Over the past decade, furtive commercial entities around the world have industrialized the production, sale and dissemination of bogus scholarly research. These paper mills are profiting by undermining the literature that everyone from doctors to engineers rely on to make decisions about human lives.

It is exceedingly difficult to get a handle on exactly how big the problem is. About 55,000 scholarly papers have been retracted to date, for a variety of reasons, but scientists and companies who screen the scientific literature for telltale signs of fraud estimate that there are many more fake papers circulating — possibly as many as several hundred thousand. This fake research can confound legitimate researchers who must wade through dense equations, evidence, images and methodologies, only to find that they were made up.

Even when bogus papers are spotted — usually by amateur sleuths on their own time — academic journals are often slow to retract the papers, allowing the articles to taint what many consider sacrosanct: the vast global library of scholarly work that introduces new ideas, reviews and other research and discusses findings.

These fake papers are slowing research that has helped millions of people with lifesaving medicine and therapies, from cancer to COVID-19. Analysts' data shows that fields related to cancer and medicine are particularly hard-hit, while areas such as philosophy and art are less affected.

To better understand the scope, ramifications and potential solutions of this metastasizing assault on science, we — a contributing editor at Retraction Watch, a website that reports on retractions of scientific papers and related topics, and two computer scientists at France's Université Toulouse III—Paul Sabatier and Université Grenoble Alpes who specialize in detecting bogus publications — spent six months investigating paper mills.

Co-author Guillaume Cabanac also developed the Problematic Paper Screener, which filters 130 million new and old scholarly papers every week looking for nine types of clues that a paper might be fake or contain errors.

An obscure molecule

Frank Cackowski at Detroit's Wayne State University was confused.

The oncologist was studying a sequence of chemical reactions in cells to see whether they could be a target for drugs against prostate cancer. A paper from 2018 in the American Journal of Cancer Research piqued his interest when he read that a little-known molecule called SNHG1 might interact with the chemical reactions he was exploring. He and fellow Wayne State researcher Steven Zielske began experiments but found no link.

Meanwhile, Zielske had grown suspicious of the paper. Two graphs showing results for different cell lines were identical, he noticed, which "would be like pouring water into two glasses with your eyes closed and the levels coming out exactly the same." Another graph and a table in the article also inexplicably contained identical data.

Zielske described his misgivings in an anonymous post in 2020 at PubPeer, an online forum where many scientists report potential research misconduct, and also contacted the journal's editor. The journal pulled the paper, citing "falsified materials and/or data."

"Science is hard enough as it is if people are actually being genuine and trying to do real work," said Cackowski, who also works at the Karmanos Cancer Institute in Michigan.

Legitimate academic journals evaluate papers before publication by having other researchers in the field carefully read them over. But this peer review process is far from perfect. Reviewers volunteer their time, typically assume research is real and so don't look for fraud.

Some publishers may try to pick reviewers they deem more likely to accept papers, because rejecting a manuscript can mean losing out on thousands of dollars in publication fees.

Worse, some corrupt scientists form peer review rings. Paper mills may create fake peer reviewers. Others may bribe editors or plant agents on journal editorial boards.

An 'absolutely huge' problem

It's unclear when paper mills began to operate at scale. The earliest suspected paper mill article retracted was published in 2004, according to the Retraction Watch database, which details retractions and is operated by The Center for Scientific Integrity, the parent nonprofit of Retraction Watch.

An analysis of 53,000 papers submitted to six publishers — but not necessarily published — found 2% to 46% suspect submissions across journals. The American publisher Wiley, which has retracted more than 11,300 articles and closed 19 heavily affected journals in its erstwhile Hindawi division, said its new paper mill detection tool flags up to 1 in 7 submissions.

As many as 2% of the several million scientific works published in 2022 were milled, according to Adam Day, who directs Clear Skies, a company in London that develops tools to spot fake papers. Some fields are worse than others: biology and medicine are closer to 3%, and some subfields, such as cancer, may be much larger, Day said.

The paper mill problem is "absolutely huge," said Sabina Alam, director of Publishing Ethics and Integrity at Taylor & Francis, a major academic publisher. In 2019, none of the 175 ethics cases escalated to her team was about paper mills, Alam said. Ethics cases include submissions and already published papers. "We had almost 4,000 cases" in 2023, she said. "And half of those were paper mills."

Jennifer Byrne, an Australian scientist who now heads up a research group to improve the reliability of medical research, testified at a July 2022 U.S. House of Representatives hearing that nearly 6% of 12,000 cancer research papers screened had errors that could signal paper mill involvement. Byrne shuttered her cancer research lab in 2017 because genes she had spent two decades researching and writing about became the target of fake papers.

In 2022, Byrne and colleagues, including two of us, found that suspect genetics research, despite not immediately affecting patient care, informs scientists' work, including clinical trials. But publishers are often slow to retract tainted papers, even when alerted to obvious fraud. We found that 97% of the 712 problematic genetics research articles we identified remained uncorrected.

Potential solutions

The Cochrane Collaboration has a policy excluding suspect studies from its analyses of medical evidence and is developing a tool to spot problematic medical trials. And publishers have begun to share data and technologies among themselves to combat fraud, including image fraud.

Technology startups are also offering help. The website Argos, launched in September 2024 by Scitility, an alert service based in Sparks, Nevada, allows authors to check collaborators for retractions or misconduct. Morressier, a scientific conference and communications company in Berlin, offers research integrity tools. Paper-checking tools include Signals, by London-based Research Signals, and Clear Skies' Papermill Alarm.

But Alam acknowledges that the fight against paper mills won't be won as long as the booming demand for papers remains.

Today's commercial publishing is part of the problem, Byrne said. Cleaning up the literature is a vast and expensive undertaking. "Either we have to monetize corrections such that publishers are paid for their work, or forget the publishers and do it ourselves," she said.

There's a fundamental bias in for-profit publishing: "We pay them for accepting papers," said Bodo Stern, a former editor of the journal Cell and chief of Strategic Initiatives at Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a nonprofit research organization and funder in Chevy Chase, Maryland. With more than 50,000 journals on the market, bad papers shopped around long enough eventually find a home, Stern said.

To prevent this, we could stop paying journals for accepting papers and look at them as public utilities that serve a greater good. "We should pay for transparent and rigorous quality-control mechanisms," he said.

Peer review, meanwhile, "should be recognized as a true scholarly product, just like the original article," Stern said. And journals should make all peer-review reports publicly available, even for manuscripts they turn down.

This article is a condensed version of the full six month-long investigation. To learn more about how fraudsters around the globe use paper mills to enrich themselves and harm scientific research, read the full version.

This edited article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

"If it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong. That's all there is to it." So said famed physicist Richard Feynman at a lecture about the scientific method at Cornell University in 1964.

Feynman appears to be only half correct, though. Yes, one's proposed theory is wrong if it doesn't agree with experiment. But that's not all there is to it. With carelessness or outright fraud, you can make it seem that your theory is correct — and get it published in a top scientific journal. 

Usually, such deception is eventually discovered. This past year was rich in scientific retractions of papers filled with poor processes and, in many cases, blatant fabrications. Here are five from 2019 that made the news in part because they mislead and provide false hope.

5. Creationist's paper retracted '20 million years' later

God created the Earth 6,000 years ago, according to many Christian creationists. And on the sixth day of creation, God made three species of timber vole with ribonucleotides that would come to demonstrate the shortcomings of the theory of evolution, according to a 1989 paper in the International Journal of Neuroscience.

Russian scientist Dmitrii Kuznetsov, the author of this paper, claimed that each of these three very closely related voles have ribonucleotides — enzymes that are the building blocks of DNA and thus DNA repair — that are utterly incompatible across the three species. This finding supports "the general creationist concept on the problems of the origin of boundless multitudes of different and harmonically functioning forms of life," Kuznetsov wrote in the paper.

But did Kuznetsov break the commandment about bearing false witness? Swedish biologist Dan Larhammar, who in 2018 became president of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, questioned Kuznetsov's findings in a letter to the journal published way back in 1994. As reported in The Scientist in November 2019, Larhammar claimed that the results were superficially demonstrated and that many of the references couldn't be verified, even after he contacted scientists cited in the paper.

The International Journal of Neuroscience agreed with Larhammar and retracted the paper, albeit 30 years later. Kuznetsov has been accused multiple times of scientific misconduct, including for his analysis of the Shroud of Turin, which scholars claim originated in the Middle Ages but which Kuznetsov suggested could be the 2,000-year-old death shroud of Jesus.

Why the 30-year delay for a retraction? Thirty years in a 6,000-year-old Earth would be equivalent to 20 million years in a 4-billion-year-old Earth. Maybe the journal was hesitant to retype the original title, "In Vitro Studies of Interactions Between Frequent and Unique Mrnas and Cytoplasmic Factors from Brain Tissue of Several Species of Wild Timber Voles of Northern Eurasia, Clethrionomys Glareolus, Clethrionomys Frater and Clethrionomys Gapperi: A New Criticism to a Modern Molecular-Genetic Concept of Biological Evolution."

4. HPV vaccine vindicated once again

The vaccine against the human papillomavirus (HPV) has the potential to eliminate most cases of cervical cancer worldwide and save millions of lives. The HPV vaccine can also prevent the majority of vaginal, anal and penile cancers. But that's only if parents vaccinate their children against HPV. 

A growing number are opting out over fears that the HPV vaccine is harmful. In Japan, for example, HPV vaccination rates fell from about 70 percent to 1 percent, its current level, in just a few years after unfounded reports of vaccine side effects, according to research published this year in the journal Expert Review of Vaccines.

As such, vaccine proponents are skeptical of any new study purporting problems with the HPV vaccine. Gayle DeLong, an associate professor of economics and finance at Baruch College in New York, learned that quickly. In 2018, she published a paper in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part A, in which she reported a link between the HPV vaccine and infertility. Married women between ages 25 and 29 who had received the HPV vaccine were less likely to have conceived compared with married women who didn't receive the vaccine, DeLong found.

The finding was promoted within anti-vaccination circles, but the study had multiple statistical shortcomings, such as not controlling for birth-control use. Moreover, those women who received the vaccine had a higher educational level. So, it could be that college-educated women who had received the vaccine were delaying childbirth until after age 30, as is the U.S. trend.

The journal retracted the paper in December 2019, noting "serious flaws in the statistical analysis and interpretation of the data in this paper." The World Health Organization has placed the HPV vaccine on its list of essential medicines, right up there with penicillin and acetaminophen, as a sign of its safety and efficacy.

3. What happens when the fraud czar is accused of fraud?

On Nov. 13, 2019, Cao Xuetao, one of China's most prominent scientists, spoke to his fellow countrymen from the Great Hall of People in Beijing about research integrity. Some 6,000 people were in attendance, and the speech was live-streamed to 800,000 college students across the vast nation, mandatory viewing for most.

The topic was a contentious one. Just a year prior, the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and several other agencies had promulgated a series of punitive measures to be used in cases of scientific misconduct, a sign that the Chinese government was considering the matter seriously. This had come in the wake of numerous scientific scandals in China, such as the retraction of more than 100 papers in 2017 over faked peer review and data manipulation. 

Cao is a former president of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, current president of the prestigious Nankai University, leader of several labs and chief research integrity officer for all Chinese research. His accolades are many. But now, Cao's actions are drawing close scrutiny, as he has been accused of scientific misconduct. 

As reported on Nov. 22 in the journal Science, a multitude of Cao's papers appear to have doctored images. Science sleuth Elisabeth Bik, based in San Francisco, noticed that several images from a 2009 paper, in particular, looked like repeats. Bik has outed many scientists for data manipulation. Cao's body of work was soon scrutinized; they found examples of charts and images appearing to be repeated and manipulated in dozens of papers, which soon may be retracted.

Cao pledged to look into the matter. As noted, he's the leader of several labs and has a full-time gig as a university president, and he likely relies on postdoctoral fellows and graduate students to conduct actual research. And they likely want to please the boss with superficially good results. The same would apply to other elite scientists in China, which means the problem of scientific misconduct might be difficult to root out.

2. CAR T study carted off to the retraction heap

The cancer research community was ecstatic over a study published in the journal Nature in September 2018 that described a homing system to deliver the powerful anti-cancer chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy to brain cancer cells, which have long been out of reach to drug therapies.

But the researchers who conducted the study, from Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, may not have crossed the blood–brain barrier, after all, but rather the fact–fiction barrier.

Within a few weeks of publication, other scientists began homing in on what may be widespread image manipulation. Nearly every image appeared to be fudged and not supportive of the underlying data, according to comments posted on an anonymous post-publication peer-review website called PubPeer.

The journal Nature investigated and retracted the paper in February 2019. The validity of this homing system remains in doubt. Some commenters on PubPeer noted that Nature should have spotted the image manipulation during the peer-review process. Software exists to detect it. It's either that or expect scientists to be honest.

1. 'CRISPR Baby' scientist retracted from public view

He Jiankui has not been seen publicly since January 2019, just a few months after he infamously announced the birth of twin girls whose DNA was edited using CRISPR. His plan was to make the girls immune to HIV infection by modifying a gene known to offer some protection against the virus.

Seemingly proud of his achievement, He encountered swift worldwide condemnation — not merely over the secrecy of the experiment but also for the possible harm that could have been done to the babies, whose genes were manipulated while in an embryonic state. CRISPR is an imperfect technique that can alter DNA in unknown and sometimes harmful ways, as animal studies have demonstrated.

The Chinese government, which may have supported He's efforts, has since suspended all of his research activities and, according to the New York Times, has kept him under guard.

Not much is known about He's procedure. Here's what is known: Scientists have stated that the basic premise of the work — altering a gene called CCR5 to prevent HIV infection — is shortsighted because this altered gene, found in nature, does not offer uniform HIV protection to those people who carry it. Moreover, the twins were given imperfect versions of this altered gene, and the health consequences are unknown, according to investigative work done by MIT Technology Review.

So, this was an experimental study otherwise suitable only for lab animals, medically unnecessary and poorly executed at that. There was a third gene-edited baby, too, perhaps born in the summer of 2019. Nothing is known of the baby's fate.

At issue is germline gene-editing on embryos. Gene alteration at this early stage ensures that all genetic modifications are copied into every cell in the body, including egg and sperm cells, making the changes inheritable. Otherwise, CRISPR and similar technologies continue to show great promise in curing genetic diseases in children and adults through more isolated and limited gene modification. 

• The 10 Strangest Animal Stories of 2019
• 16 Times Antarctica Revealed Its Awesomeness in 2019
• 10 Times Nature Was Totally Metal in 2019
• The 10 Biggest Archaeology Discoveries of 2019
• 9 Epic Space Discoveries You Probably Missed in 2019

Originally published on Live Science.

A public ceremony of Satanists planned in Oklahoma City this month has prompted protests, a lawsuit from the Catholic Church, talk of a "black mass," and even the airing of laws against bloodletting.  Such public images of fear are not uncommon when it comes to Satanist groups, though they may not be justified.

The ceremony for the Oklahoma City Satanists is slated for Sept. 21 in the city's civic center and requires a ticket for admission. Officials from the city could not legally bar the group, as doing so would violate their First Amendment rights.

Officials did warn, however, that all laws must be followed, including fire codes and those involving public nudity; a spokeswoman for the parks and recreation department noted: "No bloodletting of any kind will be allowed." (Though bloodletting and animal sacrifice are popularly associated with Satanism, they have historically been part of many religions, including Christianity, Judaism and Islam.) [Tales of the Top 10 Craziest Cults]

The event has been described in the news media as a "black mass," which, as James Lewis notes in his book "Satanism Today: An Encyclopedia of Religion, Folklore, and Popular Culture" (ABC-CLIO, 2001), "refers to a blasphemous parody of a conventional [Catholic] Mass that was traditionally thought to be the central rite of Satanism." This ritual was typically said to involve perverse orgies, a torrent of various bodily fluids, obscene gestures and even "a black candle made from the fat of unbaptized babies," Lewis wrote.

Rumors of satanic black masses have horrified — and spread fear among — the pious for centuries. According to Lewis, however, "it is unlikely that such rituals were anything more than the literary inventions of church authorities" designed to demonize heretics and non-Christians.

The satanic group, Dakhma of Angra Mainyu, is using the event to make a point about freedom of religion and to educate people about their beliefs, according to news reports. "One of the dictates of the church is not only to educate the members but to educate the public and to debunk the Hollywood-projected image of our beliefs," one of the group's co-founders, Adam Daniels, told ABC News.

Pop culture Satanism

Satanism is widely feared and misunderstood, often confused with witchcraft or even voodoo. Some Wiccan witches, for example, worship a horned god that superficially looks like a goat-headed devil. However, the pre-Christian pagan witches did not believe in anything resembling a Christian Satan. The popular image of Satanists as sinister and bloodthirsty is largely a sensationalized fictional Hollywood creation. [Witches & Wiccans: 6 Common Misconceptions]

Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey, for example, laid out nine "Satanic sins," which include stupidity, pretentiousness, self-deceit, herd conformity, lack of perspective and counterproductive pride. Most of these are pretty noncontroversial: who doesn't agree that the world would be a better place with less stupidity, self-deceit and herd conformity? These sins tend to be seen as holding humankind back from achieving its fullest potential, and have little to do with worshipping evil forces.

According to Lewis, LaVey's influential philosophy embraced and championed "Satan as the symbol of personal freedom and individualism," drawing upon his depiction as a rebellious fallen angel in Christian theology. Satan, in this context, is seen not as a symbol of evil but as a freethinking hero who rejected a capricious, domineering ruler in favor of free will.

Folklorist Bill Eills, in his book "Raising the Devil: Satanism, New Religions, and the Media" (University Press of Kentucky, 2000), notes, "In both the U.S. and Great Britain, Satanism emerged as a pressing moral concern through a series of media-influenced rumor panics. These phenomena are brief but intense events in which rumors about a menacing person or group circulate in a community. ... Usually the phenomenon climaxes with a series of vigils or hunts, and often tails off into punitive action against some scapegoat associated with the menace."

Though the "satanic panic" peaked in the 1980s with wild and false accusations of satanic ritual abuse (in which dozens of children, led and prompted by careless psychologists and police officers, claimed to have been ritually abused by Satanists), concerns about Satanism remain with us, ranging from panic over "occult" influences of Harry Potter books to false fears connecting Halloween to satanic activity.

