Issues from August 1998

Articles in this issue

"Face" on Mars a Trick of Nature

"Face" on Mars a Trick of Nature

There is no "face" on the Red Planet, according to pictures sent back from the orbiting Mars Global Surveyor. The BBC's science correspondent says the news will dampen down the controversy that has raged since images were transmitted back to Earth in 1976 from the Viking spacecraft.

Skepsis

A ruse by any other name smells just as fishy, and it seems RSI, OOS and OOI are good examples, if a UK surgeon is to be believed. According to Murray Matthewson, the condition, whatever you choose to call it, is not what it's cracked up to be.

The Home Schooler's Guide To The Galaxy

IT'S a damned rotten trick, I know, but I rang up my mum and asked her a simple question, does the Earth go round the Sun, or is it the other way around? She wasn't sure, but felt the most obvious, correct answer was that the Sun orbits the Earth.

Touch Therapy Critic Hits Nerve

EMILY ROSA of Loveland, Colorado, designed and carried out an experiment two years ago that challenges a leading treatment in alternative medicine. Her study, reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, has thrown the field into tumult.

"Real TV"?

The Skeptics make their first-ever complaint to the Broadcasting Standards Authority.

Forum

An article by Gordon Hewitt in NZ Skeptic 47 states, "In June 1995...an article appeared in this publication saying counselling was no use. This judgement was based on a single study conducted in 1939." This is not true, but as the author of the article I am obviously biased. May I urge all skeptics to read it for themselves?