Up Your Nose with a Rubber Hose: My 30 Minutes at an Oxygen Bar

by Carrie Poppy

Special Articles · Hot Drinks

May 21, 2013

They will deliver us pure oxygen—double the amount we usually get in the air! It helps cure hangovers. It ends fatigue. It helps with muscle pain and weakness. It curbs jet lag. It dissolves headaches. Some places make even loftier claims about oxygen bars, like that they can help halt cancer or aid chi flow.

Flawed Look at Monsters

by Terence Hines

Skeptical Inquirer · Book Review · Volume 37.2

The intent of Medusa’s Gaze and Vampire’s Bite is to provide scientific explanations for various monsters found in historical legend and literature up through the monsters of today as seen, mostly, in film. Had Kaplan succeeded in this task, he would have produced an exciting and interesting book.

Magnet People: How Do They Work?

by Kyle Hill

Special Articles · Reductio ad Absurdum

May 13, 2013

The first in a hopefully fun and informative series of columns, I want to kick-off Reductio ad Absurdum with a look at so-called “magnetic people.” As will be the case for all the columns, never mind that there is no evidence for these gaussy guys and gals, what would the world be like if people really did generate a noticeable or even intense magnetic field?

Bigfoot Club Skeptic

by Kitty Mervine

Special Articles

May 9, 2013

I became the “skeptic” member of the local Bigfoot group almost by chance. I owe the offer to join to the reality TV show “Finding Bigfoot” (they never actually do). The show, featuring perennial Bigfoot personality Matt Moneymaker, has a skeptic, Ranae Holland.

Skeptics Organize in Indonesia

by Jason Garcia

Special Articles

May 6, 2013

Every day in Indonesia you will hear or see psychics, paranormalists, parapsychologists, and pseudoscientists spreading, scaring, and scamming the nation with irrational beliefs and pseudoscience through the media. You will be able to see them planting thoughts into peoples’ heads so that they can offer solutions and take people's money.

Uncovering Secret Messages

by Joe Nickell

Skeptical Briefs · Investigative Files · Volume 22.4

Among my many interests as a boy was cryptography—the study of codes, ciphers, and other secret writings. I sent and received nighttime Morse code messages by flashlight between neighbors’ houses and mine, made and solved cryptograms, used my forensic chemistry lab to make various invisible inks and developers, and even compiled a treatise on the subject.