Religious leaders in Oklahoma are upset that the Satanists are mocking Christianity and indeed they're right; much of the modern occult movement can be seen as a reaction to, and rejection of, mainstream religions and especially Catholicism. But it's also a political statement: Where one religion has been allowed a place in public spaces such as civic centers, parks and courthouses, other, lesser-known religious organizations such as satanic churches have requested and received similar privileges.

Another group, the Satanic Temple, has fought with Oklahoma City officials for the right to place a 7-foot-tall statue of Satan near an existing Ten Commandments monument in the Oklahoma State Capital. The statue is currently being built, and lawsuits are certain if the Satanists are prevented from displaying the symbol of their worship.

It's not clear what exactly the "black mass" will involve, though the ceremony will include a woman in lingerie, blasphemous costumes, profanity, an unconsecrated host, and end with a mock exorcism, suggests the ABC News report. The proceedings will likely be heavy on theater and spectacle; the shock value of Satanists holding a ritual in Oklahoma City is worth the price of admission for many.

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of "Skeptical Inquirer" science magazine and author of seven books including "The Martians Have Landed! A History of Media Panics and Hoaxes." His website is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

While witch hunts may seem to be dusty relics of a bygone age, the persecution, torture and execution of suspected witches continue in many places to the present day.

The problem is especially palpable in India. Two weeks ago in a small Indian village not far from Nepal, Saraswati Devi, 45, was accused of being a witch after a local mystic identified her as having practiced black magic, reported The Washington Post. Over a dozen villagers beat Devi to death as punishment, while her two children tried to intervene. Though Devi's husband identified her attackers and notified police, no arrests were made, news reports reveal.

Saraswati's is just one of many gruesome witch tales out of India. Some 2,097 individuals have been murdered due to accusations of witchcraft between 2000 and 2012, according to data from the National Crime Records Bureau in India, as reported by the Indian newspaper Mint. "Once practiced only by tribal communities, witch hunting is now becoming common among Dalits and other minority communities. The idea of a witch is common across all the affected [Indian] states," the Mint report said. (The Dalits are an oppressed group in India who are considered "untouchables" or "outcasts.")

As the report describes, the witch hunters believe that witches have evil eyes or mouths, and that they kill cattle and eat humans. Accusers also think that witches destroy crops and can get people sick, the report shows. [What's Witchcraft? 6 Misconceptions About Wiccans]

And witch hunts don't always result simply from superstition, the report said. Witch hunting can also be motivated by "family disputes over property, land rights of women, and village-level and gender conflicts."

In many parts of the world, including India and Africa, people consult witch doctors not only to heal diseases, but also to place curses on social and political rivals. Individuals commonly look to magic for personal, political and financial gain; they turn to accusations of black magic use for similar purposes.

Belief in witchcraft has led to horrific murders and mutilations in recent years outside of India, as well. In 2008, a mob of hundreds of young men killed eight women and three men in rural Kenya. Attackers had accused the victims of witchcraft, saying they cast spells that lowered the intelligence of the village's children.

People who believe in black magic may also attack albinos; the body parts of those afflicted with the skin pigmentation disorder are sought after for use in magic spells and rituals. And in 2012, after being found in possession of "books and talismans from which he learned to harm God's worshipers," a Saudi Arabian man was beheaded for practicing sorcery, according to a statement from the Saudi Interior Ministry.

Gender and class

Accusations of witchcraft are a complex sociocultural phenomenon and involve many factors. Belief in magic is certainly an essential element, but the persecution of witches often involves issues of gender, race and class. Most of the Indian women targeted as witches were poor and of low caste.

The targeting of women (and of lower-class women in particular) was prevalent in early European witch hunts, too. "We can be fairly certain that the great majority of those persecuted came from the lower levels of society," wrote Brian Levack, professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin, in his book "The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe" (2006, Pearson). "The mere fact that so many witches were unattached women of no apparent social distinction points to this conclusion." [The 10 Most Destructive Human Behaviors]

The same was true in many other places, as well. "In New England, the great majority of women accused of witchcraft before the Salem episode of 1692 were dependent members of the community who qualified for poor relief," Levack wrote. "In Norway, where large numbers of accused witches were described in trial records as extremely poor, most of those who were actually convicted were beggars. There are a number of reasons why the people who filled the lower ranks of society incurred accusations of witchcraft. Poor people, especially poor women, were the weakest and most vulnerable members of society."

This remains true today in India, many parts of Africa and elsewhere. Those who are seen as occupying positive roles in rural, non-Western communities (such as witch doctors and traditional healers) often take part in identifying and persecuting innocent women as witches. Once mystical methods are used to "verify" who is a witch, the justice can be gruesome, including banishment, rape, disfigurement, torture and death.

Indian lawmakers have begun to address the problem, but the roots of this superstition are centuries old and may never fully be eliminated.

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of the Skeptical Inquirer science magazine and author of seven books, including "The Martians Have Landed! A History of Media Panics and Hoaxes." His website is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science

It sounds like a fantastic, lethal creature that might be found in a 1950s pulp science-fiction novel (or sci-fi television movie), but some people believe that a large, deadly worm-like creature called the Mongolian Death Worm exists in the Gobi desert. 

According to British biologist Karl Shuker in his book "The Unexplained: An Illustrated Guide to the World's Paranormal Mysteries" (2002, Metro Books) "One of the world's most sensational creatures may be concealed amid the sands of the southern Gobi desert. ... It is said to resemble a large fat worm, up to 1 meter (3 feet) long and dark red in color, with spike-like projections at both ends. It spends much of its time hidden beneath the desert sands, but whenever one is spotted lying on the surface it is scrupulously avoided by the locals." 

According to legend, the dreaded Mongolian Death Worm — which local people call olgoi-khorkhoi or loosely translated, "large intestine worm" — has lived up to its name. It can kill in several fearsome ways, including spitting a stream of corrosive venom that is lethal to anything it hits, and if that doesn't do the trick it is said to be able to electrocute its victims from a distance. Rarely seen and never photographed, it was mentioned in a 1926 book by paleontologist Roy Chapman Andrews, who didn't believe in the animal's existence but noted that stories of it circulated in Mongolia. 

Seeking the death worm

Despite — or perhaps because of — the creature's fearsome name (they don't call it the Mongolian Happiness Worm, after all) many intrepid explorers have set out into the Gobi desert seeking the beast. Numerous organized expeditions and searches have been made over the years, by both independent researchers and in conjunction with television shows. Despite extensive searches, eyewitness interviews, and even setting traps for the beast, all have come back empty-handed. 

Many of those who believe in the creature acknowledge that there is no hard evidence of its existence, but instead believe that legends and stories of them must have some basis in historical truth. The descriptions (mostly second- and third-hand stories) from different places and times are too similar, they believe, to be anything but independent eyewitness reports. 

From a folkloric perspective, however, this is simply a sign that legends and stories of the Death Worm have spread throughout the region, as commonly happens through trade and travel. Many people around the world can offer very similar descriptions of dragons, leprechauns, mermaids, and other fantastic (presumably non-existent) creatures — not from personal experience but from hearing about them from others.

So is there a real animal behind the stories and legends? It seems doubtful. Compared to the North American Bigfoot or the Himalayan Yeti — for which there are dozens or hundreds of alleged footprints, photographs, for example — there is virtually no evidence of its existence. 

Consider also that no live or dead ones have been found. Every other creature known to exist has left behind a dead body or skeleton. In fact, the Gobi would likely preserve carcasses of the animal, due to the relative lack of predators and hot desert winds that slow decomposition. Inhabitants of the Gobi are aware of the global interest in their mystery monster, as well as offers of rich rewards for one of the creatures, live or dead, and if one was found it would surely come to light.

Legends and evidence

A zoological perspective may help us sort fact from fiction in the legend of the Mongolian Death Worm. First of all, we should not be misled by the "worm" in its name; that's an English translation. The creature — if it exists in the inhospitable Gobi desert — could not be a soft, fleshy worm; instead, it is likely a type of snake or legless lizard. This also means it would be a vertebrate animal with a spine that would presumably be found by searchers. 

A variety of explanations have been offered for the animal, including perhaps a misidentified or new species of snake. The consensus among researchers such as Shuker and author Richard Freeman is that the Mongolian Death Worm likely does not exist, and the belief is instead based upon sightings of either a type of limbless reptile known as worm lizard (which resembles a large worm, burrows underground and can reach several feet in length), or a type of sand boa snake.

Of course, not all the characteristics of the worm lizard or sand boa are a perfect match for the Death Worm: for example terrestrial snakes can't deliver lethal electric shocks (the way that electric eels — which are actually fish, not eels — for example, can). For that matter, several venomous snakes (primarily cobras and vipers) can spit poison, which, although not acidic, can certainly cause harm and blindness. Yet these reputed characteristics are based not on hard data but myths and stories (some accounts of the Death Worm even claim that its venomous spittle can corrode metal instantly, which is physically impossible). With allowances made for the exaggeration found in rumor, legend, and folklore, the worm lizard or a sand snake seem likely candidates.

It is of course possible that the Mongolian Death Worms exist (of course there would have to be more than one of them to sustain what biologists call a breeding population, likely tens or hundreds of thousands of them). Perhaps next week, next month, or next year such a bizarre creature will be found and examined by scientists. Until then it seems likely that Roy Chapman Andrews's assessment nearly a century ago was correct: the creature is merely legend.

Benjamin Radford, M.Ed., is deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer science magazine and author of seven books including Tracking the Chupacabra: The Vampire Beast in Fact, Fiction, and Folklore and Lake Monster Mysteries: Investigating the World's Most Elusive Creatures. His website is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

The mother of a man who drowned while using a shamanic hallucinogenic drug has filed a lawsuit against the New Age spiritual retreat where the incident occurred.

Garth Dickson, according to his mother, was under the influence of an herbal mixture known as ayahuasca (pronounced eye-uh-WAH-skuh) when he walked into Shasta Lake and drowned in 2012 while at a retreat called the White Flame Institute, according to a lawsuit filed last week in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The White Flame Institute for Consciousness and Liberation offers "transformational life classes" and a "shamanic certification program" along with classes on healing and personal growth, according to the institute's website. Mrs. Dickson accuses the institute and its leader, Bonnie Serratore, of negligence and encouraging the use of ayahuasca as part of the treatments. [5 Controversial Mental Health Treatments]

This is, of course, not the first time that people have died in New Age services: In February 2010, guru and motivational speaker James Arthur Ray was charged with three counts of manslaughter for his role in staging a sweat lodge ceremony in Sedona, Arizona, according to CNN. After an hour inside the small, steam-filled tent, some participants collapsed and others began vomiting. People tried to leave because they were getting sick, but Ray allegedly encouraged them to stay and endure the discomfort, which he said was a form of cleansing that would make them stronger. Three people died in the sweat lodge, 18 were hospitalized, and more were sickened; Ray was eventually convicted of negligent homicide and sentenced to two years in prison.

Ayahuasca tourism

Garth Dickson's death is also not the first to be blamed on what has become known as "ayahuasca tourism." In April, a British backpacker traveling in Colombia, Henry Miller, died after taking part in a "shaman experience" advertised to tourists as a jaunt that included taking ayahuasca, according to The Guardian. He was part of a group of tourists from his hostel who paid $50 for the tour; others survived without harm, but Miller apparently experienced an allergic reaction to the herbal hallucinogenic drink. He became sick during the event and was left to die by the side of a dirt road, The Guardian reported.

In his book "Magic and Witchcraft: From Shamanism to the Technopagans" (Thames and Hudson, 2003), anthropologist Nevill Drury says that "in the upper Amazon basin (Colombia, Peru and Ecuador) shamans make extensive use of ayahuasca, a psychedelic drink made from the tree-climbing forest vine Banisteriopsis caapi. Taking this sacrament allows the shaman to enter the supernatural realm, to have initiatory visions, and to make contact with ancestors and helper-spirits." The hallucinogen is chemically similar to psilocybin, the active ingredient found in magic mushrooms, which have been used for similar purposes by shamans in Central America. [Trippy Tales: The History of 8 Hallucinogens]

New Age beliefs have co-opted and commercialized many Native American and indigenous traditions, from dream catchers to sweat lodges to "traditional" ceremonies staged for tourists. "Ayahuasca tourism has brought new attention, new money and new problems to traditional healers and their communities, and has created a market for the misrepresentation of traditional practices and the exploitation of eager and innocent tourists," writes anthropologist Stephan Bever in his book "Singing to the Plants: A Guide to Mestizo Shamanism in the Upper Amazon" (University of New Mexico Press, 2009).

Bever notes that "the marketing of ayahuasca shamanism is in many ways akin to the marketing of Amazonian household goods at Macy's... Ayahuasca tourists are primarily white, urban, relatively wealthy, well educated, and spiritually eclectic outsiders.... And in almost every case, the goal is not an increased intellectual or scholarly understanding of the indigenous culture but rather personal spiritual growth, healing, and transformative experience."

Ayahuasca tourists who fail to understand the importance of the cultural context in which the drug is used are often disappointed in the experience, perhaps expecting to receive some sort of indigenous-inspired cosmic insight instead of an otherwise ordinary hallucinogenic drug trip, Bever adds.

Like psilocybin, ayahuasca by itself is not particularly toxic, though it may result in nausea, vomiting, psychological distress and cardiovascular effects such as increased blood pressure. The fact that it is "natural" appeals to many people, though, of course, many perfectly natural substances are dangerous or lethal, including snake venom, arsenic, mercury, and toxic plants.

The bigger concern is what killed Henry Miller; when mixed with other drugs and ingredients by a shaman or traditional healer instead of a pharmacist, anyone taking the drugs is taking a risk. People with food or drug allergies who must exercise care in ordering food at restaurants have no way of knowing what they're being given to eat or drink as part of an informal shamanic experience.

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of "Skeptical Inquirer" science magazine and author of seven books, including "Mysterious New Mexico: Miracles, Magic, and Monsters in the Land of Enchantment." His website is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

A mysterious and apparently malevolent clown has been seen lurking on the streets of Staten Island, N.Y., at night over the past week.

You don't need to travel to Staten Island to be creeped out by this clown; thanks to Facebook and Instagram, anyone in the world can get the shivers from photos of the white-faced monster.

These social media sites are where four people first posted snapshots of the clown over the past few days. In one widely circulated photo, the balloon-bearing, bald-capped buffoon is standing near a road detour sign near the Richmond Valley train station, waving at passersby; in another, he (or perhaps she) is skulking behind a tree. [What Really Scares People: Top 10 Phobias]

The "SI Clown," as the costumed creature has been dubbed, bears a striking resemblance to Pennywise, the evil clown in Stephen King's classic horror novel and film "It."

This is not the first time that a clown has been spotted in public and has unnerved locals. Last year, a mysterious clown was sighted prowling the streets of Northampton, U.K., causing both curiosity and concern. The face-painted fiend — widely dubbed The Northampton Clown — was first sighted in early September, and soon had his own Facebook page, where followers posted photographs of him at different locations throughout the city. It turned out to be a viral prank.

When such clowns are seen, there is little the police can do; it is not illegal to dress up as a clown and wander the streets at night. Unless the clown is loitering, causing mischief, harassing people or otherwise being a nuisance, there's nothing anyone can do.

Why would a person dress as a clown and freak people out? There are several possible reasons, ranging from a playful prank to a professional clown innocently returning from a kid's birthday party. Yet, according to the New York Post, the SI Clown may be a publicity stunt: It seems that the four people who originally posted photos and videos of the costumed creepster not only know one another, but also have links to the same Staten Island-based company that produces horror films. Coincidence? Could be.

But given how many people are scared of clowns, and the near certainty that images of anonymous, creepy clowns will go viral on social media sites, the SI Clown is likely a savvy publicity stunt. So far, the film company has not officially confirmed or denied being associated with the prank. However, it did say, via Twitter, "Kinda insulted by all these #SIClown accusations...we're not just a 'horror film company.' We're funny too...I swear)".

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of "Skeptical Inquirer" science magazine and author of seven books, including "The Martians Have Landed! A History of Media Panics and Hoaxes." His website is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

A veteran custodian of Loch Ness monster sightings is concerned that Nessie has not been seen in well over a year, and may be gone, according to a news report. This is the first time in nearly 90 years that such a lengthy lag in sightings has occurred.

Gary Campbell, who lives in Inverness in the United Kingdom has been keeping records of Loch Ness monster sightings for the past 17 years and has put together a list of sightings that goes back some 1,500 years, according to the BBC News.  

"It's very upsetting news and we don't know where she's gone," BBC News quoted Campbell as saying. "The number of sightings has been reducing since the turn of the century but this is the first time in almost 90 years that Nessie wasn't seen at all." (Apparently three reports of possible Nessie sightings in 2013 were discredited after closer scrutiny, The Inverness Courier reported.)

This is not the first time Nessie has been a no show; in fact, there are no reports of the beast until less than a century ago. The Loch Ness monster first achieved notoriety in 1933 after a story was published in a local newspaper describing not a monstrous head or hump but instead a splashing in the water that appeared to be caused "by two ducks fighting." A famous photograph showing a mysterious head and neck brought Nessie international fame, but was revealed to be hoax decades later. [Rumor or Reality: The 10 Creatures of Cryptozoology]

Some claim that the Loch Ness monster was first reported in A.D. 565, when St. Columba turned away a giant beast threatening a man in the Ness River, which flows into the lake. However it is only one of many Catholic Church legends about righteous saints vanquishing Satan in the form of serpents and dragons.

There are many myths lurking in the cold Scottish highlands, including legends of "water horses" — creatures associated with rivers and lakes that resemble normal horses, but are actually both magical and deadly: Should anyone try to mount a water horse, it will accept the rider, then gallop to a nearby lake or river, drown its rider, then eat his flesh, one myth goes. Though some of these legends and stories may have inspired some of the claims about the Loch Ness monster, Nessie is, of course, not a magical horse, but instead believed to be a very real, living and breathing aquatic creature resembling a long-necked dinosaur.

