Two quick takes on a couple of oddities that were brought to my attention: cases of magic space salts and magic metal foils.
Here's a bit of a scam: this company called Space2O lofts salts into space, and then adds them in trace amounts to water and sells it with the label "Contents have been subjected to microgravity during spaceflight" — as if that has the slightest significance. Braving the Elements calls them on this nonsense, and then the fun begins. Check out the comments: a couple of indignant trolls start bragging about their Ph.D.s and getting irate that he would even question the motives of this wonderful company. I particularly like the pompous fellow who announces that they aren't just salts, they're important salts like calcium, magnesium, and potassium, declares that his large cadre of friends have put the blog on the "alert list", and accuses the blogger of being French.
I'm a little jealous. Those are high-quality, special trolls. I wonder if they've been launched into space lately?
Jason Kuznicki asks me to weigh in on the tale of the
gold leaf lady. This is the story of a woman who has mysterious flakes of gold leaf appear on her face during a conversation, reported by a man who assures us that she didn't put them there, nor did her husband, her hands didn't move, the gold leaf just appeared. Yeah, right. Nobody has ever actually seen it appear, and they never catch it on video, either.
Apparently, Bert had never succeeded in capturing the emergence of foil on video. Every time I asked him to show me some evidential footage, he always produced a sample in which the foil had already appeared. Moreover, I don't believe Bert has unbroken footage beginning with the initial search of Katie and continuing through the eventual appearance of the foil when she lifted her shirt. But I also don't believe Bert cares particularly whether he managed to obtain video evidence of the sort I hoped for. He was already certain the foil manifestations were genuine, and he was more interested in documenting Katie the subject, probing the psychogenesis, meaning, and variations of the phenomenon. I actually respect Bert's perspective and share it to a great extent. I also share his impatience with the continued emphasis in parapsychology on proof-oriented research.
We don't need no steenkin' evidence!
Note the comment about lifting her shirt. This was funny: to rule out the possibility that she's stashed some foil on her person, they ask her to "lift her shirt to just below her breasts". Nope, no foil on her tummy! And no woman would actually hide something in her bra or under her pants.
This isn't a mystery. Thin foils are easy to hide, easy to spread on skin — they flow almost like water — and this whole act is nothing but sleight of hand. A little misdirection, an unobtrusive move, presto.
Jason wants scientific input on this matter, but I'd have to say that's not who he needs. Scientists tend to operate on the assumption that the observed phenomenon is not consciously trying to fool them, and this is the kind of routine that can baffle them. He needs a magician.
I had dinner with James Randi last month at Sci Foo, and he pulled a few simple card tricks and sleight of hand maneuvers that had everyone at the table completely baffled, and these were much trickier stunts than putting a dot of foil on a fingertip and deftly rolling it out when no one was looking. They didn't involve the supernatural, only the skill of a good performer. A scientist can tell you that he's awfully suspicious of a phenomenon that only operates when no one and no known video camera is looking, and when the investigators are convinced that evidence is overrated. A good magician will be able to surmise exactly how she's doing it and show you how to effectively and simply stop the 'magical' appearance of gold leaf.
The gold foil lady is total bunkum. The 'investigators' who say otherwise are embarrassingly credulous.
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Fortunately we have the laying of hands and speaking in tongues to verify that Caucasian Jesus (me) is truly doing miracles.
The more interesting problem is why people think the gold foil lady is interesting, rather than how she does it.
I'm jealous.
If I understand correctly, gold can be easily tracked by alloy content and percentage and if that is indeed correct it shouldn't be too difficult to determine whether the gold comes from a known or an unknown source.
And yet, the "theory" of evolution is just a dusty dead myth that is still clung to by its dogmatistic cultist worshipers, apparently.
Firstly, just to make StumpBeefknob more jealous, I had dinner with Randi in June. Ha! ha! ha!
