A reality television show being produced in
Israel, where Geller grew up, will feature 10 contestants vying for the title of "heir" to the world-famous celebrity psychic.
"The format will be something like 'American Idol'. We will keep the performances that are most riveting and amazing," Geller told Reuters Wednesday, adding that viewers with "intuitive powers" will also be invited to call in and compete.
The last paragraph is kind of odd:
"This is not a show where people have to prove to me that they are for real," Geller said, adding that he has no plans to retire. "I just want to be amazed."
So... it doesn't matter whether they're "real" psychics or not, as long as what they do looks impressive? That seems to scream "scam artist" to me.
I just pray that James Randi will be one of the judges!
Oh, and remember the proposed invisibility cloak from May? Well, there's apparently been some success on that front:
U.S. and British scientists said on Thursday they had found a way to hide an object from microwave radiation in a first step towards making a what they hope will be an invisibility cloak.
Such a device could be used to elude radar, but the researchers, like many scientists, are not working with any particular goal in mind but hope its uses will become apparent later.
"It's not quite Harry Potter," said David Smith of Duke University in North Carolina, referring to the child's fictional character who can conceal himself in a magical cloak.
"It's not exactly perfect -- we can do better -- but it demonstrates the mechanism, the way the waves swirl around the centre region where you want to conceal things," he said.
I just have to add that when I was first reading this, I glanced over the phrase "David Smith of Duke University" and read that as "David Duke." I was rather puzzled as to why they interviewed him for this article.
The first cloak was a two-dimensional version and researchers have already started work on a three-dimensional version. They also want to broaden the range of wavelengths that it can block, although making something invisible to the human eye would present a much greater challenge.
"It is very unlikely that we could do it with this technology in the visible (spectrum)," Smith said. It would have to be scaled down to nanotechnology levels, but the metals involved behave differently on that scale, he said.
But this just confuses me:
In a very speculative application, he added, "one could imagine 'cloaking' acoustic waves, so as to shield a region from vibration or seismic activity."
Um, what? This material seems to bend electromagnetic waves around it--how would that help with vibrations?
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