Skeptics would suggest there is likely no monster in the lake at all. But this news about the lack of sightings poses a big problem for those who believe in the creature's existence. The fact that no Nessie report has been registered in 18 months means that, even if it existed, it is likely no longer there.

Though people often speak of Nessie as a solitary (often female) animal, if it exists there must be more than one in the lake — at least dozens if not hundreds. This changes the equation and deepens the mystery, because with so many of them allegedly living in the lake they should be seen much more often. It defies logic to believe a group of unknown monsters lives in the lake — which has many local residents and tens of thousands of monster-seeking tourists all around it — and not a single one surfaces to be seen. Think of it this way: If over a year went by without a single sighing of a giraffe, rhino or horse, the most logical — and the most tragic — explanation would be that they had all died out. Extinction is the only reason that large animals simply vanish like that.

This is especially true for the Nessie creatures, which are, after all, confined to a lake that is only a little over 20 miles long and about a mile wide (32 by 1.6 kilometers) for much of its length. Unlike birds (which can migrate hundreds or thousands of miles) or terrestrial animals (which may roam for a few hundred miles), the Nessie creatures are presumably locked in the lake. There are no underground waterway exits to the ocean or anywhere else. In short, there is nowhere else to go if they are not being seen in the lake.

But fear not, monster lovers and Inverness Tourism Board: If history is any indication, eventually there will be more sightings of Nessie, whether they exist or not. There are enough things in the lake that can be mistaken for a monster, including large fish, strange waves, and even the occasional hoax, to keep the sightings going and the tourist dollars coming. 

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of "Skeptical Inquirer" science magazine and author of six books including "Lake Monster Mysteries: Investigating the World's Most Elusive Creatures." His Web site is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

A mysterious 310-foot-diameter crop circle that appeared in a farmer's barley field in Chualar, Calif., as 2013 ended puzzled the public for more than a week. Echoing the sentiments of many, the field's owner told CNN, "To be that intricate in design, it kind of baffles me as to how that was done."Videos and photos of it went viral, and though some dismissed the crop circle as a hoax, others weren't so sure. Some crop-circle experts wrote in-depth analyses that claimed to cleverly decode hidden meanings in the pattern, including that a bright comet would appear in the sky later this year.

It remained a mystery until Sunday night (Jan. 5), when at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the real circle makers stepped forward: a marketing team hired by computer-graphics company Nvidia. The "crop circle" was not an astronomical calendar forewarning of an impending comet, but instead a drawing of the company's new Tegra K1 processing chip. A small team of British crop-circle artists created the complex pattern expertly and without detection. It was a great publicity stunt, and one that left many people wondering how experts could have been fooled.

Why do people fall for such obvious hoaxes? Part of the answer is that the human brain is hardwired to seek meaning, even when there is no meaning to be found. In psychology, the tendency for the mind to find coincidences, patterns and connections in random data is called apophenia. In statistics, there is even a name for this type of fallacy: a Type I error. A common example of a Type I error is a false positive result on a medical test. [In Photos: Mysterious Crop Circles]

Carl Sagan, in his book "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark," discussed the psychology of this phenomenon. "The pattern-recognition machinery in our brains is so efficient in extracting a face from a clutter of other detail that we sometimes see faces where there are none," he wrote. "We assemble disconnected patches of light and dark, and unconsciously try to see a face. The Man in the Moon is one result."

There are many other examples. In 1997, Michael Drosnin published a best-selling book titled "The Bible Code," in which he claimed the Bible contained a code (hidden in numbers and letters) accurately predicting past world events. Drosnin's work was later refuted, with critics demonstrating that the meanings and messages he found were simply the result of selectively choosing data sets from a vast sea of random letters. Similar "hidden codes" have been found in other books, such as "Moby Dick" and "War and Peace," demonstrating that any sizable text can produce such codes if you look long enough.

Conspiracy thinking

Conspiracy thinking can also make crop-circle hoaxes believable. Such mistakes come not from too little thinking, but rather overthinking — missing the obvious because you're expecting to see something far more mysterious and complicated. Crop-circle books brim with wild, contradictory theories about what the circles mean, including religious revelations, messages of peace and cosmic harmony, nuclear power secrets, maps of the universe and much more. [Crop-Circle Artists Becoming High-Tech]

This mistake is also common in conspiracy-theory thinking: Events that, at first glance, appear to have a simple, straightforward explanation are suspected of having a more elaborate story behind them. For example, many believe that Princess Diana could not have been killed in a drunk-driving car accident in a French tunnel; that explanation is too simple, too obvious. No, it was all part of an elaborate assassination attempt by the British military, the Illuminati or someone else. Likewise, humans could not have simply gone to the moon in rockets; the moon landing could not have been that easy, so it must have been an elaborate hoax involving sound stages, a cast and crew of hundreds, and so on.

So it is with crop circles: If you want to know what a design means, ask the hoaxers who created it (if you can find them).

History

The crop-circle phenomenon came to global attention in the 1970s, when simple circles began appearing in the English countryside. The number and complexity of the circles increased dramatically, reaching a peak in the 1980s and 1990s, when increasingly elaborate circles were produced, including those illustrating complex mathematical equations such as fractals. The obvious and best-supported scientific explanation — that the designs are made by artistic hoaxers — is, by far, the least satisfying for many people. Which is more fun to believe: that nighttime pranksters are at work, or that mysterious, unknown intelligent beings are trying to communicate with humanity using complex, coded messages?

You'd think that an alien species smart enough to travel across the galaxy to visit Earth could find a more effective way of communicating with humanity than making ambiguous patterns in plants. Learning another language is something even children can do, and if our planet has been visited for decades by crop-circle-making intelligences, it's reasonable to expect they could write out messages in plain English or another human language. Ironically, that would likely be seen as an obvious sign of a hoax, even if it were real. [7 Huge Misconceptions About Aliens]

In this case, the "experts" were once again fooled; it was, undeniably, an advertising stunt. This hoax also reveals an embarrassing truth about crop circle research: that so-called experts cannot distinguish a supposedly real crop circle from a fake one. If the ones supposedly made by humans are so amazingly complex and intricate — and laden with so much hidden meaning — that they are mistaken for the real thing, then, by definition, all of them could be hoaxes.

This isn't the first time a company has used a crop circle as part of a marketing campaign. It's been done several times; even Hello Kitty's adorable face appeared in a field. Presumably, if a crop circle appeared featuring the trademarked Coke ribbon, the distinctive CBS eye logo or the Chevrolet bowtie, then we could be pretty sure it's fake.

Unless, of course, it's all part of the conspiracy, and an Illuminati-driven multinational cabal has formed an alliance with extraterrestrials to create the patterns as a sort of mind-control advertising experiment. Sound ridiculous? You can't prove it's not true.

Benjamin Radford, M. Ed., is deputy editor of "Skeptical Inquirer" science magazine and author of six books, including "The Martians Have Landed! A History of Media Panics and Hoaxes." His website is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.

A group of ghost hunters has been arrested for allegedly setting fire to a historic mansion near New Orleans. Perhaps inspired by the hit SyFy television series "Ghost Hunters" and its many imitators, the men climbed through a hole in a fence and broke into the LeBeau Plantation house near the Mississippi Riveron Nov. 21.

According to the St. Bernard Sheriff's Office, the men were looking for ghosts. Though nobody was harmed, the fire shines a light on the dark side of ghost hunting, a side that seems to be only gaining in popularity.

The mansion, built in the 1850s, had survived through many incarnations, operating as a boarding house, a hotel and even an illegal gambling house. Though the mansion had been shuttered in recent years, its owner, the Arlene and Joseph Meraux Charitable Foundation, had plans to renovate the building. [The Bell Witch to Slimer: 10 Most Famous Ghosts]

Ghouls abound in New Orleans

The New Orleans area has a rich history of ghosts, voodoo and mystery. LeBeau Plantation house is only one of dozens of gothic mansions and plantations rumored to be haunted. Some are more famous than others, such as the Myrtles Plantation, north of New Orleans in St. Francisville, a prime destination for ghost hunters that is said to be one of America's most haunted homes. Even so, it's hard to find a significant old plantation house in Louisiana that does not have at least one ghost story associated with it. Legends at LeBeau tell of a ghostly woman in a long, white dress walking on the upstairs porch; other stories describe spooky lights in the hallways or the voices of long-dead slaves.

The fire at LeBeau broke out at about 2 a.m. local time Friday, Nov. 21, and the building was almost completely destroyed by the time firefighters arrived. The ghost hunters had been trying to produce a reaction from the spirits they assumed resided there, by doing what TV ghost hunters call "provocation," essentially making loud noises, yelling taunts at the ghosts and banging on walls. Frustrated that their efforts failed to yield any spirits, the group decided to light a fire. Whether this was intended to smoke the spirits out or simply burn the place down, the resulting flames soon reduced the mansion to ashes and four brick chimneys.

While many ghost hunters engage in harmless (and fruitless) fun, as this case shows, there can be a dark, dangerous side to the pursuit. In the wake of popular ghost-hunting TV shows, police across the country have seen a surge in people being arrested, injured and even killed while looking for ghosts.

In 2006, a woman was critically wounded looking for ghosts in a private house near a cemetery; she and a friend were trespassing, and the house owner mistook them for vandals and shot them. In 2010, a North Carolina man died while ghost hunting with a group of friends, hoping to see the ghost of a train that crashed years earlier. The ghost train did not appear — but a real train came around a bend and killed one man who couldn't get out of the way in time.

As for why people consider shows such as "Ghost Hunters" and "Ghost Adventures" to be purveyors of truth, one researcher thinks it's all in the wording. The hosts of these shows often sprinkle into their tales an array of technical jargon and references to tech-y instruments, such as ion generators, electromagnetic field detectors and video goggles with built-in speech-synthesizers. Such science lingo adds undue credibility to paranormal investigators, said Paul Brewer, a professor of communication at the University of Delaware.

Luckily, no one was hurt in the LeBeau blaze, which could have killed someone or spread to neighboring buildings. Seven men from Texas and Louisiana ranging in age from 17 to 31 were arrested on charges related to the case, including arson, simple burglary, trespassing and criminal damage worth more than $50,000.

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of "Skeptical Inquirer" science magazine and author of six books, including "Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries." His website is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.

A hunter stumbled upon a bizarre sight on a 75,000-acre ranch north of Las Vegas, N.M., on Aug. 27: the remains of more than 100 dead elk. Livestock deaths are not unusual, but so many animals dying off, and doing so in what seems to be under 24 hours, was puzzling to scientists.

Officials with the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish investigated the mysterious elk deaths and ruled out several possible causes for the elk deaths, including poachers, anthrax, lightning strikes, epizootic hemorrhagic disease (an often-fatal virus known to affect deer and other ruminants), botulism, poisonous plants, malicious poisoning and even some sort of industrial or agricultural accident.

The investigation was hampered by the state of the elk: Scavengers, including bears and vultures, ate most of the bodies, with maggots and blowflies helping to reduce the elk herd to an eerie scattered sea of skeletons in the desert. [Spooky! Top 10 Unexplained Phenomena]

"We couldn't find anything [toxic] in their stomachs and no toxic plants on the landscape," said Kerry Mower, a wildlife disease specialist with New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, as quoted by the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper.

As news spread, some conspiracy-minded folk soon speculated about links to animal mutilations, UFOs or even the dreaded Hispanic vampire el chupacabra.

Pond scum of death

Through science and further testing of elk tissue samples and water samples, the real killer has finally been found: pond scum. Or, more specifically, a neurotoxin produced by one type of blue-green algae that can develop in warm, standing water.

A bloom of this alga can be devastating to wildlife. "In warm weather, blooms of blue-green algae are not uncommon in farm ponds in temperate regions, particularly ponds enriched with fertilizer," according to a classic toxicology reference book, "Casarett and Doull's Toxicology: The Basic Science of Poisons" (McGraw-Hill Professional, 2013). "Under these conditions, one species of alga, Anabaena flos-aquae, produces a neurotoxin, anatoxin-A, which depolarizes and blocks acetylcholine receptors, causing death in animals that drink the pond water. The lethal effects develop rapidly, with death in minutes to hours from respiratory arrest."

In other words, the elk herd suffocated to death, unable to breathe. And the fast-acting toxin explains the animals' strange, sudden deaths. In this case, the algae appeared not in ponds, but in three fiberglass livestock watering tanks not far from where the elk died. The elk also showed signs they had struggled on the ground, further supporting neurotoxin poisoning.

"Based on circumstantial evidence, the most logical explanation for the elk deaths is that on their way back to the forest after feeding in the grassland, the elk drank water from a trough containing toxins created by blue-green algae or cyanobacteria," Mower said in a statement from the Department of Game and Fish.

The algae-produced neurotoxin is similar to curare, the famous toxin found in poison-tipped arrows used by South American Indian tribes. Though anatoxin-A can be deadly to other animals, including dogs and cattle, reports of human deaths are rare. New Mexico ranchers have been advised to sanitize their livestock tanks to prevent further wildlife deaths.

Benjamin Radford, M. Ed., is deputy editor of "Skeptical Inquirer" science magazine and author of six books including "Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries." His Web site is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.

One of the biggest concerns for kids each Halloween is the decision of what costume to wear for trick-or-treating. But for many parents and police officers, the question is more serious: how to protect children from the unique threats that Halloween brings.

Amid the make-believe witches, ghouls and goblins, there are supposedly real-life villains who lay waiting all year, scheming about the evil and mayhem they will wreak on Oct. 31. These threats involve innocent children, and stories about them circulate among concerned parents, helpful neighbors, the media and local police.

But though they have storied histories, such Halloween threats are more myth than reality.

Poisoned-candy panics

The most familiar Halloween scares involve contaminated candy, and every year, police and medical centers across the country X-ray candy collected by trick-or-treaters to check for razors, needles or contaminants that might have been placed there by strangers intending to hurt or kill children.

Yet few, if any, sinister foreign objects are ever found. This threat is essentially an urban legend. Despite email warnings, scary stories and Ann Landers columns to the contrary, there have been only two confirmed cases of children being killed by poisoned Halloween candy, and in both cases, the children were killed not in a random act by strangers, but murdered by one of their parents. The original case was that of Ronald Clark O'Bryan, who killed his son by lacing his Pixy Stix with cyanide in 1974. Halloween had nothing to do with the murder, and was used as a cover-up to make police look for a random stranger who'd given tainted candy to his son. [15 Urban Legends Debunked ]

Yet the fear continues. There have been a few instances of candy tampering over the years, and in most cases, the "victim" turned out to be the culprit — children doing it as a prank or to draw attention. X-raying Halloween treats to find harmful objects is largely pointless; it would be obvious to even the most sugar-addled child or teen if a razor blade or pins were stuck in an apple or candy bar, and in any event, it's unnecessary. If you're in doubt, throw it out! Like any other food, if you have even the slightest good reason to suspect that a piece of candy is not safe, it's easiest to simply toss it.

In their study of news stories on Halloween sadists between 1958 and 1983, researchers Joel Best and Gerald Horiuchi found the threat to have been "greatly exaggerated." They discovered the fear of razor blades in apples and poisoned candy was fueled, in part, by the media beginning in the early 1970s, according to their study, published in 1985 in the journal Social Problems. In reality, the incidence of unprovoked, random attacks on small children during Halloween is rare, and deaths are virtually nonexistent. Best and Horiuchi concluded that most reports of Halloween sadism appear to be imaginary, and that many are hoaxes by kids themselves seeking attention and sympathy. [13 Halloween Superstitions and Traditions Explained]

The media-fueled fear and panic over tainted candy has been a staple of American Halloweens for decades. However, following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the resulting hypervigilance about terrorism, the candy scare took an interesting twist when rumors circulated that two suspicious Arab men had purchased $35,000 worth of candy from a New Jersey wholesale store. Emails spread across the country, warning parents that their children's candy might be tampered with by Middle Eastern terrorists.

Prompted by the public concern over terrorism, the FBI launched an investigation. A week before Halloween, on Oct. 22, 2001, officials cleared up the rumors. It was one man, not two, who had bought $15,000 worth of candy, not $35,000. The man's nationality was not revealed, so he may or may not have been Arab or dark-skinned or even had an ethnic name. The man was a wholesaler who planned to resell the candy, and the purchase was a routine, legitimate transaction that had nothing to do with terrorism.

Sex offenders

Though the fears over poisoned candy never materialized into a real threat, the reputed Halloween evil took a new form in the 1990s: sex offenders. This scare, even more than the candy panics, was fueled by alarmist news reports and police warnings. In many states, convicted sex offenders are required not to answer the door if trick-or-treaters came by, or to report to jail overnight. Some states, such as Texas and Arkansas, required offenders to report to courthouses on Halloween evening for a mandatory counseling session. [5 Halloween Myths You Shouldn't Let Trick You]

The theory behind such laws is that Halloween provides a special opportunity for sex offenders to make contact with children, or to use costumes to conceal their identities. This has been the assumption among many local politicians and police for years. Yet there is no reason to think sex offenders pose any more of a threat to children on Halloween than at any other time. In fact, a group of children dressed in costumes at a sex offender's doorway are probably safer than at many other places they could be, including their own homes.

This is because, contrary to popular belief, most physical and sexual attacks on children occur in their own home by someone they know. Furthermore, the simple logistics of trick-or-treating make an assault very unlikely: A sex offender would have great difficultly molesting a child who is in costume, outside his or her front door and in front of other people.

A recent study confirmed the public has little to fear from sex offenders on Halloween. The research, published in the September 2009 issue of Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, examined 67,307 non-family sex offenses reported to law enforcement in 30 states over nine years. The researchers wanted to determine whether or not children are, in fact, at any greater risk for sexual assault around Halloween. The answer was a conclusive no: "There does not appear to be a need for alarm concerning sexual abuse on these particular days. Halloween appears to be just another autumn day where rates of sex crimes against children are concerned."

Not only is the hype and fear unwarranted, but as the study authors concluded, taxpayer dollars spent monitoring sex offenders on Halloween are wasted. All the mandatory counseling sessions, increased police presence and so on had no effect at all on the incidence of sexual abuse on Halloween.