Secondly, there's a soi-disant psychic over here who gets herself on TV investigating so-called "haunted houses" (yeah, right!), and whose face becomes covered in foil like that when she "detects the presence of a spirit" (or ratings are starting to flag). The credulous TV stations eat it up, but I would very much like to examine more thoroughly how she does it. The real problem is that many people assume she's ligit "because she's on TV".
Plus ca change...
More evidence that there's no life after death. These spirits are simply too boring. If I were a spririt able to foil people from beyond the grave I'd foil Dick Cheney's head on live TV. And I wouldn't foil these mediums... Nonono... Foil's too good for them. Maybe bacon.
And I'd make Jebus appear in all KINDS of unexpected places - like the bottom of ALL the urinals at the superbowl. Just to watch the faithful explode.
Reminds me of some lines from the movie Mystery Men, as they interview prospective Super Heroes:
"And who are you?"
"I'm INVISIBLE BOY!"
Great! Does that mean you can turn invisible?"
"YES! But only when nobody is looking."
Or, better yet, a room full of them. I've heard Randi speak several times, and he's pointed out that magicians are always coming up with new tricks to fool each other. There's nothing to prevent a phony "psychic" from coming up with something really creative. But trained magicians generally know what sorts of things to look for, and they all have slightly different specialties. A real good trickster might stump one of them - but let him run his routine two or three times in front of a magician conference and there's an excellent chance that together they'll figure it out.
Of course, a carefully controlled test is best. I doubt you'll need either that or the magician conference, though, since Gold Leaf Lady doesn't sound any more impressive than Invisible Boy.
To Stumpbeefknob AND Kimpatsu: I'll see your dinner with Randi and raise by an unsolicited hug from the Great One himself. AND the evening also included dinner with the Mythbusters (Jamie, Adam and Kari). Ah, wonderful TAM 4 memories.
he pulled a few simple card tricks and sleight of hand maneuvers that had everyone at the table completely baffled,
Sorry, but I just can't resist.... Were you the "numerous baffled scientists" I'm always reading about in the tabloids who are at a loss to explain the latest UFO sighting or whatever?
Okay, I'll go sit down now...
Yeah when the gold leaf was submitted to a lab for analysis it turns out that it was brass. If she actually had that amount of copper and tin under her skin it would have been lethally toxic.
When it was examined by the Johns Hopkins Department of Materials Science and Engineering they said it had the same structure as pressed or rolled leaf, like most commercial samples.
Suck it Gold Foil Lady!
I think, just to be on the safe side, we should file a claim for the mineral rights on Gold Foil Lady's head. If nothing else, we might find some important salts like calcium, magnesium, and potassium that we could send into space and sell in a tasty sports drink.
I wish I could do that. Wearing L'Oreal Crystal Infinite Gold Eyeshadow every day gets expensive. Trust me. I know.
The gold foil lady may not actually be a true scammer. Some people have psychological problems where they become convinced of some they're afflicted with some strange ailment and even spouses have been known to help them maintain the delusion.
I bring this up because a short time ago on Fox News they had a woman who claimed bugs were coming out of her skin and no doctors would help. Fox in their usual brand of critical journalism treated her seriously and even interviewed a different woman who made magic creams to help fight off the bugs and proclaimed that "this is the coming of the new plague."
What that woman with the bugs most likely had was delusional parasitosis (wiki it). The foil lady sounds the same but with foil instead of bugs.
I'm not sure that I see that big of a problem with the space water. They don't actually claim electrolytes are changed, only "spaceflight enriched." How is that any different from a marketing perspective than Perrier water? It does go to a good cause too.
The commenters on "Braving the Elements" are acting like jerks though.
Caucasian Jesus, if you check out what Mark had to say about You, You will find that all who believe in You will be able to cure by the laying on of hands. So it is not just Yourself that can end all the misery suffered by humans from disease or infirmity.
Any truly believing Christian could, if only he or she were willing. Guess they aren't as compassionate as they claim to be, in Your Name.
Heh.
