Special Articles
Web exclusives from CSI contributors
Up Your Nose with a Rubber Hose: My 30 Minutes at an Oxygen Bar
by Carrie Poppy
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.
Magnet People: How Do They Work?
by Kyle Hill
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
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
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.
“Phenomenology” Paranormal Conference Shows Shift from Sciencey to Spiritual
by Sharon Hill
Sounds Sciencey
April 24, 2013
When paranormal investigators give up on sciencey stuff, what's the alternative? The spiritual. I take you on a tour of a recent paranormal convention.
Don’t Burn Your Bra for Science Just Yet
by Rebecca Watson
Skepchick
April 17, 2013
There are many ways a science news story can hit the mainstream media and become a viral hit: does it involve an adorable, terrifying, or adorably terrifying new species of animal? Did a politician say something hilariously ignorant about it? And perhaps more importantly, does it involve breasts?
El feto humano de ‘Sirius’
by Luis Alfonso Gámez
¡Paparruchas!
April 16, 2013
La historia del ahora famoso extraterrestre comenzó hace unos diez años, cuando el huaquero -saqueador de yacimientos- Óscar Muñoz desenterró el cuerpo en un cementerio en el pueblo abandonado de La Noria, en el desierto de Atacama (Chile). El ser estaba envuelto en una tela blanca.
Getting Into Pterosaur Trouble – An Interview With Daniel Loxton
by Kylie Sturgess
Curiouser and Curiouser
April 3, 2013
“The goal for Pterosaur Trouble and the other Tales of Prehistoric Life series books is persuasive photorealism—or heightened realism, anyway. I want it to look like I just popped back in time with my camera and took some nature photographs. That concept constrains every aspect of the creation of the illustrations.”
This Week in Conspiracy: For Fear of a Jesuit Planet
by Robert Blaskiewicz
This Week in Conspiracy
April 1, 2013
In the lore of conspiracism, few religious groups, with the exception of Jews, are more feared or thought to be more powerful than the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). As I write, it was only yesterday that the College of Cardinals elected the first Jesuit pontiff, Jorge Mario Bergoglio (now Pope Francis), which makes you wonder: If they were so powerful, what took them so long to ascend to power?
Leave Us Alone, You’re Spoiling Things
by Sharon Hill
Sounds Sciencey
March 29, 2013
The Skeptic is the unwanted visitor to the paranormal-themed discussion. Questions are unwelcome; they spoil the fun. “Why do you bother nagging on the ghost hunters, the Bigfoot believers, and the UFOlogists,” they ask, “Why not go do something to stop real harm?”
