Skeptics in the Pub: Matt Smith
Posted by Mike in Skeptics in the Pub on March 11th, 2010
Million Dollar Psychic
by Dr Matthew Smith
When: Thu, Apr 15, 2010 8.00 – 11.00 PM
Where: The Vines (aka the Big House), 81 Lime Street, Liverpool
Summary
Can a scientist become a psychic and win a million dollars?
Do we all have hidden psychic powers? Can we learn to be psychic? Psychologist Dr Matthew Smith is determined to find the answers to these questions and see if he can discover and develop his own abilities and claim the $1 million offered by magician James Randi for anyone who can demonstrate psychic ability.
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I Wonder: Connecting With The Dead
I’m sure it’s no surprise to anyone when I say that psychics bug me. It’s the cold reading, the lying or fuzzy-thinking, the misguided and arrogant belief that they are helping people cope with death by making up stories about their dead loved ones – it’s all creepy and wildly disrespectful, I think.
I can, however, entirely see the appeal psychics have. We’ve all lost someone we love – it’s part of life, part of the human experience, and it utterly and completely sucks. The idea that there’s something beyond the world we see, that somehow a form of our consciousness survives it and is able to come back through the void to reassure the ones we love is immensely attractive. It’s also, thus far, demonstrably untrue.
When I was growing up, I’d spend every summer at my grandparents’ static caravan in a little wooded caravan site, every year between the ages of 1 and 14 (or so). When I was maybe round about 4 or so I made friends with a kid there, and every year we’d spend the whole summer at each others’ side – he was the first person I’d go call for when I woke up in the morning, and other than mealtimes I’d be with him until I went to sleep, for 6 weeks every year, for maybe 14 years. We were as close as brothers. His name, too, was Michael, and though I’d only see him a few weeks of the year, for those weeks we were like family.
Still, kids grow up, and the appeal of a tin-pot caravan in the middle of small wood in County Durham soon wears off for a teenager, and I stopped heading to the caravan site every year, and in doing so I lost touch with Michael.
When I was 20, I learned Michael had taken an overdose, and had died. Understandably, I was knocked sidewards when I found out. To this day it still hurts that my best friend isn’t around any more, and that I’ll never see him again. Read the rest of this entry »
What Is It? #7
What Is It? #7 (click to enlarge)
It’s that time of the week again – time for our What Is It? competition. Same rules as always apply, check out the image and tell us what it is.
Last week we showed you this photo, and asked you what it is. The answer? It’s a photo of nanoparticles (in brown) attaching themselves to cancer cells (in violet) from the human abdominal cavity. This is actually pretty cool – scientists at Georgia Tech and the Ovarian Cancer Institute have further developed a potential new treatment against cancer that uses magnetic nanoparticles to attach to cancer cells, removing them from the body. The treatment, tested in mice in 2008, has now been tested using samples from human cancer patients. The results appear online in the journal Nanomedicine. [Image Credit: Ken Scarberry/Georgia Tech]
It was a difficult one, sure enough, and nobody got it entirely correct, but the closest to the correct answer was Stan T, with this guess:
Out of focus bone marrow aspirate, acute leukaemia, non specific esterase stain.
A partial congratulations to Stan T for coming closest – let’s see you all raise your game for this week’s photo!
Dogs, Doom and Dictators
Posted by Colin H in Conspiracy Theories, Merseyside on March 4th, 2010
Last weekend, the Bluecoat gallery in Liverpool hosted a day of events under the title Views From The Grassy Knoll. It was a mixture of talks, screenings and performances covering everything from conspiracy theories and art, to science and politics. It also included an overview of what Skepticism is by Gavin Schofield from the Greater Manchester Skeptics, which I sadly missed but which I heard was a very good talk.
The headline lecture was 2012 by Dr Bill Aitchison, a performance artist and researcher. I was lucky enough to be able to make this one, albeit fifteen minutes late, and found it a very interesting and entertaining, if strange, experience. Read the rest of this entry »
Question of The Week: Which Question Do You Want to Answer?
Posted by Colin H in Fun Stuff, Question of the Week on February 27th, 2010
Last week we celebrated the one year anniversary of the Merseyside Skeptics Society with a special Liverpool Skeptics in The Pub, which included a live recording of our podcast Skeptics With a K. In a change from our usual dictatorial style, we asked the audience for suggestions for a Question of The Week, and ended up with two of them!
Questions that is, not audience members.
In the interests of fun, and because it means we don’t have to make a decision about it, we’ve decided that instead of choosing only one of them as this week’s question, we’ll let you answer both. Think of it as a Question of The Year as well as a Question of The Week, an extra special gift from us to you!
So this week’s Question(s) of The Week, courtesy of Andrew Johnston and Tom Williamson are:
1/ If you could have three dinner guests, one living, one dead and one ‘woo’, who would they be?
2/ What ‘woo’ presents have you received?
Maybe you have a thing for white beards and want to have dinner with James Randi, Darwin and Santa; or maybe you once recieved a ‘genuine’ Mayan crystal skull from a boyfriend or girlfriend. Whatever it is, we want to know. I’ll leave the definition of ‘woo’ here deliberately vague, so no-one feels limited. It’s up to your good selves whether you answer one or both questions.
Please leave your answers in the comments section below.
What Is It? #6
What Is It? #6 (click to enlarge)
It’s time once again to put your peepers to the test, with the latest edition in our ingeniously-titled ‘What Is It?’ competition. By now I’m sure you know the drill, and if you don’t it’s kinda self-explanatory, but here’s what you do:
1. Look at this photo
2. Tell us what it is
Pretty straightforward stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree. And cheers once more to Prof. Dowling for the image.
Last week we got all mushy and asked you what this photo is. As usual we got a good set of responses. Most got pretty close, although unfortunately for Barra, there was no doomed Martian lovers involved:
Is it the famous heart cliffs of mars? Where ancient alien civilisations used to jump like lemmings to the rocks below expressing their love for each other?
And no liquorice allsorts either; apologies to Ross Clark:
Is it a sample from the abortive Bertie Bassett factory at Sellafield?
What it actually is, is a rather cool Scanning Tunnelling Microscopy (STM) image of palladium atoms. Amazingly, the heart is roughly a nanometre across.
No fully correct answers this week, but nearly all of you got most of the way there. Sophie, Jon d, Tom Williamson and Ellie all recognised we were looking at something very small, probably an STM image. Unfortunately, nearly everyone claimed we were looking at carbon nanotubes, and not Palladium, so no 100% pass rates today.
But you know what, as you were all on the right track, and as the image was in honour of Valentine’s Day and we’re all loving souls here at MSS, we’re going to credit you as having got this one right. So… well done, everyone!
