With $666,000 in Federal Research Money, Scientists Determined Prayer Could Not Heal AIDS
Trine Tsouderos reports in the Chicago Tribune:
Thanks to a $374,000 taxpayer-funded grant, we now know that inhaling lemon and lavender scents doesn’t do a lot for our ability to heal a wound. With $666,000 in federal research money, scientists examined whether distant prayer could heal AIDS. It could not.
The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine also helped pay scientists to study whether squirting brewed coffee into someone’s intestines can help treat pancreatic cancer (a $406,000 grant) and whether massage makes people with advanced cancer feel better ($1.25 million). The coffee enemas did not help. The massage did.
NCCAM also has invested in studies of various forms of energy healing, including one based on the ideas of a self-described “healer, clairvoyant and medicine woman” who says her children inspired her to learn to read auras. The cost for that was $104,000.
Is 11.11.11 On 11.11.11 Doomsday?
Surely a rhetorical question if ever there was one, but the Times of India takes it seriously:
At 11.11.11 on 11.11.11, the time and date will be a perfect same-numbered palindrome, reading the same backwards as forwards, an event which can only happen on one day every 100 years, the Daily Mail reported.
While some consider it as the perfect day for a wedding, some “prophecy” web forums claimed it could also be the end of the world.
The reason the date is so unusual is that 11.11.11 is the only double-figure palindromic date, since there is no 22nd month.
And the last time it happened, on November 11 1911, an almost supernatural event saw temperatures drop by more than 60F in a single day.
This was the Great Blue Norther, a cold snap which hit the U.S. causing blizzards and tornadoes as well as record falls in temperature.
In Kansas City, it was as warm as 76F…
Fear Of “Killer Phone Number” Spreads In Nigeria
No biggie, just let it go to voicemail. Via the BBC:
Nigeria’s authorities have been forced to reassure the public that a mobile phone number cannot kill, after rumors were spread…that several people had died when they answered calls with the ID 09141.
The regulatory body, the Nigerian Communications Commission, said this was “unimaginable” and “unscrupulous persons” were spreading fear.
A BBC reporter was unable to get through to the number.
Text messages gave conflicting accounts of the number of people killed when they answered the call – some put the death toll at seven while others put it at 10.
Rabbinical Court Sentences Dog To Death By Stoning For Reincarnation
Reports Agence France-Presse via the Raw Story:
JERUSALEM — A Jerusalem rabbinical court condemned to death by stoning a dog it suspects is the reincarnation of a secular lawyer who insulted the court’s judges 20 years ago, Ynet website reported Friday.
According to Ynet, the large dog made its way into the Monetary Affairs Court in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood of Mea Shearim in Jerusalem, frightening judges and plaintiffs.
Despite attempts to drive the dog out of the court, the hound refused to leave the premises.
One of the sitting judges then recalled a curse the court had passed down upon a secular lawyer who had insulted the judges two decades previously.
Their preferred divine retribution was for the lawyer’s spirit to move into the body of a dog, an animal considered impure by traditional Judaism.
How Ghosts, Superstitions, and Vampires Have Been Used for Psychological Warfare
Interesting article from Cyriaque Lamar on io9.com on the history of “occult” warfare:
Military psy ops aren’t limited to leaflets, propaganda broadcasts, and Korean pop music. In the past, the US military has played on their opponent superstitions of vampires, ghosts, and astrology. Here are some strange examples.
In World War II, US forces exploited the Nazi’s predilection to put stock in superstitions and the occult. The Rand Corporation’s 1950 memorandum “The Exploitation of Superstitions for Purposes of Psychological Warfare” details how pseudoscience connoisseur Joseph Goebbels counteracted Allied attempts to strike fear into the superstitious strata of the German population.
Another curious incident noted in the Rand document occurs in Italy, where British military created a giant manikin to scare rural residents. A large, shambling creature was assembled to freak out superstitious locals…
Australians Driving Over 110 MPH to Summon Ghost of Dead Motorcyclist (Video)
Neil Keene writes in the Daily Telegraph:
It could be one of the most bizarre reasons ever offered by a speeding driver — “A ghost made me do it.” But that is exactly the story being put forward by superstitious motorists hitting speeds of up to 180km/h on a road north of Newcastle, supposedly to conjure a ghost.
Port Stephens police have issued a warning to drivers after it emerged that young people were driving at dangerously high speeds along a stretch of Lemon Tree Passage Rd to conjure the spirit of a 20-year-old motorcyclist killed in a crash with a speeding driver in the area three years ago.
A handful of videos have been posted on YouTube, allegedly showing a ghostly bright light appearing in the rear windscreen of cars that start driving at dangerous speeds.Some locals are convinced the light is that of the motorcyclist’s ghost, in pursuit of people who drive dangerously.
13-Year-Old Boy Hit By Lightning at 13:13 on Friday the 13th
Via MSNBC:
A 13-year-old boy was struck by lightning — at 13:13 hours on Friday the 13th, according to reports. The teen was watching an air show at Lowestoft, England, when he was struck and was later treated for burns to his shoulder, the UK’s Mirror newspaper said. He is expected to fully recover.
Rex Clarke, leader of the St. John Ambulance team that treated the child, described what happened. ”Suddenly there was this huge crack of lightning really close to the seafront and really loud thunder,” he told the Mirror. “Seconds later we got a call someone had been hit. The boy was breathing and was conscious.”
“He had a minor burn to his shoulder and was taken to hospital as a precaution. It could have been a lot worse,” he said, adding: “It’s all a bit strange that he was 13, and it happened at 13:13 on Friday the 13th.”
Albinos Killed in Burundi for Belief That ‘Good Luck’ is Brought by Body Parts
Photo: Muntuwandi (CC)
Tom Odula writes on the AP:
Attackers in Burundi chopped off the limbs of a 5-year-old albino boy and pulled out his mother’s eye, killing them over the belief that their body parts would bring wealth and success, human rights activists said Friday.
Those deaths and other recent attacks in Tanzania are part of long pattern of violence against African albinos. At least 10,000 have been displaced or gone into hiding since attacks against them spiked in late 2007, the International Federation of the Red Cross says.
Since then, 57 albinos have been killed in Tanzania and 14 in Burundi, said Vicky Ntetema with the rights group Under The Same Sun.
The killings are fueled by superstitious beliefs that human albino body parts will bring others wealth and success, Ntetema said.
“Body parts are sought for their supposed miraculous powers,” she said. “Some use them as human sacrifice as advised by witch doctors.”
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