I don't think much of the Illusionist like the gold leaf lady though I'm not sure what she gets out of it where does her money come from? do people pay to see her do that or something? like the spoon bender just a magician with only one trick>
I am always amazed by the other kind of con. The space salts?
What the f does that mean? microgravity?
A while back a friend who works as a health care practioner gave me some brouchers and papers about some other interesting "magic stuff" I never heard of called hexagonal water and asked me what I thought? sounded a little strange I took the info and looked into it. Yes siree it sure was strange stuff made almost the same sense that space salts does, mumbojombo and confusing contradicting words and expensive. the one thing that I did get out of it was that if you drink one teaspoon full in a glass of water in the morning they garuntee it will give you a bowel movement. Yea thats what I need is something to give me the shits in the mourning.
the writing sounds almost as good as the writing in really bad 50's B movie sci-fi
What do the space salts do for you?
I should toss some table salt in the air and then sell it as "microgravity treated". Hell, I'll even use "special" iodized salt. Now with added woo!
here is a link to a google search pick one
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Ae…
Curses! Foiled again!
"I should toss some table salt in the air and then sell it as "microgravity treated""
See, this is the problem with the poor state of science education these days: even the hucksters aren't getting it right--it's not the microgravity, it's the COSMIC RAYS (note the use of capslock to demonstrate verisimilitude). Reed Richards had a nice paper on this a few years back, look it up.
Armed with this knowledge, we can see that the problem with the gold leaf lady is that she wasn't exposed to enough cosmic rays, so she got a really crappy superpower.
Che@15, the lady who made magic creams to help fight off invisible bugs was obviously a Pratchett witch. That's classic headology: don't tell the sufferer from monsters that the monsters are imaginary, just give them a large stick.
"I should toss some table salt in the air and then sell it as "microgravity treated". Hell, I'll even use "special" iodized salt. Now with added woo!"
Good one. But that crack about iodised salt was dumb. In many places, such as Australia, the amount of iodine in the soil is low enough that our vegetables don't have healthy levels of iodine. So, Potassium Iodide was added to the salt. It's no different to the reason for fluoride in tap water.
I guess now someone's going to say how fluoridation is just a scam to scare people away from tap water so they buy the new 1L bottle of Space2O (now with more MOLECULES!)
Gold leaf isn't very expensive or hard to find. It's so thin there's not much actual gold in it. Good Indian groceries stock it, and silver leaf, for decorating sweets.
Yeah it looks to me that the space water thing isn't woo exactly, just someone going 'space is cool! This water was in space! COOL!'. And it is kinda cool.
Space2O isn't as good as Brawndo.
"It's got electrolytes!"
If I understand correctly, gold can be easily tracked by alloy content and percentage
I wouldn't say easily, unless all you are interested in is determining a most likely country of origin of a piece of jewelry. Jewelry is usually traced to its origin by hallmarks, etc.
re comment #11: I thought brass had lead in it? A good dose of that would be seriously toxic as well.
re comment #26: It sounds like its just the salts that are "microgravity enhanced" and then they are added to regular "gravity well water"(tm).
By the way,I agree: Space IS Cool!
Cheers,
Ray
For those interested in hearing James Randi speak and even have dinner with him, the next Amazing Meeting will be held on 26 Jan 08 in Plantation, Florida.
The gold leaf lady is simple trick but the researcher was looking at the wrong place; Jesus has the foil hidden under His robes and when the audience is distracted Jesus puts it on the woman's face.
You see, nothing supernatural about it. If you guys weren't such atheists you would know were to look.
I wonder when we'll see the first 'spiritual light' scam? Implant a small LED under the skin, develop a patter for the marks, and a new scam is born.
And one of these folks will come across fluorescent dyes. Apply to skin, add in a black light (in normal daylight it wouldn't be noticeable) and you get a hint of a glow.
Does anyone else think that "Joe Ridder" and "Hans" are sock puppets operated by the con artist that came up with Space2O®?
