Free Republic

"My Brain is the key that sets me free.""No prison can hold me; no hand or leg irons or steel locks can shackle me. No ropes or chains can keep me from my freedom.""What the eyes sees, the ear hears, and the mind believes.""Never tell the audience how good you are, they will soon find out for themselves.""Never try to fool children, they expect nothing, and therefore see everything.""An old trick well done is far better than a new trick with no effect."More quotes at:https://www.azquotes.com/author/6929-Harry_HoudiniHarry Houdini (March 24, 1874 -- October 31, 1926) Resting place -- Machpelah Cemetery"And although Houdini...

Scientists can now "decode" people's thoughts without even touching their heads, The Scientist reported. Past mind-reading techniques relied on implanting electrodes deep in peoples' brains. The new method, described in a report posted 29 Sept. to the preprint database bioRxiv, instead relies on a noninvasive brain scanning technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). fMRI tracks the flow of oxygenated blood through the brain, and because active brain cells need more energy and oxygen, this information provides an indirect measure of brain activity. By its nature, this scanning method cannot capture real-time brain activity, since the electrical signals released by...

Have fake news and deception only just been invented or have creativity with the truth and illusion always been at the heart of what humans do to each other?

Think mind reading is science fiction? Think again. Scientists have used brain scanners to detect and reconstruct the faces that people are thinking of, according to a a study accepted for publication this month in the journal NeuroImage. In the study, scientists hooked participants up to an fMRI brain scanner – which determines activity in different parts of the brain by measuring blood flow – and showed them images of faces. Then, using only the brain scans, the scientists were able to create images of the faces the people were looking at. “It is mind reading,” said Alan S. Cowen,...

On September 21, 1912, magician Harry Houdini first publicly performed his so-called "Chinese Water Torture Cell" trick at the Circus Busch in Berlin, escaping after being immersed upside-down in a vertical water tank, his ankles secured in a set of stocks which made up the tank lid, which was locked into place. Houdini's Water Torture Cell The greatest and most sensational of all Houdini's escapes was without doubt his "Chinese Water Torture Cell.” In this trick, Houdini was to escape an extraordinary contraption resembling a fish tank. This is filled with water while Houdini is placed head down, in full...

In 1907, the first of Houdini’s "manacled bridge jumps" was captured on film in Rochester, New York. After the jump, Houdini proudly wrote in his diary, "Ma saw me jump!" Afterwards, Houdini began performing his celebrated milk can escape. As the master showman, he reminded the audience in his ads that "Failure Means a Drowning Death." That same year Houdini published his controversial book, "The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin." Two years later, Houdini made the first "real" flight on the continent of Australia, piloting his Voison on a sustained flight of three and a half minutes.

Harry Houdini, the most celebrated magician and escape artist of the 20th century, dies of peritonitis in a Detroit hospital. Twelve days before, Houdini had been talking to a group of students after a lecture in Montreal when he commented on the strength of his stomach muscles and their ability to withstand hard blows. Suddenly, one of the students punched Houdini twice in the stomach. The magician hadn't had time to prepare, and the blows ruptured his appendix. He fell ill on the train to Detroit, and, after performing one last time, was hospitalized. Doctors operated on him, but to...