The real threat to children on Halloween isn't poisoned candy from evil neighbors or al Qaida or sex offenders; it's being hit by a car crossing a dark street or wearing a flammable costume too close to a fire. Most kids are very safe on Halloween and have little to fear from strangers. This is perhaps the saddest part about the Halloween scares: Children are told the scary myth that their neighbors are likely to poison, hurt, molest or kill them.

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of "Skeptical Inquirer" science magazine and author of six books, including "The Martians Have Landed! A History of Media Panics and Hoaxes." His website is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.

A mysterious and sinister clown has been sighted prowling the streets of Northampton, U.K., causing both curiosity and concern. Nocturnal sightings of the face-painted fiend — widely dubbed The Northampton Clown — began earlier this month. The clown has not harassed, attacked, nor threatened anyone; he — or possibly she or It — merely wanders the streets creeping people out (and sometimes poses for photos).

A Facebook page was set up last week (on Friday the 13th, appropriately enough) called "Spot Northampton's Clown," featuring photos of the clown at different locations throughout the city. Someone claiming to be the clown has posted photos, updates and notes saying he's harmless and just having a bit of fun.

If it all seems like a viral prank, publicity stunt or theatrical melodrama, it may be. In fact, a second man, dressed in his own blue muscle-padded superhero costume and glasses, calling himself "Boris the Clown Catcher," has appeared on the Northampton streets on a mission to capture the creepy clown. Some have suggested that Boris is himself the Northampton Clown, adopting the role of both hero and villain in a social media prank. [Really? The 6 Most Outrageous Hoaxes]

Boston's mystery clown panic

Strange as this case is, it's not the first time that concern over clowns has gripped a city. In May 1981, police in Brookline, Mass., issued an all-points bulletin (APB) asking officers to watch for a vehicle containing potential child abductors. The vehicle, an older model van with a broken headlight and no hubcaps, was reportedly occupied by several clowns in full costume. Several children reported that clowns had tried to lure them into the van with promises of candy.

It was only one of several mysterious sightings of the phantom clowns; the next day, Boston police again searched the city in vain for another van driven by a creepy clown reported to be stalking a public park; once again police searches came up empty. As reports spread to surrounding areas and parents grew nervous, an official from the Boston Public Schools issued a memo to principals in his school district: "It has been brought to the attention of the police department and the district office that adults dressed as clowns have been bothering children to and from school. Please advise all students that they must stay away from strangers, especially those dressed as clowns."

Parents were fearful, children were warned and police were vigilant, but despite searches and police checkpoints, these mysterious clowns were never found. Whether these creepy clowns were real, or the product of mass hysteria, pranks, eyewitness mistakes, the power of suggestion and the media, or some mix of these, no evidence was ever found of their existence.

The Northampton Clown, on the other hand, seems real enough. Though the clown has undoubtedly made some people genuinely uneasy, it seems that most are discussing this phenomenon with their tongues firmly planted in their cheeks.

The fact that the clown poses for photographers suggests an element of hoaxing or mischief; after all, if anyone thought the clown was a serious threat they could follow him or call the police. It's also important to note that England has, by some estimates, nearly 2 million surveillance cameras in operation. Public streets are routinely monitored and recorded, and it would be a simple matter for police to review footage to locate a doorway or vehicle where the clown emerged. That is, of course, assuming that they believed there is any threat; walking around dressed as a clown at night is not illegal.

Creepy clowns

Fear of clowns — called coulrophobia — is fairly common, especially in young children. The reasons people find clowns scary vary from person to person; sometimes, the fear stems from a childhood trauma with a specific clown, other times, it's just a general unease with all clowns. [What Really Scares People: Top 10 Phobias]

But there are a few reasons why clowns are often considered creepy and disturbing. Clowns exaggerate for effect, distorting reality and proportion. They drive impossibly tiny cars and carry outsized gear, such as tricycles the size of elephants and hammers the size of logs. Nearly everything about a clown, including his or her speech, actions and clothes, are either too big or too small, and nothing about them is normal.

Clowns are at once both instantly recognizable and yet totally anonymous. We don't know who is behind that makeup and red rubber nose: a kindly grandfather or a serial killer? And, of course, clowns are also unnatural in another way: No normal person could willingly put up with hordes of children screaming and jumping all over them for that long.

While the Northampton Clown seems to be having harmless fun (for example, today, Sept. 17, promising on Facebook a big surprise for later this week), the real danger is probably the threat of copycats hijacking the phenomenon and getting in on the act; already there are a few reports of (apparently independent) clowns pretending to be the Northampton Clown.

Or are they? The mystery continues.

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of "Skeptical Inquirer" science magazine and author of six books including "The Martians Have Landed! A History of Media-Driven Panics and Hoaxes." His website is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

Follow LiveScience @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.

Officials with the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish are puzzling over the mysterious deaths of more than 100 elk, apparently all within a 24-hour period, in rural New Mexico.

The elk were found Aug. 27 on a 75,000-acre ranch north of the city of Las Vegas.

Livestock deaths, by themselves, are not unusual — there are many things that can fell large animals, including predators, poachers, a natural or man-made toxin, disease, drought, heat, starvation, and even lightning. [Spooky! Top 10 Unexplained Phenomena]

But so far wildlife officials have seemingly ruled out most of these possibilities: The elk weren't shot (nor taken from the area), so it was not poachers. Tests have come back negative for anthrax, a bacteria that exists naturally in the region and can kill large animals. There seems to be no evidence of any heavy pesticide use in the area that might have played a role in the die-off.

Though lightning strikes are not uncommon in the Southwest and in New Mexico specifically, killing over 100 animals at one time would be an incredibly rare event. It might be an as-yet unidentified disease, though killing so many at once — and so quickly — would be very unusual. Another possibility is some sort of contamination of the well or water tanks, but so far no toxins have been identified.

Wildlife officials are hopeful that they will be able to identify the cause of death — if for no other reason that it would give peace of mind to ranchers and hunters.

Mass animal deaths are not uncommon. In just the past few weeks, massive die-offs of various animals have made news around the world. China's Fuhe River was clogged last week with over 100 tons of dead silvery fish. Officials attributed the deaths to toxic levels of ammonia dumped into the river from a local chemical factory. Around the same time, scientists finally solved the riddle of what had mysteriously begun to kill off a type of salamander in the Netherlands beginning in 2010. The culprit turned out to be Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans, a contagious fungus that eats the salamander's skin.

Odd livestock attacks also abound. Last December, an unknown animal attacked livestock in Shelby County, Ky., leaving many of the victims with gnawed or detached ears, including a goat named Polka-dot. In 2010, the Hispanic vampire beast el chupacabra (of course, never proven to exist) was blamed by some for the deaths of more than 300 goats in rural Mexico. The real cause: Officials found feral canines were the real culprits.

Whatever killed the New Mexico elk was apparently neither a chemical spill nor a flesh-eating fungus, though the deaths remain a genuine mystery, at least so far. Tissue and blood samples are still being analyzed, and scientists hope to have answers soon.

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of "Skeptical Inquirer" science magazine and author of six books including "Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries" and "Hoaxes, Myths, and Manias: Why We Need Critical Thinking." His Web site is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

Follow LiveScience @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.

A young Russian model who reportedly spent a half-million dollars to turn herself into a real-life Barbie doll is indeed quite real and not the result of a computer-generated image.

Even so, many of the stories written about her are not the real deal.

In 2012, photos of this supposed real-life Barbie named Valeria Lukyanovashocked many around the world. Thousands of photos of Lukyanova showed her porcelain face with flawless skin, glassy blue eyes, a blank stare and small waist, which were apparently the result of dozens of surgeries (including, allegedly, having ribs removed).

When Lukyanova first appeared, no one knew quite what to make of her — or her appearance. Some people thought she was a computer-generated product of a viral video hoax. Others pointed to her as a horrific example of the pursuit of beauty gone awry, the sad consequence of a society in which girls are encouraged to view thin fashion models and Barbie dolls as ideals. She is quite real, though many of the stories about her are not. [7 Beauty Trends That Are Bad for Your Health]

A real-life Barbie?

Contrary to many headlines, there's no evidence that Lukyanovais actually trying to emulate the world's most popular doll; the word "Barbie" does not appear anywhere onLukyanova's website nor in any of the available material attributed to her. Furthermore, a Google search of images of Lukyanova reveals plenty of airbrushed glamour shots, but conspicuously absent are photos of her with her supposed idol, Barbie. Surely if this aspiring model's claim to fame were centered on trying to achieve Barbie's supposedly idealized proportions, she would have taken many photos of her with the doll she's trying to look like.

A recent short documentary film, "Space Barbie," provides new insight into her motives. Lukyanova doesn't mind comparisons to Barbie, but states: "Even though people call me Barbie, I never tried to look like a doll. I just like everything beautiful, feminine and refined. It just so happens that dolls are based on the image of refined girls."

So what does explain her strange appearance? It's amazing what can be done with flattering lighting, hours of makeup and low-resolution video. Some images of her may be digitally enhanced, but despite a few YouTube videos to the contrary, there is little or no evidence that Lukyanova has undergone extensive plastic surgery, either to look like Barbie or for any other reason. It's possible, though there are no before-and-after photos or videos that you would expect to see for such a publicized radical transformation. Surely any plastic surgeon would be eager to claim credit for such remarkable work on such a famous and controversial client. [10 Odd Facts About the Female Body]

It's also important to remember that people come in all shapes and sizes, and Lukyanova's figure and features, though striking, are within normal human variation. Critics concerned about the influence of Barbie dolls on girls and women often claim that 99.99 percent of the women in the world don't look like Barbie. While that may be true, statistically that means there are thousands of women whose natural body shape (perhaps with a little help) comes pretty close. And it's not surprising that one of those women — especially one with Lukyanova's self-promotional skills — would be noticed and become an Internet sensation.

The fact is that Lukyanova never claimed to want to look like Barbie — that was simply a convenient (and inaccurate) news handle for journalists and headline writers to use. Though the fascination with Lukyanova's (beautiful or creepy, take your pick) appearance is understandable, it is only skin deep. To understand Lukyanova's motivations you must look below the surface.

'Out-of-body' traveler

Lukyanova has made no secret of her motivation for fame, and it has nothing to do with Barbie. She claims to be an extraterrestrial spirit, and in "Space Barbie" explains: "The aim of my life is to come to this planet to help people realize that it is necessary to move from the role of the 'human consumer' to the role of 'human demi-god.' Everything is love, love is God. I am you, and you are me."

While this may sound far-out, it is actually a fairly typical example of New Age philosophy, preaching that humans are on the wrong path with war and pollution, and that humankind can be saved through the a cosmic, karmic consciousness shift toward universal love. The only thing that makes this situation unusual is the appearance of the person delivering the message — and it's no accident.

Lukyanova notes that "I'm a lecturer on the subject of out-of-body travel, and I lead seminars on spiritual subjects. My PR is only based on my physical appearance. Unfortunately spiritual ideas will never get so much attention. If a nun starts talking about spirituality, would anyone notice her? No, no one will. But if a beautiful, inspiring young woman starts talking about it, many people will start thinking. So I use my appearance to promote my spiritual ideas. It works perfectly well."

Indeed it does. Lukyanova is neither a media-obsessed woman trying to fit some social ideal of female perfection, nor a Photoshopped hoax. Her ideas may be far-out, but when it comes to finding ways to spread her New Age message, she's crazy like a fox.

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of "Skeptical Inquirer" science magazine and author of six books, including "The Martians Have Landed: A History of Media-Driven Panics and Hoaxes" and "Tracking the Chupacabra: The Vampire Beast in Fact, Fiction, and Folklore." His website is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.

A poltergeist is perhaps the best-known — and most feared — type of ghost. It is a spirit that is said to harass and torment its victims. This harassment typically includes minor but mysterious and disturbing events such as loud sounds, moving furniture, sheets and covers being pulled off beds, small objects inexplicably falling off shelves, stones rising off the ground and being hurled at people, and so on. 

Of course, discussing different categories of ghosts is like discussing different breeds of dragons or races of leprechauns: it's all made up, so there are as many types as you can dream of. Nevertheless, people all over the world believe in ghosts and spirits, and a 2005 Gallup poll found that 37 percent of Americans believe in haunted houses — and nearly half believe in ghosts.

No one knows for certain what ghosts are, or if they even exist; some believe that they are spirits of the dead who for whatever reason get "lost" on their way to the afterworld; others think that ghosts are the souls of people whose deaths were violent or premature. 

History of poltergeists

In his book "Ghosts: Appearances of the Dead & Cultural Transformation," historian R.C. Finucane notes that the word poltergeist "takes its name from two German words, meaning 'to create a disturbance' (or more specifically to rumble, roll, or bluster), and 'spirit.' Though examples can be found in earlier centuries, this form of spiritual harassment only becomes commonplace in the post-Reformation era [around the 1600s]." 

The interpretation of mysterious disturbances as being caused by a ghost specifically is a fairly recent development; a few centuries ago such events might have been attributed to witchcraft or even Satan. Horror films about ghosts and evil spirits including "Poltergeist," "The Amityville Horror," and "The Exorcist" have influenced how modern people think of violent ghostly phenomena.

Poltergeists and pranking

Poltergeist activity centers on people and is often associated with the presence of children, leading many to suspect that childhood attention-seeking pranks are involved. Indeed, many poltergeist reports were proven to have been faked by children and teenagers — and one well-known case of alleged poltergeist activity in the mid-1800s even led to the creation of an American religion. 

It happened in Western New York in the early 1840s when a young peddler arrived at the home of a Mr. and Mrs. Bell to sell his house wares. He was invited into the home by the Bells' housekeeper and stayed for some days. The maid was shortly dismissed from service but abruptly rehired a week later. The peddler was gone, but many of his items were now in use in the Bells' kitchen. The maid thought little of it until she began experiencing poltergeist phenomenon, only to find out from the peddler's ghost that he had been murdered in her absence. 

At least that was the story told by two young sisters named Maggie and Katie Fox, who claimed to communicate with the peddler's ghost through taps and knocks. The Fox sisters became famous across the country for their ability to communicate with spirits of the dead, drawing enthusiastic crowds for decades. Years later, however, the sisters admitted it had all been a hoax; there was no murdered peddler, and the spirit communications had been faked. Still, the sisters had inadvertently founded a religion called Spiritualism, which is still practiced today. 

Rapping and knocking communication from spirits has its origins in fakery and hoaxing, and decades later many psychic mediums continued the practice, pretending that knocks in darkened séance rooms came from the spirit world. For example, an Italian psychic medium named Eusapia Palladino, active in the late 1800s, claimed she experienced poltergeist activity including table rapping and sheets pulled off her bed. Palladino made a successful career out of faking spirit voices, knocks, and "flying objects" (made to move with hidden wires in darkened rooms) during séances for paying customers. 

Do poltergeists exist outside of folklore and historical hoaxes? If ghosts and spirits truly do move objects and cause the unexplained phenomena attributed to them, it is surprising that not a single film or video exists of such amazing incidents. Surveillance cameras and cell phones are everywhere, yet no one has ever captured a clock flying off a shelf on its own or cabinet doors violently banging open and closed in an empty kitchen. Modern reports of these "noisy spirits" are closer to urban legends than documented proof.

Though there's no scientific evidence for poltergeists or any other types of ghosts, they continue to intrigue, entertain and scare us — just as they have for centuries.

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer science magazine and author of six books including "Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries" and "The Martians Have Landed: A History of Media-Driven Panics and Hoaxes." His website is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

Thousands of workers at a garment factory in Bangladesh stopped working and rioted earlier this week, demanding that a ghost be removed from their building. The problem began when a female worker said she felt sick and attributed her condition to "an attack by a ghost" inside a toilet in the women's washroom.

According to news reports, more than 3,000 frightened workers at a plant in the city of Gazipur protested, with dozens of them vandalizing the factory before police used tear gas to quell the riot. This bizarre situation is understandable when we consider the psychological, historical and cultural context of the events.

A history of hysterias

This is not the first time that workers in Southeast Asian garment factories have fallen ill with apparently mysterious and unexplainable health problems. Between June and September 2011, more than 1,000 workers in shoe and clothing factories in Cambodia reported feeling fatigued, dizzy and nauseated. After rest and medical attention, they recovered and went back to work; few, if any, reported lingering symptoms. No toxins or environmental contaminants were found that could have caused the symptoms. [The 8 Most Bizarre Medical Conditions]

Similar events have occurred in Bangladesh in recent weeks, with hundreds of workers in the capital of Dhaka and other factory towns complaining of feeling ill with minor symptoms and no apparent cause. Medical authorities concluded that most of these cases were due to mass hysteria, also known as mass sociogenic illness. Mass hysteria often begins when individuals under stress convert that stress into physical ills. Co-workers, family and friends may also begin exhibiting the symptoms through contagion. Outbreaks are most common in closed social units (such as schools, hospitals and workplaces) and where afflicted individuals are under pressure and routine stress. Fear and concern about factory working conditions is especially prominent in the Bangladeshi public's mind because of the April collapse of a garment factory building that killed more than 1,000 workers.

Ghosts and mass hysterias

And what about the ghost in the toilet that sparked the riots? This case is unusual in that typically mass hysterias do not involve ghosts. However, both ghosts and hysterias often begin with unusual or (apparently) unexplained phenomena. It is only a small step from being concerned about a mysterious, undetectable health menace (perhaps a hidden gas leak or other potentially threatening toxic substance) to being concerned about a mysterious, unseen presence. The belief in ghosts is widespread among the largely Muslim Bangladeshi population, and it is not uncommon for accidents and illnesses to be blamed on evil spirits.

It's important to note that few, if any, of the thousands of factory workers claimed they personally encountered the ghost or had anything to do with it.And apparently, the woman herself didn't claim to actually see the ghost; instead, she said she felt sick and assumed that a ghost was responsible. Whereas American ghosts aren't typically thought of as spending a lot of time in the bathroom, in the Middle East and Asia, the idea of a ghost or spirit haunting a toilet is not uncommon. For example, genies and other spirits are said to dwell in many places, including toilets and sewers, and Japanese folklore tells of Hanako-san, a spirit that resides in women's bathrooms.

There is no real treatment for mass hysteria (other than attention from doctors or other authorities); the episodes tend to run their course and fade away almost as quickly as they started. Factories — full of textiles, chemicals, smells, stress and boredom — are ideal environments for the development of mass hysteria.

