Derren Brown's Blog, page 96

Night Owls Are Smarter Than Other People

"Night owls are smarter than other people, and now we may know why. The modern world contains many features our slow-to-evolve brains still find unfamiliar—cars, TVs, hot dogs on a stick. But the world has always thrown new stuff at us, and brighter humans may adapt more ably.

Satoshi Kanazawa, a psychologist at The London School of Economics and Political Science, argues that, while we have specialized mental modules for navigation, social interaction, and other age-old tasks, general...

Amazing: The Scale of the Universe

Someone sent us a link to a slider application showing the scale of the universe. Click the picture below to visit the site and have a look. Quite fascinating.

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Visit New Grounds to try it out (Thanks Blackdogmma)

Some Penn & Teller tickets left!

Penn and Teller – my favourite magicians – are so rare amongst conjurors: they have remained cool in a way that others seem to find impossible. I believe this is due mainly to the fact that their agenda has never been about themselves: they have never postured and apotheosised themselves in the hollow way magicians invariably do. And although they have always been the 'bad boys' of magic, disclosing methods and ridiculing the fraternity, they produce some of the finest pieces of magic you...

Dark Matter May Be Building Up Inside the Sun

"The sun could be a net for dark matter, a new study suggests. If dark matter happens to take a certain specific form, it could build up in our nearest star and alter how heat moves inside it in a way that would be observable from Earth.

Dark matter is the mysterious stuff that makes up about 83 percent of the matter in the universe, but doesn't interact with electromagnetic forces. Although the universe contains five times as much dark matter as normal matter, dark matter is completely...

More Than Two Hours of Daily TV, Video Game Time Can Cause Attention Problems

"Researchers studying middle school students and college graduates have found those playing video games or watching TV for more than two hours per day were roughly twice as likely to have significant attention problems. If only they'd measured internet use, too.

Iowa State researchers studied 1,323 third, fourth, or fifth graders, along with 210 college students. Each group reported their own television and video game use and attention problems, but teachers and parents also provided input on ...

When the scientific evidence is unwelcome, people try to reason it away

Written by Ben Goldacre:

"What do people do when confronted with scientific evidence that challenges their pre-existing view? Often they will try to ignore it, intimidate it, buy it off, sue it for libel or reason it away.

The classic paper on the last of those strategies is from Lord, Ross and Lepper in 1979: they took two groups of people, one in favour of the death penalty, the other against it, and then presented each with a piece of scientific evidence that supported their pre-existing...

Elephant Parade London

Elephant Parade is a conservation campaign that shines a multi-coloured spotlight on the urgent crisis faced by the endangered Asian elephant. Brought to you by www.elephantfamily.org, the event sees over 250 brightly painted life-size elephants located over central London this summer.

The Elephant Parade Mela and Live Auctions have raised over £1.8 million! Miniature elephants and the official art book are available to buy at Selfridges until the end of July or at the elephant parade online s...

Are You Feeling Low? Take Part in Online Study

Researchers at University College London are carrying out an internet-based study into whether online support groups and expressive writing are beneficial for people.

This study is conducted entirely online.

It will involve you either joining an online support group or completing an expressive writing activity (minimum 5 minutes every two weeks) as well as filling in questionnaires about how you are feeling.

Visit their website to find out more:

Make your own Impossible Triangle

"This photo has not been edited one bit. This is a picture of the penrose impossible triangle that is sitting in front of me on my desk. If I look at it from the right angle, it appears exactly as it does in the picture above. Many people think it can't be done. But it is actually possible! And now, you can build your own "impossible triangle" in less than 5 minutes!

How did I do it? First, I studied the triangle, look at all the angles. Next, I whipped out my trusty scissors and started...

Ridley Scott to crowdsource documentary via YouTube

"Ridley Scott, director of films such as Gladiator and Alien, is to crowdsource a feature length documentary by getting members of the public to post snippets of a day in their life on YouTube.

Scott, who is collaborating with the State of Play director Kevin Macdonald and YouTube, intends to create a feature length documentary based on the clips called Life in a Day. The project aims to get individuals to upload to YouTube footage of a moment in their lives on 24 July.

Individuals whose...