalability. What works well for a small group may drop in performance significantly when hundreds or thousands of individuals are involved."

Read more at RT (Thanks Niall S)

Parrot Zoo Prize Draw – DB related prizes up for grabs!

A message from the Parrot Zoo:

"It's that time of year again! Yes, it's cold, windy and wet, and nearly Christmas, but why not treat yourself to an entry (or a few) into our Polly wants a Christmas Cracker prize draw?

Some of the prizes this year are very rare (as only one of them exist) and have been donated by the Charity's Patron Saint, Derren Brown. The prizes range from a framed tour poster and an A2 Art Print to a Family Season ticket for the zoo.

Entries cost £2.50, and you can enter as many times as you like. The draw will take place on Friday 10th, and the top 3 lucky people will receive a phone call from us congratulating them. A full list of winners will be posted on the website.

So, if you want to enter for yourself or to give that family member an extra special gift, all you need to do is head over to http://www.parrotzoo.com/polly/

Good luck!"

CLICK HERE to see the list of prizes and to enter the draw!

The difference between us and Neanderthals is our creativity

The modern human brain and the Neanderthal brain began at about the same size at birth, but their skulls show that they began developing very differently within the first year of life, scientists say.

Neanderthals evolved more than 400,000 years ago, lived as hunter-gatherers in Europe and Asia, and went extinct about 30,000 years ago.

Judging by the archaeological record, Neanderthals were well-adapted to their particular environment, but they were not as creative in terms of hunting strategies or artwork – for example, they apparently did not make cave paintings the way their human contemporaries did.

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology scanned Neanderthals skulls and compared them with modern human skulls. Their results are published in the journal Current Biology.

Subtle changes in the early phases of brain development can have a huge impact on social cognition, communication, and how creative members of a species are, said study author Philipp Gunz of the  Planck Institute.

The pattern of brain development described in the study may point to a diminished inclination to communicate through art, and possibly also help explain why modern humans had advantages over Neanderthals, he said.

"If you are an artist you have to understand symbols, you have to understand meaning, you have to look at the world in the certain way, and it seems that Neanderthals, for 200,000 years, didn't feel like it," Gunz said.

The Skeptic's Dictionary Short and Irreverent E-dition

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Some of the definitions in the Skeptic's Dictionary will bring a smile to anyone's face. I (Phillis) own a copy and whilst it reads a little like a joke book of debunking, it's always interesting. Not to be taken too seriously it's a lot of fun and if you want a nice little taster the website is featuring it's favourites. Here's a few of ours:

Angel therapy: pretending to get messages from angels to guide patients; good way to avoid liability.

Dolphin-assisted therapy: swimming with animals that may be diseased and may bite in order to enhance one's sense of wellbeing.

Mozart effect: marketing strategy for a number of devices, including music CDs: claim listening to Mozart's music while in the womb will make your child smarter; recommended by 9 out of 10 politicians ignorant of science and basic human development.

More at Skepdic

Dictionary available from Amazon here

Best Derren Brown Show Ever? – Vote Now!

Channel 4 are holding a vote for the best Derren Brown Special, the winning episode will be shown on a special Derren Brown Night in January 2011.

"Derren Brown has undoubtedly brought some amazing television to our screens, his unique methods and abilities have enthralled the nation many times over.

Using his uncanny ability to misdirect, manipulate and mesmerise, the psychological illusionist has performed astounding feats that have left both the subjects and audience astonished.

Channel 4 will be celebrating with a Derren Brown Night in January 2011, and we need your help – Derren and executive producer Anthony Owen have picked a shortlist of their six favourite specials – but we need you to vote for the winner – the best Derren Brown show ever!

To help you decide we've got reminder clips and refresher episode guides here, so get watching and get voting!

VOTE HERE

Here's Derren's guide to his top six specials:

Russian Roulette Live

Back in 2003 was the first of my themed televisual specials – the controversial Russian Roulette Live. Over 12,000 members of the public applied to be the person who loaded the bullet. I didn't realise I was that unpopular.

Séance

The following year I invited a dozen students to participate in a séance to contact the dead. We also asked the viewers at home to call in to the programme to let us know if anything unusual was happening to them at home. And many did. It remains one of the most complained about television programmes of all time.

Messiah

In 2005 I travelled across the USA under a variety of false names to see if I could persuade psychics, new age experts, UFO abductees and preachers that I had amazing super-powers. Which, of course, I don't…

The Heist

The following year we made The Heist, in which I attempted to psychologically manipulate a group of attendees at a business training seminar. I wanted to see if I could convince them to rob a security van in broad daylight.

The System

In 2008 came a special called The System in which I anonymously taught a member of the public a horse racing gambling system which was 100% guaranteed.

Hero at 30,000 Feet

And finally, my most recent special in which an unsuspecting member of the public, Matt Galley, applied to take part in a television game show and had his worst fears – and his life – transformed."

VOTE HERE

Kim Rugg – A London artist's knife skills and knack for precision

""Some people like taking their time," says artist Kim Rugg, whose artistic achievements are measured in millimeters, used X-ACTO blades and picas. We spent the afternoon with Rugg in her London home and studio talking about her work re-imagining newspapers, comics, stamps and cereal boxes using their existing form while rearranging their content. Kim finds inspiration from the mundane and common objects around us. Her wicked knife skills and tenacious attention to detail have created a body of work that is as impressive as it is curious."

Via Cool Hunting (Thanks @moonylein)