There is one significant difference between most cases of mass hysteria and this case: The Gazipurfactory workers (taking their cues from the sick woman) decided that they "know" what is to blame, and that explanation (no matter how fantastic) has a culturally clear and well-defined remedy: ritual exorcism.

With that in mind, the factory owners held special prayers at the site to remove the ghost. The factory was also shut down for several days to give everyone a chance to calm down; when the building reopens, it will likely be ghost-free — until the next time someone experiences something strange. 

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of "Skeptical Inquirer" science magazine and author of six books, including "The Martians Have Landed: A History of Media-Driven Panics and Hoaxes" and "Tracking the Chupacabra: The Vampire Beast in Fact, Fiction, and Folklore." His website is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.

A Virginia man was convicted earlier this week in the death of a 2-year-old who died during a 2011 exorcism. Eder Guzman-Rodriguez beat his daughter Jocelyn to death in an attempt to rid her of the demon he believed was inside her.

Police summoned to the scene encountered several people holding Bibles outside the home, where Guzman-Rodriguez stated that he had also become possessed by a "bad spirit" when he punched and choked Jocelyn to death. The girl was found on a bed, wrapped in a blanket surrounded by Bibles.

Such beliefs in demonic possession and the violent exorcisms that may follow have a long history and can harm the most innocent among us, children.

Psychology of the exorcism

The belief that demons can possess people is one of the most widely held religious beliefs in the world. The Vatican first issued guidelines on exorcisms in 1614 and revised them in 1999. According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, signs of demonic possession in adults include superhuman strength, spitting, cursing, aversion to holy water, and the ability to speak in unknown languages. [The 10 Biggest Unexplained Phenomena]

Those conducting exorcisms are devoutly religious and truly believe they are doing good through the beating and torture of innocents. Though spirits are said to be able to possess anyone, children are especially likely to be suspected of being possessed. Not only are children often thought to be more corruptible and susceptible to evil influences, but their misbehavior (and even innocent actions) may also seem to be manipulated by dark forces. Parents and caregivers who believe in spiritual possession may look for signs their child is possessed: According to police, Guzman-Rodriguez said he believed his daughter was "gesturing to him as if she wanted to fight."

In other cases, believers assume bad behavior is driven by evil spirits — "the devil made me (or him, or her) do it" is very much alive in many people's minds. The beatings and abuse are not seen as a punishment for the child, because the physical aggression, in the exorcist's mind, is directed at the evil spirit within. The child's body is simply seen as a temporary vessel for the bad spirit. The physical and emotional abuse is seen as an unfortunate but necessary price to pay for the child's spiritual salvation.

Child exorcisms

As disturbing as this case is, there are many similar historical precedents. A century ago in Ireland, it was not demons but other supernatural, malevolent entities — fairies — that were believed to possess babies and children. Some children were believed by their parents to be changelings, either "false children" or children possessed by an evil spirit that could be driven from the child through abuse and punishment. In her book "The Burning of Bridget Cleary" (about a woman killed by her husband in an attempt to exorcise fairy spirits from her), folklorist Angela Bourke of the National University of Ireland notes that many "accounts can be found in nineteenth-century newspapers and police reports of suspected child-changelings in Ireland being placed on red-hot shovels, drowned, or otherwise mistreated or killed."

Bourke cites an example from 1828 in which a woman named Ann Roche drowned a 4-year-old boy she believed was possessed; like Guzman-Rodriguez, she claimed that she didn't mean to harm or kill the child, just to drive the spirits out of him. Unlike Guzman-Rodriguez, who was sentenced to just under 21 years in prison, Roche was found not guilty and released.

Though belief in fairies has waned in modern times, belief in spiritual possession by demons and other supernatural entities remains very much with us.  In 2003, an autistic 8-year-old boy in Milwaukee was killed during an exorcism by church members who blamed an invading demon for his disability; and in 2005, a young nun in Romania died at the hands of a priest during an exorcism after being bound to a cross, gagged, and left for days without food or water in an effort to expel demons. In 2010, a 14-year-old boy in England was beaten and drowned to death by relatives trying to exorcise an evil spirit from him.

Though belief in spirits and demons has been a part of humanity for millennia, it also has a dark side and can inflict terrible harm on the most innocent among us.

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of "Skeptical Inquirer" science magazine and author of six books including "Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries" and "Hoaxes, Myths, and Manias: Why We Need Critical Thinking." His Web site is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

Follow LiveScience @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.

The family of a young British girl traveling in their home country of India is accusing a medical clinic of killing their daughter for her organs. Gurkiren Kaur Loyal's family said she was being treated for dehydration in Punjab when she died.

According to a news story in The Telegraph, her mother said, "Gurkiren was fine, she was chatting to us and planned to buy some gifts for her cousins. While we were talking an assistant came up carrying a prefilled syringe and reached for the tube in her hand. I asked what was the injection for, but he gave me a blank look and injected the liquid into her. ... Within a split-second Gurkiren's head flipped back, her eyes rolled in her head, and the color completely drained from her. I knew they had killed her on the spot. I knew my innocent child had been murdered."

It's not clear why the accusation of organ theft came up in this case, though apparently a family friend first raised the idea, saying it was "highly probable" that the girl had been murdered for her organs. An autopsy failed to find a specific cause of death. Several organs were removed and examined during the procedure, though they would have been long since been rendered unusable for transplant. [15 Crazy Urban Legends Debunked]

It's a bizarre, horrific story — but is it true?

Let's take a closer look at the claims. It's possible that the girl's organs were removed to cover up medical malpractice, but there are several aspects of this case that make the organ theft conspiracy claim very unlikely.

The most obvious is that if a medical clinic planned to murder the girl and take her organs, they wouldn't likely choose to murder her while her parents watched. Surely someone intent on medical homicide would have waited until late at night or another opportunity when such a killing wasn't so obvious.

Furthermore, the drug that reportedly killed Gurkiren Loyal(if indeed it did) would likely have damaged her internal organs, making them unsuitable for transplant. If you want to take a person's heart, kidney, lungs or other organs, there is no point in killing them with a method that damages those organs.

This is why Chinese prisoners have been used in the past for organ harvesting: They are shot in the head and killed without damaging the rest of the body's organs, according to a1994 Human Rights Watch/Asia report. That report documented that some condemned Chinese prisoners are killed quickly and their organs taken from them immediately after the execution.

Even if her organs had somehow escaped damage, simply from a medical standpoint, an 8-year-old's organs could not be used in an adult. Thus the conspiracy would require that another person of approximately the same age and blood type be available for immediate transplant; that person would have been waiting for weeks or months for a suitable donor like Gurkirento show up in that hospital.

The economics of the claim don't make sense, either. There are far easier and cheaper ways of obtaining human organs that don't involve killing 8-year-old girls. There is a thriving organ trade in India, and many people voluntarily sell their kidneys and other organs. The cost of a kidney in India, for example, is only a few thousand dollars. A lawsuit, not to mention the bad publicity from this case, would cost the medical clinic far more than simply buying an organ for a person in need.

Conspiracy theories and organ theft urban legends aside, the most likely explanation forGurkiren's death is that she died from a medical accident or error. Adverse — and sometimes lethal — reactions to drugs are not uncommon. Hundreds of thousands of people die each year from accidental drug overdoses, drug reactions, unknown allergies to drugs and other causes. It may have been an unavoidable accident, a simple medical mistake or something else, but the least likely answer is that Gurkiren Loyalwas murdered for her body parts.

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of "Skeptical Inquirer" science magazine and author of six books including "The Martians Have Landed: A History of Media-Driven Panics and Hoaxes." His Web site is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

Original article published on LiveScience.com.

Amanda Berry, a 16-year-old girl when she went missing in 2003, was rescued from an unassuming house in Cleveland Monday night, where she and others are believed to have been abducted and held captive for up to a decade.

Tragically, a high-profile psychic told Berry's mother in 2004 that she was dead, a phenomenon all too common when it comes to missing persons — psychics seem to have all the answers though they typically turn out to be completely wrong.

For nearly two years after her disappearance Amanda Berry's mother, Louwana Miller, held out hope that her daughter would be found alive and returned to her: Maybe Amanda ran away from home and would come back some day, or was in an accident and somehow lost her memory. Miller endured the terrible limbo of not knowing, holding out hope against the odds but not wanting to believe the worst.

Berry reportedly broke through a door where she had been held captive and called for help; two other missing women, Gina DeJesus and Michele Knight, were also rescued from the home. The home's owner, Ariel Castro, and his two brothers have been arrested in connection with the case. [The 10 Most Destructive Human Behaviors Explained]

But before the seeming miracle ending, "Plain Dealer" writer Stephan Hudak noted, "Desperate for any clue as to Amanda Berry's whereabouts, and tired of unanswered questions from authorities, Miller turned to a psychic on Montel Williams' nationally syndicated television show. The psychic said what the FBI, police and Miller hadn't. 'She's not alive, honey,' Sylvia Browne told her matter-of-factly. 'Your daughter's not the kind who wouldn't call.' With those blunt words, Browne persuaded Miller to accept a grim probability that has become more likely with each passing day."

Miller returned home devastated, and she died two years later, believing that her daughter was dead.

Self-proclaimed psychic Sylvia Browne was horribly wrong, telling a grieving mother that her child was dead when she was not. And it's not the first time: In an eerily similar situationin 2002, Browne told the parents of missing child Shawn Hornbeck that their son was dead, also on Montel Williams' show. His body, she said, would be found in a wooded area near two large boulders, adding that he had been kidnapped by a very tall, "dark-skinned man" with dreadlocks.

In fact, Hornbeck and another boy were found very much alive five years later on Jan. 16, 2007, in the home of a Caucasian, non-dreadlocked Missouri man named Michael Devlin who had kidnapped them.Every detail of Browne's psychic vision was wrong, including the most important: that Shawn was dead.

This horrific case also has many similarities to Jaycee Dugard, the girl abducted at the age of 11 in 1991 and discovered living in a virtual prison in the backyard of a couple's home in Antioch, Calif., 18 years later. She had been confined and horrifically abused, and raped, even giving birth to her captor's children. They were kept prisoners and were completely isolated, never having attended school or seen a doctor.

Hundreds of psychics gave information about Dugard's location while she was missing — and every one turned out to be completely wrong.Psychics make many claims of success, but are conspicuously unable tofind missing persons and rescue innocent women from years of torture and imprisonment.

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of "Skeptical Inquirer" science magazine and author of six books including "Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries." His website is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

Follow LiveScience @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.

In November of last year, a Texas veterinarian made national news claiming that genetic testing confirmed that not only is the legendary Bigfoot real, but is in fact a human relative that arose some 15,000 years ago.

The study, by Melba S. Ketchum, suggested such cryptids had sex with modern human females that resulted in hairy hominin hybrids: "Our data indicate that the North American Sasquatch is a hybrid species, the result of males of an unknown hominin species crossing with female Homo sapiens," Ketchum said in a statement. The scientific community was rightly skeptical, partly because Ketchum's research — which spanned five years — had not appeared in any peer-reviewed scientific journal.

Now the study has finally been published, kind of, and it raises more questions than answers. The piece, written by a team of researchers led by Ketchum, is titled "Novel North American Hominins: Next Generation Sequencing of Three Whole Genomes and Associated Studies" and published in the "DeNovo Scientific Journal."

The study, which used 111 samples of alleged Bigfoot hair, blood, mucus, toenail, bark scrapings, saliva and skin with hair and subcutaneous tissues attached, were collected by dozens of people from 34 sites around North America. Hairs were compared to reference samples from common animals including human, dog, cow, horse, deer, elk, moose, fox, bear, coyote, and wolf, and were said not to match any of them. [Rumor or Reality: The Creatures of Cryptozoology]

The report concluded, "we have extracted, analyzed and sequenced DNA from over one hundred separate samples... obtained from scores of collection sites throughout North America. Hair morphology was not consistent with human or any known wildlife hairs. DNA analysis showed two distinctly different types of results; the mitochondrial DNAcm was unambiguously human, while the nuclear DNA was shown to harbor novel structure and sequence... the data conclusively proves that the Sasquatch exist as an extant hominin and are a direct maternal descendent of modern humans."

DNA Sampling

So what can we make of this? The most likely interpretation is that the samples were contaminated. Whatever the sample originally was — Bigfoot, bear, human or something else — it's possible that the people who collected and handled the specimens (mostly Bigfoot buffs with little or no forensic evidence-gathering training) accidentally introduced their DNA into the sample, which can easily occur with something as innocent as a spit, sneeze or cough.

Though the study claims that "throughout this project exhaustive precautions were taken to minimize or eliminate contamination" in the laboratory, the likelihood that the samples were contaminated in the field by careless collection methods, normal environmental degradation, and other factors was not addressed. In some cases the person(s) submitting the alleged Bigfoot sample also contributed a sample of their own DNA to help rule out contamination, but the possibility of DNA contamination by others (such as hunters or hikers) could not be ruled out.

How did the team definitively determine that the samples were from Bigfoot? Well, they didn't; the report details where Bigfoot samples were retrieved: "hair found on tree" and "hair found on wire fence" are typical. In other words, the people collecting the samples didn't see what animal left it there, possibly weeks or months earlier—but if it seemed suspicious it might be Bigfoot. [Beasts & Monsters: How Reality Made Myth]

Scientific Journal?

Ketchum's study had been rejected by other scientific journals. So what about the journal that finally published the study, "DeNovo Scientific Journal"? The journal has no other studies, articles, papers or reviews. Ketchum's is the only paper the journal has "published." No libraries or universities subscribe to it, and the journal and its website apparently did not exist three weeks ago. There's no indication that the study was peer-reviewed by other knowledgeable scientists to assure quality. It is not an existing, known, or respected journal in any sense of the word.

This raises some red flags: If the results of the Ketchum et al. study are so valid and airtight, why didn't they appear in a respected, peer-reviewed scientific journal? Surely any reputable journal would fight Bigfoot tooth and Sasquatch nail to be the first to publish groundbreaking valid evidence of the existence of an unknown bipedal animal.

In fact, researchers from Oxford University and the Lausanne Museum of Zoology announced last year that they would test any supposed Sasquatch samples that believers volunteered to send.

"I'm challenging and inviting the cryptozoologists to come up with the evidence instead of complaining that science is rejecting what they have to say," geneticist Bryan Sykes of the University of Oxford told LiveScience in May 2012.

In an interview on the MonsterTalk podcast, Dr. Todd Disotell of the New York University Molecular Anthropology Laboratory dismissed the idea that Bigfoot could be a primate that arose as recently as Ketchum's DNA results claim: "If it's a primate that is so similar to us, that's only separated from us about 15,000 years ago, that's us," he said. "Even with people of European extraction, we've got 50,000 years of common ancestry since we left Africa." In other words, there is far more than 15,000 years of genetic diversity among ordinary humans, so the idea that something that split from our lineage would be as different from us as Bigfoot is absurd. 

It seems that the Ketchum Bigfoot DNA study, which was supposed to rock the world with its iron-clad scientific evidence of Bigfoot, is a bust, and tells us more about junk science than about the mysterious monster. Scientists will not be impressed, but Bigfoot believers might be; the report is available to the public for $30 from Ketchum's web site.

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of "Skeptical Inquirer" science magazine and author of six books including Tracking the Chupacabra: The Vampire Beast in Fact, Fiction, and Folklore.  His Web site is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

Do new recordings from Oregon's Blue Mountains offer good evidence of the mysterious bipedal creature known as Bigfoot? That's what some are claiming after hearing a recording of strange roars and shrieks given to The Oregonian newspaper.

When people think of Bigfoot evidence, casts of big footprints and blurry photos and films often come to mind. But someof the more interesting bits of evidence are sound recordings of alleged vocalizations. One company, Sierra Sounds, markets a CD called "The Bigfoot Recordings: The Edge of Discovery." Narrated by "Star Trek" actor Jonathan Frakes, the recording claims to have captured vocalizations among a Bigfoot family. The sounds include a series of guttural grunts, howls and growls.The liner notes offer testimonials from a "linguist" whose self-described credentials include playing the flute, speaking several languages, and having "a Russian friend [who] thinks I'm Russian."

She confidently asserts that the tapes are not faked, and that the vocal range is too broad to be made by a human. She also suggests that Bigfoot individuals have a language, possibly including "Sasquatch swear words."

In his 1992 book "Big Footprints: A Scientific Inquiry Into the Reality of Sasquatch" (Johnson Books, 1992), physical anthropologist Grover Krantz discussed his experience with Bigfoot recordings: "One ... tape was analyzed by some university sound specialists who determined that a human voice could not have made them; they required a much longer vocal tract. A Sasquatch investigator later asked one of these experts if a human could imitate the sound characteristics by simply cupping his hands around his mouth. The answer was yes." As for other such recordings, Krantz "listened to at least ten such tapes and find[s] no compelling reason to believe that any of them are what the recorders claimed them to be."

It's little wonder that one of the top scientific Bigfoot investigators held audio recordings in low regard: Sounds are simply poor evidence. [Infographic: Tracking Belief in Bigfoot]

Other explanations for the Blue Mountain sounds include foxes and coyotes, which — unlike Bigfoot — are known to exist in the area. Just because an animal call seems unusual or mysterious doesn't mean that it is. There are many factors than can affect how something sounds from far away, including temperature, wind and geographical features such as canyons.

Some suggest perhaps a hoaxer in the area is having a bit of fun with the local legend. And sometimes Bigfoot hunters go deep into the woods and "sound blast" pre-recorded "Bigfoot calls," hoping to elicit responses from any real Bigfoot nearby. Of course other people in the area can also hear the strange shrieks and howls coming from the dark wilderness and — not knowing that Bigfoot noisemakers are afoot — may report the sounds as genuine and unknown.

Acoustics and Bigfoot

According to "Good Morning America's John Muller, this latest recording is not the only one; in fact the mysterious sounds have been coming out of the area since at least November. This raises an obvious question: If anyone seriously believes these sounds could be real evidence for Bigfoot, why haven't investigators been able to photograph or videotape the source of the sounds? For example the cast of the optimistically titled Animal Planet show "Finding Bigfoot" has spent months in that area, and so far have come up empty-handed. Surely a well-financed cable television show would be able to provide its team members with the equipment they need; Neal Karlinsky of ABC News noted that the "Finding Bigfoot" crew has "every bit of cutting edge technology — night vision gear and all the sensors they can get their hands on." So what's the problem?