#29: Brass is made with copper and zinc. I got it confused with bronze. But the results did say that it was Brass foil, not gold.
Gold-leaf Woman made me cry. Made me break down. Shattered my illusions of human intelligence.
I think that old Chuck Jones cartoon about the man with the singing frog doesn't ring as true with me anymore. If that guy really existed, he'd had a devoted cadre of followers convinced that the frog can sing and dance. 'Cause the guy says so. And otherwise, why would it have a cane and tuxedo?
When its clear how she did it, imagine the headlines ... "Foiled!!"
Re: #34: "#29: Brass is made with copper and zinc. I got it confused with bronze."
Bronze is copper and tin.
"Curses!"
Isn't there some sort of saying about fools and their money?
I dunno whether to advocate better education of the public or set up some sort of woo-business, myself, to help them get rid of that awful money which they obviously must be allergic to.
I don't know, I like the space angle. Can somebody tell show me where those guys made a claim about the space2o being better? All I see is them saying that it's been to space and back.
Jonni
I had some of the energy drink in Albuquerque when they were kicking off their space beer. Whether you like the space gimmick or not - it's really good.
Ray C. and PZ - I think I disagree with you guys. Those trolls are a little rough but I think they may be right. I mean, nobody that was complaining had actually even been to the web site or tried any of the water. Yet they acted like they had all of the answers and so they proclaimed the stuff a rip off. Here is what I got out of the web site: The Microgravity company wants to develop a range of products including pharmaceuticals and materials that are actually manufactured in space. They want to pay for it privately so they have developed a range of products that are made from ingredients that have been flown in space. Note, I did not see any magic claims on the site - correct me if I'm wrong. They are also flying student experiments to space for free every time they fly (that's cool). They say that they want to do it commercially because government budgets are to unreliable. Oh yeah, they also make a beer from yeast they fly in space.
So I guess my question is what's wrong with what they are doing? Everything we buy has some sort of gimmick. You should see the claims on my cosmetics. Seems like a foreign name makes it better even though it's the same stuff I get at Walmart for half the price.
My conclusion is that I like the idea. They aren't doing anything that other business people are doing but my daughter might benefit (she wants to be an astronaut). That's my 2 cents worth.
Michelle
...well, there's nothing whatsoever suspicious about those three posts.
Geez Martin - can't you let the silliness go for a while. I'm seriously asking a question. Maybe there is a lot of suspicious stuff in these posts (including yours) except mine is serious. I don't know anybody else in this list but I'm curious. Here try this; here's my email if that makes you feel better (mkatrina@artlover.com). I just don't get all of the hostility towards microgravity. Talk to me directly if you want but quit the hating! Michelle
Rey Fox:
Heh! But did she also make you sing like a goat?
I believe the gold leaf women - I dated a gal in college that made gold appear on my - oops, never mind.
On the space water stuff ... I don't have a problem with that. There does seem to be a lot of hostility aimed at these microgravity guys - what's up with that.
Hey - I want to fly my condoms in space - I could use the lift ...
I dunno, I'm leaning toward trying this water, but I think I'd need at least three or four more random forum visitors to pop up and say it seems like a good idea. You know, to establish a democratic consensus and all.
If you dropped a can of salt, wouldn't it technically be in "microgravity" until it reached terminal velocity? I'm just sayin'.
Maybe the gravitrons need to be really far away for the quantum field to resonate with the, um, crystalline structure of the, uh, biomorphic...
Ah, screw it. I don't need your d_mn salt. My blood pressure's too high, anyway.
#47 - I was at the Albuquerque kick off too. I didn't try the water but the energy drink and beer were great. Also met the owners there, they seemed very focused and excited about the education thing.
#47 - I was at the Albuquerque kick off too. I didn't try the water but the energy drink and beer were great. Also met the owners there, they seemed very focused and excited about the education thing.
