This week, we find out how a giant parachute could help avoid satellite collisions, why the schizophrenic brain can't see a popular optical illusion and discover that all octopodes (or octopuses?) are poisonous! Plus, we take on your science questions, discussing cycling on the moon, electric fences and couples getting tazered together. In Kitchen Science, we make a sprinkler from a spinning straw!
Dear Scientists.. I am listening to your programme via Secondlife..I would like to ask a question.. can you tell us why musquito's and other insects often swirl underneath a tree in circles, during summer? Saphira, Sun, 19th Apr 2009
Is it bad to drink boiled water that has been left to for a while (e.g. 48 hours after it was boiled) compared to drinking it sooner? Chemistry4me, Tue, 21st Apr 2009
During the show, when talking about the hollow mask illusion, something Chris said caught my attention:
I don't think Chris was suggesting that cannabis does cause schizophrenia, more that it's another link in addition to the existing epidemiological links. It's very possible still that schizophrenia sufferers are more likely to smoke cannabis, rather than cannabis being a causal agent. The research to suggest causation has not been done as far as I know.
Cannabis research always interests me and I take particular care when reading papers written about its effects as they may well be biased one way or another depending on who funded or requested the research - it tends to be a touchy subject. My interest in it has led me to perform a number of small self-experiments such as IQ and memory tests, and the results (albeit in relatively "casual" scientific experiments) have shown the effects to be far less intoxicating than some "research" would have you believe. IQ tests have produced the same results (within a reasonable mean deviation) when using cannabis as when not. I also tend to produce a high level of creativity after smoking cannabis. Of course, these tests are rather unscientific, and I wouldn't take them as more than the anecdotal curiosities that they are.