This isn't rocket science; it's the science of acoustics. With an array of sensitive microphones placed strategically throughout an area, it's relatively simple to triangulate the location of a sound to within a few feet almost instantly. If that same area is also covered by an array of wide-angle, high-resolution cameras (using infrared at night), it should be fairly simple to trigger cameras nearest the source of the sound to photograph whatever created it: fox, hoaxer, Bigfoot or something else. Researchers could even use camera-mounted drones to help locate the vocalizations and monitor the area. Another option would be to set up a perimeter around areas where Bigfoot are said to be especially active and use sound-activated cameras. [Rumor or Reality: The Creatures of Cryptozoology]

Surely a group of 8-to-10-foot tall hairy bipedal animals can't be that hard to find if you place cameras around a hotspot of activity and wait a few weeks. Of course covering huge swaths of wilderness would not be cheap. But it would be a small price to pay if it finally provides hard evidence of Bigfoot — instead of more ambiguous roars, grunts and howls in the wilderness.

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of "Skeptical Inquirer" science magazine and author of six books including "Tracking the Chupacabra: The Vampire Beast in Fact, Fiction, and Folklore." His Web site is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

Charismatic Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o may have just sealed his place in the history books, not for his impressive victories on the field, but for being involved in (knowingly or not) a widespread hoax involving a dying girlfriend who, it turns out, never existed.

In interviews last year, Te'o spoke about the personal obstacles and tragedies he'd overcome on his way to football excellence — most notably the deaths of his beloved grandmother and his girlfriend and love of his life, Lennay Kekua, within the same day. Te'o talked about the pain of losing both so close to him, as well as Kekua's emotional struggle — and finally losing battle — with leukemia. Though Te'o never met Kekua, the pair communicated mainly through e-mails and text messages. 

Information is contradictory and details remain murky: Was Te'o in on the hoax, capitalizing on a crowd-pleasing sympathetic rags-to-riches story? Or was he himself the victim of a cruel hoax by someone sharing her (or his) fictional but emotionally moving life story? Or does the truth lie somewhere in between?

There are of course many different types of hoaxes. For example author James Frey wrote a 2003 novel about drug addiction recovery, claiming it was a memoir; homeowners in Amityville, N.Y., created a hoax in 1977 by claiming that their house was haunted by demons; and in 1996 physicist Alan Sokal submitted a gibberish article that was accepted and published in "Social Text," a respected cultural studies journal. [Haunted? 10 Most Famous Ghosts]

A hoax that costs money, embarrassment, or inconvenience may be merely a nuisance. But some of the most damaging and outrageous hoaxes are those that manipulate people's emotions and outrage the world. Here are a few of the most outlandish.

Flight of the Balloon Boy

In 2009 a6-year-old boy named Falcon Heene was said to be in grave danger as he floated through Colorado skies in a silvery weather balloon created by his inventor father. His family claimed that he had climbed aboard the homemade balloon and launched, triggering a nationwide police search and rescue mission. It turned out that Heene, who became known as balloon boy, was in fact safe at home, and the family was suspected of staging the event in hopes of getting a reality TV show.

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

Perhaps the most malicious religious hoax in history, "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion" is a book supposedly revealing a secret Jewish conspiracy to take over the world. It first appeared in Russia in 1905, and though the book has been completely discredited as a forgery, it is still in print and remains widely circulated. Many people have endorsed this religious hoax, including actor Mel Gibson, Adolf Hitler, and automaker Henry Ford, who in 1920 paid to have a half-million copies of the book published. [Religious Mysteries: 8 Alleged Relics of Jesus]

The Tawana Brawley Attack

In 1987 America was riveted by the tragic news story of a young black girl named Tawana Brawley, who said she had been gang-raped by six white men, including several police officers. Rev. Al Sharpton and others fanned racial tensions and accused police of a cover-up. The following year, after an extensive investigation (and revelations about contradictions in Brawley's story), a grand jury concluded that the girl had hoaxed the incident. A New York prosecutor successfully sued both Brawley and Sharpton for defamation in a case whose racial legacy remains today.

The Innocence of Muslims

The trailer for the 2012 film "Innocence of Muslims" led to riots over its depiction of the prophet Muhammad as a womanizer, child molester and criminal. Several Americans were killed in protests linked to the film. To date it's not clear that the finished film actually exists, though a trailer for it does (it appeared on YouTube, sparking the riots). The producer hoaxed the actors and crew, later dubbing inflammatory lines that insulted Islam over their real dialogue. Whether or not the infamous anti-Muslim film exists, many around the world were led to believe it did, and people died because of it.

The Satanic Panic

"Satan's Underground: The Extraordinary Story of One Woman's Escape" was a 1991 memoir written by a woman named Lauren Stratford, in which she described her first-hand experience inside a Satanic cult. Stratford's book included horrific depictions of baby-killing rituals, pornography, torture, rape and other abuse. Stratford claimed to have been continually physically and sexually abused by her parents and forced into prostitution. The book became a bestseller, and was instrumental in fueling the "Satanic panic" hysteria that swept across America in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Yet the story was discovered to be a complete hoax. Stratford was actually a fake name used by a woman named Laurel Rose Willson, and none of her claims were true; every sensational detail was made up. Stratford later changed her name and began claiming to be a Jewish Holocaust survivor.

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of "Skeptical Inquirer" science magazine and author of six books including "Media Mythmakers: How Journalists, Activists, and Advertisers Mislead Us." His Web site is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

Seven people — six women and one man — were shot dead last week in Pakistan as they returned home from their work at a community health center. They were only the most recent victims in a series of killings over the past weeks of health workers in that country; in December, nine polio vaccination workers were killed.

What's behind the violence toward health workers? Conspiracy theories, urban legends and rumors have spread throughout the region that those pretending to offer medical help are really trying to harm or kill people.

Medical anthropologist Nancy Scheper-Hughes, who has studied the effects of rumors about organ theft, says that in many poor areas of the world — such as in the slums surrounding Brazil's major cities — residents sometimes avoid treatment in public hospitals out of fear that their organs may be taken. Myths and urban legends not only keep many from getting vaccines and medical help, but they can also decrease participation in organ donation programs (by those fearing that hospitals may try to kill them for their organs if they donate), Scheper-Hughes said.

Foreign (and especially Western) doctors are often particularly distrusted as potentially harboring dark motives under the guise of medical help, though in poor regions a socioeconomic imbalance often sows distrust between even native doctors and their patients. They may share a common language, but the educated and (relatively) prosperous doctors — with their strange medical jargon and equipment — are often worlds apart from their poor patients visiting public clinics. [The 10 Most Intriguing Conspiracy Theories]

It's not just foreign countries: The link between conspiracy theories and vaccinations appeared in America. Many people believe that childhood MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccinations are linked to childhood autism, and that the link was covered up by the government and medical establishment. The vaccine-autism link claim was originally made by Dr. Andrew Wakefield and published in a small 1998 case report. The British General Medical Council found he had acted unethically in his research, and his paper, which was championed by celebrities including Jenny McCarthy, was retracted. The vaccine-autism link has been completely discredited in follow-up studies and research.

Suspicion and fear of vaccination is nothing new; it's been around for centuries. There was strong resistance to the very first vaccine, created for smallpox in the late 1700s. When the public learned that the smallpox vaccine was created by taking pus from the wounds of infected cows and giving it to humans, they were disgusted by the idea; some even believed the vaccination could turn children into cows. In England, anti-vaccination groups formed in 1853, claiming that the smallpox vaccine was ineffective, dangerous and part of a government conspiracy.

In some cases there is a grain of truth to the rumors, a legitimate reason to be suspicious of medical authorities. The upcoming film on the search for Osama bin Laden, "Zero Dark Thirty," includes a historically accurate depiction of a Pakistani doctor who was hired by the Central Intelligence Agency to give out a hepatitis B vaccine while actually trying to collect DNA samples from bin Laden's suspected compound to verify his presence. Though no children were harmed and the attempt was unsuccessful, it fueled suspicion and caused a backlash against adult and childhood vaccinations in the region.

On Monday (Jan. 7), deans of America's top medical universities, including Harvard and Johns Hopkins, issued a letter to President Barack Obama condemning the CIA's actions as endangering legitimate medical personnel and exacerbating a public health threat.

Muslim clerics have attempted to reassure concerned parents that the vaccinators (mostly women) mean no harm, and in some places the vaccinations have resumed. But the real victims of these xenophobic rumors will likely be the youngest and most vulnerable.

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer science magazine and author of six books including "Media Mythmakers: How Journalists, Activists, and Advertisers Mislead Us." His website is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

A lot of things happened in 2012, including scientific breakthroughs, a presidential re-election, and a tragic school shooting. But a lot of things didn't happen this past year.

We realize it's a little strange to discuss things that never occurred — after all, countless things didn't happen in 2012, from an asteroid hitting Earth, to Justin Bieber marrying a supermodel, to Abraham Lincoln climbing out of his grave to praise Steven Spielberg's  "Lincoln" as being more historically accurate than "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter."

But there were a handful of stories that made the news, often with a splash, promising big news, and turned out to be non-stories, non-events. Here are a few.

Eagle Snatches Baby in Canadian Park

It was a bizarre, terrifying sight seen by millions of people: A large bird videotaped in the skies above a Canadian park suddenly swooping down and snatching a baby. The bird drops the child a few seconds later, flying away and leaving shocked bystanders. A day after the video went viral, students at an animation school, Centre NAD, admitted that they had created the hoaxed video. A statement issued by the school credited (or blamed) three of its students and explained, "both the eagle and the kid were created in 3D animation and integrated in to the film afterwards." As interesting — and scary — as the event was, it turned out to be a non-story.

Mayan Apocalypse

According to many, Dec. 21, 2012, was to be the end of times. Or the beginning of the best of times, depending on who you talked to. 2012-inspired folks tended to fall into one of two categories: The gloom-and-doomers expected global cataclysm involving death, fire, planetary collapse, pole shifting, and other unspecified natural (or even supernatural) disasters. The second kind were more optimistic, expecting Dec. 21 to usher in a new age of cosmic peace, harmony, and global enlightenment. Scholars patiently explained that despite dramatic claims to the contrary, the Mayans didn't actually hold much significance for the date, and they certainly didn't think the world would end on that date. Their calendar did not, as many assumed, "end" on that day; it was simply the end of one cycle and the beginning of another.

Much of the hype and concern over the date originated not from ancient nor modern Mayas, but instead New Agers. Neither doomsday nor world peace broke out, leaving some people relieved, others confused, and many amused. [Oops! 11 Failed Doomsday Predictions]

Bigfoot Proven Through DNA

This was also to be the year that genetic testing confirmed the existence of Bigfoot. According to a press release issued by a company called DNA Diagnostics detailing research by a Texas veterinarian, "A team of scientists ... confirms the existence of a novel hominin hybrid species, commonly called 'Bigfoot' or 'Sasquatch,' living in North America," the release reads.

Not only that, but Bigfoot is a half-human hybrid that had sex with human women approximately 15,000 years ago — or so the theory goes. If it all sounds a little dubious, it should: there was no evidence offered at all. The evidence, which has allegedly taken five years to collect and analyze, has yet to be published in any peer-reviewed scientific journal. Until and unless scientists are allowed to examine the evidence, Bigfoot DNA will remain a non-story.

UFOs Invade Denver

In November, an unusual video of mysterious dark objects moving very quickly and erratically over the skies of Denver, Colo., caused a national stir. An anonymous UFO buff showed KDVR Fox News reporter Heidi Hemmat home videos he had taken from an open field during the past summer of "strange objects ... nobody can explain."

The UFOs, it was claimed, seemed to be taking off and flying over the Mile High City at around Noon on many different occasions. The TV report featured an aviation expert named Steve Cowell who stated categorically that in his opinion the objects he saw in the video were not airplanes, helicopters, nor birds. Many people favored the flying saucer theory, though none were able to explain why no one in Denver had noticed the extraterrestrial spacecraft that repeatedly flew over their city at midday. Skeptics noted that the objects caught on film moved a lot like insects flying in the air, and that the cameraman probably simply recorded bugs. With no further evidence of aliens, the buzz about the Denver UFO finally faded away. [UFO Quiz: What's Really Out There]

Denver wasn't the only city to have its skies lit up with alleged UFOs. A single week in December saw strange illuminated objects hovering in the sky above San Francisco and Brooklyn, N.Y. The dancing lights, it seems, were likely the usual UFO fare: some sort of floating object with a light. "It looks to me like it could have been balloons, carrying lights," Bing Quock, assistant director of the Morrison Planetarium at the California Academy of Sciences, told CBS San Francisco, of the San Francisco lights. Another idea: Chinese floating lanterns, which have spurred at least one other, now-debunked, UFO sighting.

A foursome of lights above Lebanon, Mo., in May, shown in a shaky night-vision video, also sparked a UFO report. While the videographer Jim Barnhill was sure the sight was of extraterrestrial origin, it seemed to have all the makings of an Earthly aircraft: blinking strobe lights characteristic of known aircraft; and a flight altitude, pattern and speed characteristic of known aircraft.

It would have been nice if Bigfoot had been proven or aliens had made their presence known (and not nice if an eagle had snatched a baby or the world ended). But there's always next year...

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of "Skeptical Inquirer" science magazine and author of six books including Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries. His Web site is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

Genetic testing confirms the legendary Bigfoot is a human relative that arose some 15,000 years ago — at least according to a press release issued by a company called DNA Diagnostics detailing supposed work by a Texas veterinarian.

The release and alleged study by Melba S. Ketchum also suggests such cryptids had sex with modern human females that resulted in hairy hominin hybrids, but the scientific community is dubious about her claim.

"A team of scientists can verify that their five-year long DNA study, currently under peer-review, confirms the existence of a novel hominin hybrid species, commonly called 'Bigfoot' or 'Sasquatch,' living in North America," the release reads. "Researchers' extensive DNA sequencing suggests that the legendary Sasquatch is a human relative that arose approximately 15,000 years ago."

For her study, Ketchum obtained three "whole nuclear genomes from purported Sasquatch samples. The genome sequencing shows that Sasquatch mtDNA is identical to modern Homo sapiens, but Sasquatch nuDNA is a novel, unknown hominin related to Homo sapiens and other primate species." (Mitochondrial DNA, or mtDNA, is the DNA that resides in the cell's energy-producing structures, and is typically passed down from mothers, while nuclear DNA, nuDNA, resides in the cells' nuclei and is passed down from both parents to offspring.)

"Our data indicate that the North American Sasquatch is a hybrid species, the result of males of an unknown hominin species crossing with female Homo sapiens," the statement reads. [Infographic: Tracking Belief in Bigfoot]

Any proof?

It's a fascinating theory.

So where's the evidence? Well, there is none. Not yet, anyway: Ketchum's research has not appeared in any peer-reviewed scientific journal, and there's no indication when that might happen. If the data are good and the science is sound, any reputable science journal would jump at the chance to be the first to publish this groundbreaking information. Until then, Ketchum has refused to let anyone else see her evidence.

Of course the history of Bigfoot is rife with exaggerated and premature claims about proof of the creature's existence. For decades, various types of evidence have been offered as final, definitive proof, ranging from Bigfoot hair to blood to dead bodies. Without exception, the evidence has always been hoaxed, misidentification or inconclusive.

Because Ketchum has released no information at all about her findings (nor have they been examined by outside experts), it's impossible to evaluate the validity of her conclusions. But an important clue can be found in her statement that "Sasquatch mtDNA is identical to modern Homo sapiens."

If the mitochontrial DNA is identical to Homo sapiens (i.e., modern humans), then this suggests one of two options. The first, endorsed by Ketchum, is that Bigfoot ancestors had sex with women about 15,000 years ago and created a half-human hybrid species currently hiding across North America. [Rumor or Reality: The Creatures of Cryptozoology]

There is, however, another, simpler interpretation of such results: The samples were contaminated. Whatever the sample originally was — Bigfoot, bear, human or something else — it's possible that the people who collected and handled the specimens accidentally introduced their DNA into the sample, which can easily occur with something as innocent as a spit, sneeze or cough. No one outside of Ketchum's team knows how this alleged Bigfoot DNA was collected, from where or by whom. It could have been collected by the world's top forensics experts, or by a pair of amateur Bigfoot buffs with no evidence-gathering training.

Confirming it's Bigfoot

How did the team definitively determine that the samples were from a Bigfoot? Did they take a blood or saliva sample from a living Bigfoot? If so, how did they get that close, and why didn't they simply capture it or photograph it? If the samples were found in the wild, how do they know it wasn't left by another animal — or possibly even a hunter, hiker or camper who left human genetic material?

Previous alleged Bigfoot samples subjected to DNA analysis have been deemed "unknown" or "unidentified." However, "unknown" or "unidentified" results do not mean "Bigfoot." There are many reasons why a DNA sample might come back unknown, including that it was contaminated or too degraded by environmental conditions. Or it could simply mean that the animal it came from was not among the reference samples that the laboratory used for comparison. There is no reference sample of Bigfoot DNA to compare it with, so by definition, there cannot be a conclusive match.

Ketchum also issued a statementrequesting that the U.S. government immediately recognize Bigfoot as "an indigenous people and immediately protect their human and Constitutional rights against those who would see in their physical and cultural differences a 'license' to hunt, trap, or kill them." Since no Bigfoot has ever been hunted, trapped or killed, it's not clear that the creatures — if they exist — require any special federal protection.

Ketchum's is not the only genetics-based project intended to find Bigfoot. Earlier this year, researchers from Oxford University and the Lausanne Museum of Zoology announced they were collecting samples of alleged Bigfoot and Yeti hair for genetic identification. Oxford geneticist Bryan Sykes collected materials from the public from May through September, and is currently conducting DNA analysis. Once the results are in, he plans to submit his results to a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

If Ketchum has the definitive proof she claims, the world will soon know about it, and Bigfoot will be proven once and for all. On the other hand, if the evidence never appears, or is inconclusive and flawed, the search will continue.

