Skeptical reporter @ 2013-03-01

Skeptical Reporter for March 1st, 2013 Universal Pictures has won a bidding battle for movie rights to Proof Of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey Into The Afterlife, the runaway bestselling non-fiction book about a man who glimpsed the afterlife during a near death health crisis. It was a six figures deal and three studios chased the book. Proof of Heaven has topped The New York Times bestseller list since it was published in late October by Simon & Schuster. It is a first person account by Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon who taught at HarvardMedicalSchool and other universities, embracing science over faith. Despite being a Christian, he did not embrace religious theories of the afterlife. That was until he contracted a rare bacterial meningitis that penetrated his cerebro-spinal fluid and attacked his brain. He lay near death, comatose for seven days in 2008. He awoke with a clear recollection of what he described as a journey to heaven. Several studios went after a book for its huge appeal to a faith-based readership. Scientists are skeptical about a device that claims it can 'remotely detects hepatitis C', called C-Fast. The developers say C-Fast – developed from bomb detection technology – will revolutionize diagnosis of other diseases, being able to “scan” the body for hepatitis. The prototype operates like a mechanical divining rod – though there are digital versions. It appears to swing towards people who suffer from hepatitis C, remaining motionless in the presence of those who don't. One of the developers claimed the movement of the rod was sparked by the presence of a specific electromagnetic frequency that emanates from a certain strain of hepatitis C.  The device's scientific basis has been strongly contested by physicists. A Nobel prize-winner has said that it "simply does not have sufficient scientific foundation". In the United States, two bills in Arizona and Oklahoma that might have hindered the teaching of science have not passed the respective Senates. Arizona's Senate Bill 1213 died on February 22, when the deadline for Senate bills to be heard in their Senate committees passed. A typical instance of the "academic freedom" strategy for undermining the integrity of science education, the bill targeted "biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming and human cloning" as supposedly controversial.  Senate Bill 758, the so-called Oklahoma Science Education Act, which would have undermined the integrity of science education has also failed to pass. February 25, 2013, was the deadline for Senate bills to pass their committees, but the Senate Education Committee adjourned its February 25, 2013, meeting without considering it. If enacted, SB 758 would have required state and local educational authorities to "assist teachers to find more effective ways to present the science curriculum where it addresses scientific controversies" and permitted teachers to "help students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories pertinent to the course being taught." In South Africa, a woman claiming to be a psychic, who has requested to address the Pretoria Magistrate's Court on the "mental state" of athlete Oscar Pistorius who is accused of murder, has approached the Constitutional Court. The woman, who identified herself as Annamarie said she was contacted in a dream by Pistorius's late mother Sheila, who told her to make sure Pistorius was sent for psychiatric evaluation. After being rebuffed by the magistrate, she approached the High Court with her request to halt the bail application, but this court also rejected her application. Pistorius is charged with murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. The athlete has had bail set at 1 million Rand or more than 100.000 dollars. Annamarie claims to be the ex-wife of Dr Gerald Versfeld, who amputated Pistorius's legs when he was a c...