The Japanese robotics industry continues to make startling advances in creating life-like robots and here is just one recent example.
Is it a coincidence that much of this effort appears directed to creating young female humanoids? I was once told by an internet investor that much of the technological advances in the [...]
Entries from June 2009
June 28, 2009
Would You? Could You?
June 25, 2009
Diana’s Big Mistake
Some may regard her biggest mistake was her marriage to Prince Charles. Others think it was failing to wear a seat belt. But for one happy memorabilia collector, it is a big rubber (that’s eraser to you sniggering US visitors) that used to belong Princess Diana. Yesterday, an old rubber was auctioned and sold for [...]
June 23, 2009
Skeptics in the Pub-Not What You Might First Think
As I began telling the crowd last night, “Skeptics in the Pub” does not immediately sound like an enticing group of people. I immediately thought of drunken cantankerous middle-aged men arguing about religion over a warm pint of bitter. Why couldn’t I have been invited to speak by the “White Witches in a Wine Bar?” [...]
June 19, 2009
Another Year Over
Today marks the end of the academic year in Bristol, UK and so I thought I would take stock. This has been an auspicious week. SuperSense got an amazing review in Science, which called it “marvelous” and ” … an important contribution to the psychological literature that is revealing the actuality of our very irrational [...]
June 17, 2009
Chinese Ghost Brides
A couple of weeks ago I was in London to film a brief interview with a production company making a documentary for Channel Four about a man who exhumes bodies for a living. It was a really awkward interview as the first question posed to me was, “So why is the body important?” As I [...]
June 13, 2009
Catalan Charm
Things are crazy at the moment with public lectures, examination marking (Bristol & Oxford), book promotion and all the other s**t that I have managed to clog my life up with but I received an invitation last week to fly out to Barcelona to record an interview with Eduardo Punset that I could not resist. [...]
June 10, 2009
It’s Raining Tadpoles!
Maybe God does have a sense of humor. How else can you explain the recent downpour of tadpoles reported in Japan in two separate incidents? Is this the work of hoaxers? I really don’t have an answer. Explanations range from freak water spouts sucking up gallons of water into the clouds to flocks of birds [...]
June 8, 2009
Would You Accept the Heart of Killer?
Would you willing accept an organ transplant from a murderer? This goes a bit further than wearing the clothing of a killer that I discuss in SuperSense. For many there is a fear of taking on the psychological states and even memories of the donor. As noted in an earlier post, such notions of cellular [...]
June 5, 2009
Bruce Grasps the Big Idea
So I gave a talk at the Cheltenham Science Festival last night and the Times recorded the event for posterity. After the talk I was approached by a persistent young lady who was incredibly persuasive in getting me to hand over my slides so that they could upload the whole lecture to the Times online [...]
June 1, 2009
Susan Boyle Cracks
The modern talent show format is the crack cocaine of instant celebrity status catapulting completely unknown individuals into the full glare of public scrutiny and criticism without the time and experience to deal with rejection that is inevitable in any popularity competition. This is a shocking situation which is unacceptably cruel to the vulnerable.
Susan Boyle [...]