#48 - no, technically it would be exposed to gravity! The whole idea behind microgravity production (ala NASA) is that things form more uniformly when not exposed to gravity. Lots of tech data on this - look it up. However you can simulate microgravity for brief periods of time on Earth by dropping stuff in special evacuated tubes (again, lots of data - look it up). Yes, I know that you get negative g's, etc when you drop stuff but it's not the same - again just do a little research.
By the way, I know that technically the electrolytes in the space water are salts. But when you refer to them like that it is a little misleading. Let's call them what most people know them as; Calcium, Magnesium, and Potassium. You may or may not like what the microgravity guys are doing but let's not try and put a negative spin on it - we're better than that. When I read through these posts, the first thing that occurred to me was why are they selling salt water. Turns out it is just purified water with calcium, magnesium, and potassium added - easier for me to understand.
I'm with Miikke Smith (weird spelling?), why all of the hostility towards the microgravity guys?
#47 - I've never tried the water but I just went to the site and ordered a case. What the hell ...
I'm really impressed with how this thread has drawn out several new commenters I've never heard of before.
I'm also impressed with how they are so open-minded that they're saying they're all going to rush out and buy some of this space2o drink.
I'm sure it's highly coincidental that they're all coming from the same ip address: 198.172.206.87.
You can stop now. What you are doing is called spam.
Also, just on the general principle that I despise dishonest marketing and bogus value-added glitz, I'm never going to buy any of your stupid water, and I'm urging everyone else to boycott it, too.
Well PZ, I don't know about all of that - I think 198 is an anonymizer address so it could be from lots of people. No matter. I was at the Endeavor launch on Aug 8th and the California Space Authority was giving out space water. Sorry to disappoint you but it was good. Check out their press release. By the way you don't sound very happy - life must be hard for you.
More spam. Bugger off, you frauds.
Oh that's hilarious ... you are suspicious. What's the tip off? Too many open minded people are posting!!
I don't know about the IP address but I know that our Free Space blog was told about your blog - you were identified as unfriendly to space research. There are probably others looking at you now. My offer stands and I put my email address in the post. Talk to me directly if you'd like.
How dare anybody disagree with you - this obviously must be a conspiracy; ha ha ha ha - what a facist.
We were recently informed about a related series of postings by James Kendall (see the email below) and were pointed to this blog from there. First we would like to say that we are not affiliated in any way with Joe or Hans and neither is an employee of Microgravity Enterprises, Inc.
We also don't want to further this debate by continuing the discussion - this is not an appropriate forum for that. We simply offer up our web site and contact information for anybody that would like to discuss this. Our goal is to be completely honest and up front about our plans.
Please feel free to contact us about any of these issues and we'll be happy to discuss them with you. Thanks.
Microgravity Enterprises, Inc
http://braving-the-elements.blogspot.com/2007/08/new-scientific-develop…
I thought you'd appreciate knowing about the above post and the
resulting thread in which two (possibly just one) individual is
engaging in very unprofessional behavior presumably in support of you
company.
Either someone is trying to make your comany look bad through
purposefully idiotic trolling, or you need to ensure your employees
are aware of how harmful such actions can be to a company's
reputation.
-James Kendall
I don't think much of the Illusionist like the gold leaf lady though I'm not sure what she gets out of it where does her money come from? do people pay to see her do that or something? like the spoon bender just a magician with only one trick>
I am always amazed by the other kind of con. The space salts?
What the f does that mean? microgravity?
A while back a friend who works as a health care practioner gave me some brouchers and papers about some other interesting "magic stuff" I never heard of called hexagonal water and asked me what I thought? sounded a little strange I took the info and looked into it. Yes siree it sure was strange stuff made almost the same sense that space salts does, mumbojombo and confusing contradicting words and expensive. the one thing that I did get out of it was that if you drink one teaspoon full in a glass of water in the morning they garuntee it will give you a bowel movement. Yea thats what I need is something to give me the shits in the mourning.
the writing sounds almost as good as the writing in really bad 50's B movie sci-fi
What do the space salts do for you?
here is a link to a google search pick one
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Ae…