A recent article in the horticultural journal Growing Today suggests that chickens are performing cold fusion reactions within their bodies. It uses a simplistic — and totally incorrect — form of chemical addition to show how this is so.

The Bent Spoon, as oft we've pointed out, is the only negative press award in New Zealand. Recipients' reactions to it have varied.

William of Malmesbury chronicled the reign of ill-fated William Rufus, the red-headed son of William The Conqueror who was shot, so 'tis said, in mistake for a squirrel. In the early part of the 12th Century, he expressed some scepticism concerning portents following the king's burial within the tower of Winchester Cathedral.

Among the papers at the Skeptics conference were Bill Malcolm's four. entertaining "illustrated truth kits" — short two-projector slide-shows on topics like fad diets, the New Age, fringe therapies, and scientific method. This one is the New Age primer.

A breathless story about a Tibetan who supposedly cures brain tumours prompted the Skeptics to give their annual Bent Spoon award to the New Zealand Listener.

Most people have great difficulty in conceptualising low frequencies and low concentrations. Pesticide concentrations are reported in parts per million (ppm), parts per billion (ppb) and parts per trillion (ppt). One television personality accused an industrial spokesman of releasing effluent with "15 parts per trillion" (his emphasis, implying a very large, rather than a very small concentration).

Hydrogen peroxide — sometime rocket fuel, blonde bleacher and disinfectant — is increasingly being touted as a cure for what ails you.

Myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) has been described as epidemic neuromyasthenia, Iceland disease, Royal Free disease and post-infective fatigue syndrome. I will refer to it as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), a good neutral description free of unproven association with infective illnesses.

Armed with rope and stick, Matt Ridley went out at night on his Northumberland farm and within minutes came up with an answer to a recurring summer puzzle.

A quick perusal of the shelves of your local library can show you where the purchasing priorities lie — and they're not in the science section.

by Charles Berlitz; Grafton Books, 208 pp; $14.95 (paperback)

by D R Selkirk & F J Burrows; NSW University Press, 1987; 158 pp

by Howard Blum; Simon & Schuster 1990

Television New Zealand says it will axe an Earth Care advertisement claiming that burnt possum testes can keep possums at bay, if the biodynamic technique turns out to be no more than quackery.

On the National Programme recently, Vicki Hyde mentioned a claim that a bird had changed one element to another inside one of its vital organs.

NZSCICOP now has a videotape library in the capable hands of Alastair Brickell, RD 2 Kuaotunu, Whitianga. Tapes may be hired for the cost of packaging and posting, around $5 (more will be gratefully received). If anyone has something interesting on video, Alastair would, no doubt, be delighted to receive a copy. There are already three under request: the Oprah Winfrey show on UFOs, a programmne on European tests which showed scientific backing for homeopathy, and one from a few years back involving James Randi and Australian water diviners. In the meantime, here are the current titles.