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer science magazine and author of six books, including Tracking the Chupacabra and Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries. His website is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

When James Bond and Séverine imbibe the suave secret agent's drink of choice, rather than an alluring vodka martini reaching their lips, a cold one, of the pale ale Heineken brand, does the trick.

While that and several other memorable scenes have grossed the franchise's latest, "Skyfall," a whopping $0.5 billion worldwide since the film opened two weeks ago — surpassing "Titanic" as the top 2D film in the United Kingdom — possibly the largest financial success can be seen in product placement.

Yes, Heineken paid $45 million to have their beer replace 007's venerable (and venerated) vodka martini — shaken, not stirred. The money also paid for a scene in which the dashing duo implies the beverage is the best pale lager on the planet.

So does Bond sell … Heineken and the like?

Advertisers seem to think so. Part of the reason the film is so financially successful is that much of its $200 million production costs were covered by advertisers wanting their products in the film, including Coke, Sony, Heineken, BMW, Omega watches and many others.

Scenes chockfull of "ads" have raised the hackles of many Bond fans, who argue the franchise sold out by shilling everything from BMWs to Pan American Airlines. But amid all the grousing about product placement and artistic integrity, one question has rarely been asked: Are these advertisers getting their money's worth? [The 5 Reasons We Still Love James Bond]

After all, just because James Bond is seen driving a particular type of car, or drinking a particular brand of beer doesn't mean that audiences will rush from theaters to buy that car and that beer.

The answer is not cut-and-dried, Gail Tom, a professor of marketing at California State University, told LiveScience. "John Wanamaker's assessment of the effectiveness of advertisement offered in the 1900s — 'Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half' — rings true regarding the effectiveness of product placement," said Tom,author of "Consumer Behavior: A Primer" (Amazon Digital Services, Inc. 2011).

Tom notes that "in the movie 'E.T.', the little boy Elliot used Reese's Pieces to make friends with the alien. This is often cited as among the first successful product placements. Tom Cruise wore Ray-Bans in the movie 'Risky Business,' and shortly thereafter the sale of Ray-Bans increased. Tom Cruise wore Aviator sunglasses in 'Top Gun.' Shortly thereafter, sales of those sunglasses increased. These correlation findings would suggest that product placement works and more than pays for itself."

Tom cautions, however, that most of the high-profile examples of effective product placement in films occurred in a different time. "These examples of success occurred at a time when product placement was new and populated movies much less frequently than we find in today's movies," he said.

Today, due to media literacy efforts and increased exposure to advertisements, consumers are savvier to such marketing efforts and recognize ads for what they are.

The effectiveness of product-placement advertising also depends on the product and its audience. For example, no matter how many Heinekens or Big Macs James Bond consumes on-screen, Mormons and Muslims won't buy beer, and vegetarians and Hindus won't buy hamburgers. College students may crack open a Heineken, but the cool Omega watches and sleek BMWs will still be out of their price range. For these "high involvement" products, Tom says, "consumer decision-making is more deliberate. Seeing Bond drive a BMW might increase BMW's cool factor, but not many consumers will quench their thirst and run out and buy the car." [Top 5 Most Outrageous James Bond Gadgets]

Why is it so hard to know whether product placement works? Statisticians and scientists caution that correlation does not imply causation: Just because sales of a product featured in a film increase does not conclusively prove anything.

 "To state that the advertisement(s) caused the change in sales," Tom said, "you have to prove that the increase in sales is not due to countless other factors like seasonal variation, competitors' activities, the general economy, other concomitant promotional events, changes in social value, current pop culture, and so on. To nullify these other competing explanations [can be] very difficult or impossible."

So was having James Bond quaff a Heineken on-screen worth $45 million? Heineken seems to think so — and that may be all that matters.

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of "Skeptical Inquirer" science magazine and author of six books including "Media Mythmakers: How Journalists, Activists, and Advertisers Mislead Us." His website is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

The trailer for the film "Innocence of Muslims" recently led to riots over its depiction of the prophet Muhammad as a womanizer, child molester and criminal. Several Americans, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, were killed in protests that have been linked to the film.

Despite the outrage it's not clear that the film actually exists; certainly a trailer for it does, but a trailer isn't a film. Investigation into the anti-Muslim "film" is ongoing, but as yet there seems to be no evidence that the film exists other than as a deadly hoax. People create hoaxes for many reasons, but when fraud mixes with religious fervor the results can range from the comical to the deadly.

Here's a look at seven religious hoaxes throughout history.

1. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

Perhaps the most infamous and malicious religious hoax in history, "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion" is a book supposedly revealing a secret Jewish conspiracy to take over the world. It first appeared in Russia in 1905, and though the book has been completely discredited as a forgery, it is still in print and remains widely circulated.Many people have endorsed this religious hoax, including actor Mel Gibson, Adolf Hitler, and automaker Henry Ford, who in 1920 paid to have a half-million copies of the book published. [Top 10 Conspiracy Theories]

2. The Shroud of Turin and Other Holy Relics

Though many believe that Italy's Shroud of Turin is the burial shroud of Jesus, there's compelling evidence the shroud is in fact a hoax, including a 1389 letter from French Bishop Pierre d'Arcisto Pope Clement stating that a painter confessed to creating it. Indeed, the Bishop's evidence was so convincing that even Pope Clement acknowledged it as a forgery — one of countless faked religious relics circulating at the time. Carbon dating of the Shroud of Turin revealed it does not date back to the time of Christ but instead 14 centuries later — exactly when the forger confessed to making it. Even more damning for its authenticity, there is no record of its existence before then; if it really is the burial shroud of Jesus Christ, it seems suspicious that no one knew anything about it for 1,300 years. Though many remain convinced of its authenticity, the historical and scientific evidence suggest the Shroud of Turin is probably a religious hoax. As researcher Joe Nickell noted in his book "Relics of the Christ" (The University Press of Kentucky, 2007),the shroud on display in Turin is only one of over 40 such Jesus shrouds — all claimed to be the real one. [Who Was Jesus, the Man?]

3. The Cardiff Giant

When farm workers digging a well in Cardiff, N.Y., uncovered a fossilized man in 1869 they found something remarkable. The Cardiff Giant, as the figure became known, was a somewhat realistic figure with roughly human dimensions — except that it was nearly 10 feet tall. It was clearly something unique — but what exactly it was divided the public. Some believed it was a stone carving, but who would have made it so long ago that it was buried so deep in the ground? Others, including a local reverend, were convinced it was proof of the literal truth of Biblical scripture, specifically Genesis 6:4 ("There were giants in the earth in those days" KJV). Here, finally, was one of those Biblical giants, discovered on a rural New York farm! It was in fact a clever hoax by a man named George Hull who had planted the carved stone where it would later be found by the farm hands, partly to prove the Bible literalists wrong.

4. Indian Guru Sai Baba's Legerdemain

One of the most influential spiritual leaders in India, Satya Sai Baba died last year at the age of 84. For over five decades the charismatic guru enthralled and mystified followers by performing minor miracles, including producing holy ash, watches, statues, necklaces and rings seemingly out of thin air. However, skeptical investigators including Basava Premanand of the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations accused Sai Baba of simple magicians' tricks, and pointed out that all the objects were small and easily concealed in his hands and long-sleeved robes. In at least one case Sai Baba was caught on film by British investigator Professor Richard Wiseman secretly pulling small objects from his person while pretending they appeared out of nowhere.

5. The Discovery of Noah's Ark

Those seeking to find archaeological and historical proof of events in the Bible have often looked for — and, some claim, even found — Noah's Ark. Though many claims of finding the ark are honest mistakes, in 1993 a man hoaxed CBS television into running atwo-hour primetime special titled "The Incredible Discovery of Noah's Ark." It featured a man named George Jammal, who claimed to have found the ark on a mountain in Turkey. As proof of his incredible claim, he proudly displayed a piece of wood from the ark; it was in fact scrap pine marinated in soy sauce, and Jammal was an actor who had never even been to Turkey.

6. The Ossuary of James, Brother of Jesus

In 2002 an antiquities dealer in Israel claimed to have discovered a limestone ossuary (used to hold bones of the dead) with an inscription in Aramaic on one side of the box identifying its (missing) contents as those of "James, Son of Joseph, Brother of Jesus." The find made international news because if genuine, it might provide archaeological evidence for Jesus Christ. However many archaeologists were skeptical for several reasons, including that there was no clear provenance (history) for the item and because carved rosette patterns on the other side of the box were rounded from age and decay, while the script on the disputed inscription had sharp edges suggesting it was recently added. A chalk wash also appeared to have been added to the lettering to make it appear older than it actually was. In 2003 the Israeli Antiquities Authority published a report concluding that the inscription was a modern forgery carved on a genuinely old ossuary box. [Faux Real: A Gallery of Forgeries]

7. God Speaks to Peter Popoff Via Short-Wave Radio

One of the most prominent televangelists in the 1980s was Peter Popoff, who, during his services and revivals, would call out names and home addresses of audience members he'd never met. He even knew personal details such as family members' illnesses or their deceased loved ones' names. It seemed that Popoff got his messages from God or angels, and it greatly impressed his audiences and followers.

In 1986, magician James "The Amazing" Randi heard about Popoff's amazing abilities and decided to investigate. Randi noticed an apparently minor detail that most people missed: Popoff was wearing a hearing aid or earpiece. Using a radio scanner, Randi discovered that Popoff was actually getting biographical information about audience members from his wife (who had earlier spoken to the audience) using a short-wave radio. The scandal tarnished Popoff's ministry, but he eventually recovered and remains active today.

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer science magazine and author of Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries. His Web site is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

Opponents of genetically modified crops have jumped on the results of a new study, which claims to have linked the consumption of GM maize with the development of tumors in rats -- despite widespread criticism of the research from independent scientists around the world.

The paper, published in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology, has generated highly tweetable headlines, including the Global Post's alarming announcement that: "Monsanto corn causes tumors in rats, new study finds."

Far below the horrifying pictures of mice with enormous tumors, some of the most frightening articles embed caveats. But, experts say, the criticisms should trump the results of the study, which used questionable methods, tumor-prone rats, and poor statistical techniques.

The research also came out of a French research lab, whose anti-GM studies have been harshly criticized in the past.

PHOTOS: Facts and Fables About Eco-Labels

"There is very little scientific credibility to this paper," said Martina Newell-McGloughlin, a plant biotechnologist at the University of California, Davis. "The flaws in the test are just incredible to me. To be totally honest with you, the type of statistical analysis they used is really a type of fishing expedition. One individual referred to it as ‘fantasy statistics.'"

"You never, ever design an experiment to look for specific outcomes," she added. "If you're a real scientist, based on observations you find, you put forward hypotheses about how you are getting these types of outcomes. They do none of this."

The study, which is written in stilted English with long, convoluted sentences and highly technical language, reported the results of an experiment that fed maize to about 200 rats over a two-year period.

Divided into 10 groups of 20, some animals were given maize that had been grown in water treated with various levels of the herbicide Roundup. Other groups ate maize that had been engineered by Monsanto to contain a gene that made the crop resistant to Roundup. Some of the rats got maize that was both genetically modified and treated with the herbicide.

In the groups that ate engineered maize, the researchers reported that 70 percent of female rats and 50 percent of males died prematurely. Numbers were the same for rats that ate herbicide-treated food. In comparison, 20 percent of females and 30 percent of males in the control group that ate herbicide-free, non-GM maize.

The study authors did not respond to requests by Discovery News for comment. But a New York Times article quoted lead researcher Gilles-Eric Séralini, of the University of Caen in France, as saying, "The results were really alarming."

Criticisms began to roll in immediately.

One immediate problem, Newell-McGloughlin said, is that the line of rodents used in the study, known as Sprague-Dawley rats, are frequently used in cancer research because a large majority of them naturally develop tumors at a high rate, regardless of what they eat or how they're raised.

What's more, the rats were allowed to eat an unlimited amount of food, which increases their chances of developing tumors. And two is a very old age for these rats, which could account for the large rate of cancer seen across all groups, including the controls.

The small size of the control group also raised red flags. Even experienced scientists in the field had trouble interpreting data in the study, as seen in comments collected by the UK's Science Media Center, but it appears that the study included just 10 or 20 control animals.

That means there were at least nine times more test animals than control animals. If anything, studies of this kind usually include two or three times more controls than experimental animals.

The results don't make a lot of sense, either. No matter how much of either herbicide-laden or genetically modified maize the rats ate in proportion to their other food, rates of cancer and premature death remained the same. However, to be meaningful, toxicology studies like this should show a dose-dependent response, which means that if something is toxic, more of it should be more toxic.

Looking at the data, it appears that the study authors never tested their results to see if the numbers they turned up could have occurred by random chance, said David Tribe, a microbiologist at the University of Melbourne in Australia. And given the small numbers of animals used in the study, that's a real possibility.

ANALYSIS: Controversy Swarms Bee and Pesticide Study

"The central issue in this study has to do with random effects, and it turns out these rats are not all that well suited to an investigation of this length of time," Tribe said. "Just because they are getting tumors doesn't mean that the food is causing it or that the herbicide is causing it. It could be that the difference between groups is just a result of random events leading to tumors."

Séralini has been criticized in the past for lack of scientific merit in previous research that also came out against GM crops. In 2007, the European Food Safety Authority offered a sharply worded response to one of Séralini's earlier studies.

"The statistical analysis made by the authors of the paper did not take into account certain important statistical considerations," the EFSA wrote. "The assumptions underlying the statistical methodology employed by the authors led to misleading results."

Many tens of millions of people and animals have consumed substantial quantities of genetically modified soybeans, maize and other crops around the world over the last 15 years, Newell-McGloughiln said. Yet, there has been no evidence of a rise in related health outcomes. Nor have many other scientific studies turned up any concerns about the health effects of GM crops.

Despite the large number of severe criticisms that have been launched at the new study, it is likely to cause lasting damage to the reputation of GM foods, especially among people who read only headlines.

"Unfortunately, the visual of these rats and the pervasiveness of the stories will most probably have a negative effect, especially since they are spreading through the net without context or fact-filters," Newell-McGloughlin said. "You can only hope that people will take the time to check out the facts behind the images. However, for many, a picture paints a thousand words, and that is as deep as they will go."

This story was provided by Discovery News.

"Baywatch" star Donna D'Errico was recently injured on a mountain in Turkey while on a quest to find Noah's Ark. The former model and actress was on Mount Ararat with a documentary film crew when she slipped in a rockslide; a colleague caught her before she fell off a cliff.

Climbing any mountain can be dangerous, and Ararat is no exception: In addition to the dangers associated with altitude sickness, rock slides, and capricious weather, D'Errico and her team faced the possibility of abduction, since previous climbers have claimed such. After she fell and injured herself, she posted photos of her cuts and bruises online. Ironically the attention that her photos received doomed the project because her presence there and status as a celebrity increased her chances of being kidnapped for ransom. "If they [potential kidnappers] found out that there's someone, even of minor notoriety on the mountain, it could put the whole group in serious danger," D'Errico said.

Why would a Hollywood beauty risk life and limb (not to mention some likely teasing) in search of what many people believe to be a myth? D'Errico said that she was inspired to search for Noah's Ark ever since she was a child after seeing a movie about it. D'Errico told ABC News, "I know what I'm doing and I know that this is my lifelong dream and I believe in the Bible," she said—referring to Genesis 8:4, which states "on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat."

Searching for the Ark

D'Errico may be the most recent (and perhaps the highest-profile) searcher, but in fact, Noah's Ark has been "found" many times. Nearly 40 years ago, Violet M. Cummings, author of "Noah's Ark: Fable or Fact?" (Creation-Science Research Center, 1973) claimed — without evidence — that Noah's Ark had been found on Mount Ararat. According to her book and film "In Search of Noah's Ark," (Scholastic Book Services), "there is now actual photographic evidence that Noah's Ark really does exist. ... Scientists have used satellites, computers, and powerful cameras to pinpoint the Ark's exact location on Mt. Ararat." Nearly 40 years later, that evidence remains elusive. [Religious Mysteries: 8 Alleged Relics of Jesus]

In February 1993 CBS aired a two-hour primetime special titled, "The Incredible Discovery of Noah's Ark." It included the riveting testimony of a George Jammal, who claimed not only to have personally seen the Ark on Ararat but to have recovered a piece of it. Unfortunately for believers, it was all a hoax. Jammal was later revealed as a paid actor who had never even been to Turkey and whose piece of the Ark was not an unknown ancient timber but instead modern pine soaked in soy sauce.

In March 2006, a team of researchers found a rock formation on Ararat that might resemble a huge ark, nearly covered in glacial ice. A few months later a team of archaeologists from a Christian organization found yet another rock formation that might be Noah's Ark — this time at 13,000 feet (3,962 meters) in the Elburz Mountains of Iran.

Religion and science

Like those before her, D'Errico insists that her quest is based in science as much as personal faith. True believers have long used science and powerful technology in their search for Noah's Ark, including satellite imaging and powerful cameras. She was quoted in The Daily Mail as saying that she had studied the reports of Noah's Ark extensively, and she "knows where the sightings have been. According to my research, the ark lays broken into at least two, but most likely three, pieces."

The Ark story is scientifically implausible; there simply wouldn't be enough space on the boat to accommodate two of every living animal (including dinosaurs), along with the food and water necessary to keep them alive. Still, biblical literalists — those who believe that proof of the Bible's events remains to be found — have spent lives and fortunes trying to validate their beliefs.

D'Errico reluctantly abandoned her dream of searching for Noah's Ark and returned to Los Angeles — for now. She said she plans to return to Ararat as soon as possible to complete her mission.

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer science magazine and author of Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries. His Web site is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

A video taken of the Antarctic research station Neumayer-Station III appears to show what some are calling a UFO over the South Pole.

The video posted to YouTube seems to show a round, blurry object floating above the station on Aug. 10. Speculation has run rampant, with conspiracy theorists and UFO buffs swapping explanations ranging from government collaboration with aliens to a top-secret test of some new cutting-edge secret weapon.

