The Round-Up w/e 23/12/2012

Apparently the Mayan gods had popped round to Harold Camping’s for a cup of tea and totally forgot to destroy the world. Oh well, I suppose I’d better get on with putting another round-up together. They may not happen when you expect them but we're more reliable than the Mayans.

Did you all have a good Christmas? I hope you all did, although some people would rather the atheists amongst you didn’t. Talking of not celebrating Christmas, here’s an interesting missive from fantasy game supremo Gary Gygax on why he didn’t celebrate Christmas. You could strike me down with a +5 feather of disbelief.

Still this is the season where people are supposed to experience good will to all, that is unless you’re in a same sex relationship, you’re celebrating a festival from outside the dominant religion, or part of a hate propagating Christian sect.

In the wake of the sad story of the woman who wished to explore alternative treatments rather than put her son through radiotherapy Andy Lewis issues Homeopaths a challenge.

Hopefully you have something to be grateful about this festive season, and that’s a good thing. We’ll stick to psychology for a bit with some very psychological chocolates, Oliver Sacks on our propensity for myth making and one year on the Brain Bank legacy of Bruce Hood’s Christmas lectures.

I would love to have seen this live! Here’s a chance for you to check your scientific knowledge courtesy of the Observer Science Quiz. If you don’t score to highly you can always boost your scientific credibility by pasting a picture of a laboratory behind you.

For all you haters of brassica oleracea here’s another excuse to avoid those little round green beasts.

Here are some good bad comic reasons to be a Christian. And here’s an almost comic but really just bad example of one hijacking the Sandy Hook tragedy. Mind you he’s not the only one to use that traumatic event as a bolster for an insane set of beliefs, cue the Health Ranger.

Mind you there are plenty of other religions to choose from that have quirky and sometimes bizarre beliefs. Some that can cause you to become increasingly superstitious, some that are amongst other things a bit unhygienic and at least one that you can bop your head to. If you don’t see anything you like just bake your own God.

Anti-vaccers are still getting their arguments across in Congress and the press despite the evidence being against them.

Let’s look at some pretty but informative things. Fantabulous infographics followed by magnificent diagrams.

NASA go to infinity and beyond with their new range of space suits.

We three kings of Orient are….. walking in circles and all over the place apparently.

Here’s a discussion about the merit of the skeptical/geek movement. It’s not new,  it’s been said before, it’ll be said again. The comments are interesting so have a read of them.

Before the end of blog video I’d like to point you in the direction of our next event on January 9^th with Robert Llewellyn. This should be a popular one with few seats, so if you have a problem standing then let us know and we’ll reserve one for you. Remember our DVDs are still available at a very reasonable price with Aarathi Prasad’s coming as soon as the covers turn up. And finally our inaugural book club is on January 20^th.

To end I’d like to pay tribute to Gerry Anderson whose creations fuelled my young imagination and seemed to work animatronic miracles in the days before we were used to CGI and all that fancy malarkey.

This week’s round-up was put together by Patrick Redmond with  much help from  Roy Beddowes.