While a definitive explanation has not been found, several elements suggest a prosaic answer. The supposed UFO appears more or less directly over the research station; it also appears to be nearly perfectly round and about the right size for a balloon. Neumayer-Station III, a scientific research station, carries out tests and experiments in a wide variety of areas, including geophysics, meteorology and atmospheric chemistry. Weather balloons are used extensively to study and sample the atmosphere at different times and altitudes above Antarctica.

One UFO buff admitted that most of the evidence suggested it was indeed a balloon, except for one mysterious fact: "none could explain why the object appeared in just a few frames." It's true that the object appears in only a few frames of the footage. However this becomes much less mysterious when you realize that the original video has been sped up. That's what happens in time-lapse photography: objects that are not stationary for long periods of time (people, vehicles, animals, clouds, etc.) only appear in a few frames — depending of course on the frame rate of the video and how fast they move. There's nothing mysterious about it. [UFO Quiz: What's Really Out There?]

If it were a balloon that had been put aloft for hours, it would have been visible for a longer duration than seen in the video. On the other hand, not all experiments using balloons necessarily last for hours; some may only take a few minutes. It's also possible that someone at the station was merely conducting a routine equipment test in preparation for an upcoming experiment or sampling: The balloon went up, everything worked perfectly, so it came back down.

Though the "Neumayer UFO" is being discussed on various UFO and conspiracy theory websites, there's a glaring contradiction in suggesting it's evidence of extraterrestrials. If it is indeed a spacecraft instead of a balloon or some other mundane object, why would the government — which is routinely accused of going to extraordinary lengths to cover up all evidence of aliens — intentionally release the video to the public?

Unlike an Air Force base where people live and work nearby and can usually photograph or videotape what's in the skies above at will, Neumayer-Station III in Antarctica is essentially inaccessible to the public — except in limited ways such as a Web cam that the government has exclusive access and control over. Did this somehow get past the global UFO censors?

Conspiracy-minded people will always search for, and often find, anomalies, things that they don't understand or believe to be odd or unusual for some reason. For some people any ambiguous light or object in the sky they don't recognize can be turned into a possible UFO sighting.

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer science magazine and author of Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries. His website is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

Modern science relies upon researchers sharing their work so that their peers can check and verify success or failure. But most scientists still don't share one crucial piece of information — the source codes of the computer programs driving much of today's scientific progress.

Such secrecy comes at a time when many researchers write their own source codes — human-readable instructions for how computer programs do their work — to run simulations and analyze experimental results. Now, a group of scientists is arguing for new standards that require newly published studies to make their source codes available. Otherwise, they say, the scientific method of peer review and reproducing experiments to verify results is basically broken.

"Far too many pieces of code critical to the reproduction, peer-review and extension of scientific results never see the light of day," said Andrew Morin, a postdoctoral fellow in the structural biology research and computing lab at Harvard University. "As computing becomes an ever larger and more important part of research in every field of science, access to the source code used to generate scientific results is going to become more and more critical."

Missing source codes mean extra headache for scientists who want to closely follow up on new studies or check for errors. Such unavailability of source codes can also lead to more bad science slipping through the cracks — unreleased and irreproducible codes played a part in a Duke University case that led to study retractions, scientist resignations and canceled clinical drug trials for lung and breast cancer in 2010.

But of the 20 most-cited science journals in 2010, only three require computer source codes to be made available upon publication. Morin and six colleagues from universities across  the U.S. proposed making such policies universal in a policy forum paper that appears in today's (April 12) issue of the Journal Science (Science is one of the three top journals that require the availability of source codes).

Public funding or policy-setting agencies should throw their weight behind the idea of sharing source codes openly, researchers said. They also proposed that research institutions and universities should use open-source software licenses to allow for source-code sharing while protecting the commercial rights to possible innovation spinoffs from research.

"The encouraging thing is that all of the proposals we have made have already been implemented by various journals, funding agencies and research institutions in one form or another — so there is not a lot of innovation required," Morin told InnovationNewsDaily.

Many scientists have learned to write computer code without formal training, and so they may simply not know of the open-source software culture of sharing such codes, Morin and his colleagues said. Others may simply be embarrassed by the "ugly" code they write for their own research.

But even one-off computer code scripts written for a single study should undergo examination and peer review, Morin said. He has often ended up sharing, reusing or adapting code he had originally written with the intention of a single use.

"If I knew there was a publication requirement for my code, I probably would have done things like comment it better, kept better track of it, and generally put a bit more thought and effort into my code — which would have certainly helped me and others later on when I inevitably tried to reuse or share it, even if just with others in my own research group," Morin said.

This story was provided by InnovationNewsDaily, a sister site to Live Science. You can follow InnovationNewsDaily Senior Writer Jeremy Hsu on Twitter @ScienceHsu. Follow InnovationNewsDaily on Twitter @News_Innovation, or on Facebook.

Dutchman Joran van der Sloot, the main suspect in the disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway, was arrested in Chile last May in Peru, where he allegedly murdered a young woman named Stephany Flores Ramirez in a casino hotel room in the capital city of Lima. Peruvian authorities reported that van der Sloot admitted killing Ramirez, though he later claimed that his confession was false and had been coerced.

Van der Sloot has apparently changed his mind about the confession, and according to his lawyer will argue that he was temporarily insane. In American jurisprudence, defendants are judged by the M’Naughten rule, which states that in order for a person to be judged insane, he or she must not have known that what they were doing was wrong (or not have known what they were doing in the first place, right or wrong).

Though the public often perceives a "temporary insanity" defense as little more than a legal loophole that lets criminals walk away, that's not quite the case. The fact is that the insanity defense is very rarely even tried as a defense (an estimated 1 percent of the time), and when it is used, it is successful in only about one out of four instances. Furthermore, when the person is found not guilty by reason of insanity the defendant is not set free but instead confined to a mental institution instead of a prison.

John Hinckley, Jr., who shot President Ronald Reagan and six others in 1981 and is perhaps the world's most notorious successful insanity defense case, has been confined to a psychiatric facility since 1982. Ironically, depending on when and if Hinckley is released, he may actually have spent more time confined than if he had been found guilty and served his sentence in prison.

Van der Sloot's defense is somewhat different under Peruvian law. He claims that he did not intend to kill Ms. Ramirez, but that he was blinded by temporary and uncontrollable insanity upon discovering that she had learned of his connection to Natalee Holloway (whose 2005 disappearance he claims to know nothing about). Despite the efforts of countless searchers and psychics, police closed the Holloway case after two and a half years without finding Holloway or charging anyone in her disappearance. By invoking the insanity defense, Van der Sloot hopes to have his potential sentence reduced from a possible 15 to 35 years down to three to five years.

Benjamin Radford is managing editor of Skeptical Inquirer science magazine and author of Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries. His Web site is www.RadfordBooks.com.

India's Bombay High Court has ruled that astrology (which took a recent and very public drubbing after an astronomer pointed out that astrological signs have changed over millennia) is not merely a harmless diversion but instead a science, presumably on par with biology, astronomy and physics.

The case involved a lawsuit brought by Janhit Manch, a non-governmental consumer watchdog group that complained that ads for psychics and astrologers were illegal under India's Drugs and Magical Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, which prohibits false advertising. The group of skeptics urged Indian officials to ban all literature promoting astrology, feng shui, Tarot card reading, palm reading, Reiki and other popular but scientifically unproven practices.

In its decision the High Court cited testimony from a government deputy drug controller named Dr. Ramakrishna, who stated that the Act did not apply to astrology: "The said Act is aimed at prohibiting misleading advertisements relating to drugs and magic remedies. The Act does not cover and/or relate to astrology and/or allied sciences like Palmistry. ... In view thereof, a purported ban on practices promoting astrology and related sciences sought by the petitioner, which is a time-tested science more than 4,000 years old, is totally misconceived and unjustifiable."

There are many ways in which astrology is clearly not a scientific enterprise. For example, real sciences (and scientific theories) have predictive power; that is, they can make accurate and valid predictions about the future. Astronomers, for example, can accurately predict a wide variety of celestial events, from the next full moon to the next appearance of Halley's comet (July 28, 2061). Astrology, by contrast, has failed repeated scientific tests for making accurate predictions. Furthermore there is no physical mechanism known to science by which the position of planets and stars could possibly have any influence on a newborn's personality traits.

The High Court's legal ruling, of course, carries no weight with scientists, who have uniformly and soundly rejected astrology as a pseudoscience. The justification that Dr. Ramakrishna provides (that astrology is "over 4,000 years old" and therefore must be valid) is itself a blatant logical fallacy called an appeal to tradition. Just because something has a long tradition, or was widely practiced throughout history, does not imply that it is valid or correct. Since ancient times people believed that diseases were caused by imbalances in the body's humors (black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and blood), and were "cured" by doctors using applications of leeches to the body. By Dr. Ramakrishna's logic, this discredited science of "humorism" must be valid, since it too was used for thousands of years. That such a clearly illogical argument was cited by the Bombay High Court does not speak well for its judicial wisdom.

Benjamin Radford is managing editor of Skeptical Inquirer science magazine and author of Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries. His Web site is www.RadfordBooks.com.

It seems likely that a mysterious set of UFO lights that appeared over Phoenix, Arizona last year made an unexpected reappearance over New Jersey on Monday night.

Strange lights appeared over New Jersey's Morris County on the evening of Jan. 5, according to a local TV station's report. The bright red lights were first noticed in the night sky by an eleven-year-old girl, who pointed out three lights grouped together, and another pair some distance away. The lights moved silently and slowly, then disappeared one by one. 

The girl's mother, Cindy Hurley, said it was "unsettling...something you've never seen before, and a very strange pattern." Paul Hurley, a pilot, said he was baffled: "I've been in aviation for 20 years and never seen anything like it." The local airport didn't report anything unusual on radar, and police fielded calls from alarmed residents.

Clues about the identity of the New Jersey UFO can be found in a case of identical, mysterious lights seen over Phoenix last year.

Phoenix Lights Revisited

On April 21, 2008, hundreds of Phoenix residents called police and local news media to report bright red lights hovering silently over the city. They changed shape after a while, moving from a triangular to rectangular configuration, then disappeared one by one. As in the New Jersey case, the local airport reported that nothing appeared on radar scans of the area.

So what were they?

The fact that the two cases are identical in virtually every way suggests that the same UFO appeared. (Of course since UFOs don't have registration numbers painted on the fuselage, it's impossible to be certain, but eyewitnesses reported seeing the same thing.)

In the Phoenix case, the UFO became an IFO, an Identified Flying Object. The 2008 Phoenix Lights case was a hoax, created by road flares tied to helium balloons. The hoaxer admitted it, and eyewitnesses reported seeing him do it.

In both cases, all the evidence points to a hoax: The lights moved independently like floating objects, not fixed lights on an aircraft; they moved together in the same direction as the wind; they did not show up on radar; and the lights extinguished in exactly the pattern we would expect from flares, going out one by one.

And isn't it interesting that red is the most common color of road flares?

But wait, there's more ...

Possible confirmation of the hoax hypothesis came from another New Jersey eyewitness, one who got a closer look at the lights than the Hurley family. In a call to the police, the man reported "balloons with these five lights flying over right now."

It's not surprising that eyewitnesses, including a pilot, could not identify the objects, since most people have not seen road flares tied to balloons in the night sky. There's no reason a pilot, or anyone else, would recognize it: The lights literally were nothing they had ever seen before — but not necessarily anything extraterrestrial.

Will someone come forth in the following days admitting their copycat prank? Possibly. While some hoaxers do it for the notoriety, many just do it for fun, eagerly watching the news reports quoting excited and baffled eyewitnesses. Of course, the conspiracy minded don't like simple explanations. For some it's easier to believe that an alien spaceship caused the lights than a hoaxer with flares, helium balloons, and some free time.

• Top 10 Unexplained Phenomena
• Top Ten Conspiracy Theories
• Ten Alien Encounters Debunked

Benjamin Radford is managing editor of the Skeptical Inquirer science magazine. His books, films, and other projects can be found on his website. His Bad Science column appears regularly on LiveScience.

The search for a missing Florida girl named Caylee Anthony received worldwide attention this year, and recently came to a tragic end.

The 3-year-old was last seen in June, though her mother Casey Anthony inexplicably waited a month before reporting her daughter missing. Police were unable to find Caylee, but in October Anthony was indicted on first-degree murder charges.

Dozens of self-professed "psychic detectives" offered tips, ideas and information to police about where the missing girl was. Unfortunately, as with previous missing persons cases, all the psychics failed: not a single one gave information that led police to recover Caylee Anthony's body. Despite claims to the contrary, the number of missing persons recovered by psychic detectives remains exactly zero.

Incompetent police

In fact, as often happens in protracted missing persons cases, it was not the police who found Caylee but instead a random passerby. A utility worker named Roy Kronk discovered Caylee's remains in a plastic bag this month a few blocks from where she was last seen. It was not the first time Kronk had found the remains; he had contacted the Orange County Sheriff's office in August to report that he had seen "something suspicious, a bag, in the same area."

A police officer was dispatched to the scene but didn't find anything. Kronk called police to the scene a second — then a third — time. Amazingly, on three different occasions, the police officers (and their cadaver-sniffing dogs) missed the remains of a 3-year-old child in a large trash bag not far from a road. If the remains hadn't been seen and reported months ago, the police could claim that the body had been dumped there only after their careful search of the area. But the only explanation for police missing the body three times over the course of four months is incompetence.

In the months that elapsed since police were first notified, the body has decomposed and been eaten by scavengers, maggots and bacteria. With each passing day, there's less remains, and therefore less evidence, making it harder for prosecutors to convince a jury that the death was a homicide. A killer may very well go free because three sets of police didn't thoroughly search for Caylee's remains, and didn't ask Kronk to lead them to the suspicious bag. America's most bungled Ironically, the same week that Caylee Anthony was finally recovered, another high-profile missing persons case also highlighted the perils of a bungled police investigation. The victim was Adam Walsh, son of John Walsh, host of "America's Most Wanted." Adam's killer escaped justice for his crime because of police investigators' incompetence. In an interview, Walsh said he realized soon after his son disappeared that the investigation was in trouble: "I sorta got a sinking feeling that nobody knew what they were doing — nobody knew how to look for a missing child," he said. For example, police investigating Adam's disappearance recovered a blood-soaked carpet owned by the suspected killer — then lost that evidence. Two decades after Adam Walsh died (and one decade after his confessed killer, Ottis Toole, died), Police Chief Chadwick Wagner admitted, and apologized for, many mistakes in the Adam Walsh investigation. Police do not have an easy job, and should be commended for their good work when they solve crimes and bring criminals to justice. But, more often than the public realizes, poor police work jeopardizes prosecutions and lets killers walk free. Caylee Anthony, Adam Walsh, JonBenet Ramsey, and the rest of America's missing children deserve competent police work.

• Voice of Reason: Choosing Psychic Detectives Over Real Ones
• Top 10 Unexplained Phenomena
• All About Belief Systems

Benjamin Radford is managing editor of the Skeptical Inquirer science magazine. His books, films, and other projects can be found on his Web site. His Bad Science column appears regularly on LiveScience.

A new film about exorcism is set to be released on September 9. The Exorcism of Emily Rose, starring Laura Linney and Campbell Scott, is about a priest accused of negligence resulting in the death of a nineteen-year-old woman during an exorcism. While demons, devils, and exorcisms are obviously great grist for horror films, The Exorcism of Emily Rose is interesting because it shows (however fictionally) the potentially dangerous consequences of exorcisms.

As the film opens across the country, a Romanian priest stands accused of just such a crime in real-life. An exorcism at a convent in the small Romanian town of Tanacu resulted in the death of Maricica Irina Cornici, a twenty-three-year-old nun who said she heard the devil telling her she was sinful. With assistance from four nuns, priest Daniel Corogeanu bound Cornici to a cross, gagged her mouth with a towel, and left her for three days without food or water. The ritual, the priest explained, was an effort to drive devils out of the woman. Cornici was found dead on June 15; an autopsy found she had died of suffocation and dehydration. Cornici, who had a history of schizophrenia, reportedly had recently visited the convent and soon after joined the order. The Orthodox Church admitted that Corogeanu had been ordained as a priest without completing his theological studies, and condemned Cornici's death.

While many Americans likely think of exorcisms as relics of the Dark Ages, exorcisms continue to be performed, often on people who are emotionally and mentally disturbed. Whether those undergoing the exorcism are truly possessed by spirits or demons is another matter entirely. Most often, exorcisms are done on people of strong religious faith. To the extent that exorcisms "work," it is primarily due to the power of suggestion and the placebo effect. If you believe you are possessed, and that a given ritual will cleanse you, then it just might. (For more on exorcisms, see Joe Nickell's Investigative Files column in the January/February 2001 issue of Skeptical Inquirer magazine.)

A 2001 book on the topic, Michael Cuneo's American Exorcism: Expelling Demons in the Land of Plenty found no reason to think that anything supernatural occurs during exorcisms. After attending fifty exorcisms, Cuneo is unequivocal about the fact that he saw nothing supernatural--and certainly nothing remotely resembling the events depicted in the 1974 blockbuster film The Exorcist. No spinning heads, levitation, or poltergeists were seen, though many involved some cursing, spitting, or vomiting. As far as science is concerned, possession is a mental health issue.

Maricica Cornici is not the first innocent victim of an exorcism. On August 22, 2003, an autistic eight-year-old boy in Milwaukee was bound in sheets and held down by church members during a prayer service held to exorcise the evil spirits they blamed for his condition. An autopsy found extensive bruising on the back of the child's neck and concluded that he died of asphyxiation. In the past ten years, there have been at least four other exorcism-related deaths in the United States alone, two of the victims children. Then there are several tragic cases like that of Texas mother Andrea Yates, who drowned three of her children in an effort to exorcise the devil from herself in 2001. More recently, a South African couple was arrested for keeping their fifteen-month-old daughter caged, unfed, and tied up because they believed the child was possessed.

Exorcisms in film and fiction can be entertaining, while exorcisms in real life can be fatal. The tragic irony is that in many cases the evil is committed not by the Devil, but by those who believe in him.

Benjamin Radford is an investigative writer and film critic. His article on the true story behind The Exorcist can be found at http://www.radfordreviews.com.