I’d v much like to know more about your complaint to Sky. Am researching a news story on Brainiac and History Abuse and all info gratefully received.
You can get in touch with me at alexa.baracaia@standard.co.uk

Thanks!

What re-enactor type? I do reenacting myself, and am always interested in finding out who not to trust.

theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/Stories/011.2/Robin.html
theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/Stories/011.2/Anon2.html

“Every time there’s a news report or major blog posting of my sodium party page, I get another sodium story or two to add to my collection of guest stories (all listed on my party page).

“You will be pleased to know that the two I have received in the aftermath of your column last Saturday were two of the best, and quite unusually were written in proper English with complete sentences and a minimum of misspellings. I can only conclude that your readers are a cut above.”

Theo

I certainly wouldn’t know when they were faking; I’m a Humanities Graduate. Now, their spin-off “History Abuse” *does* fall into my area of professional interest, and I can tell you that it’s utter rubbish too. In fact I’ve emailed them to complain about a story presented as “unbelievable, but TRUE!!!” by a re-enactor type they have on it.

Wait for it… a dog firing a cannon at approaching French cavalry at an C18th battle.. as far as I can tell, having checked both the literature and the web, the only source for this anecdote is this:

digital.test.lib.msu.edu/collections/index.cfm?action=view&TitleID=63&Format=gif&DivisionNumber=4

Michigan State University, who hold this collection of no doubt thoroughly researched historical works, tell me that there are no bibliographic references in the comic whatever, and that it was quite common, especially during wartime, for this comic to just pull stories out of its bottom that would help the war effort in any way.

There are countless other factual errors made in that series, but then again as far as I can tell History Abuse didn’t make it past one series.

I don’t care if they’re bringing Science/History/whatever academic subject “to the masses”, if they’re misrepresenting it like this, to me it’s a case of “with friends like these, who needs enemies”?

Unfortunately, I dont get the National Geographic channel so I won’t be able to see it. However, it’s starting on Thursday 7th September 9pm and they’ve filmed 10 episodes.

i’ve just put my new accusations of other faked items on brainiac to sky, and instead of getting back to me on whether they are faked or not, as they they have been saying they would do for a week, they now are now refusing to comment on any of them. i think that’s a rather extraordinary thing.

they say this:

Hi Ben

This is our statement for your use in connection with any column you may wish to write on this matter. There will be no further comment.

“Brainiac: Science Abuse is a fun, light-hearted entertainment show. If you’re expecting to see the Open University – you’re on the wrong channel! We make science fun! That said, it is possible to learn while having fun and we do always ensure that all of the methodology and theory in the show is absolutely correct. First and foremost we’re in the business of making people laugh, entertaining them and, having consulted with real grown up scientists, we can assure viewers that the science behind the stunts is factually correct. We’re known for our love of big explosions, our fans love them too and when we add a little something to create a bigger bang everyone’s in on the joke.”

Cesium Chloride contains cesium. What happens if you add cesium to water? You get cesium hydroxide. What is a significant property of CsOH? It is alkaline. What is something that alkali can do? It can kill cells. What is a type of cell? Cancer cells. Therefore taking cesium chloride orally kills cancer cells. And if a lady weighs the same as a duck, she must be a witch.

The science would be a bit stronger if they used arsenic chloride instead – it doesn’t take much of that to kill a cancer.

The idea of CsCl as a therapy … is there ANYONE crazy enough to waste money on this kind of thing? The scientist behind the theory that they mention, A Keith Brewer (1893-1986) existed, but I rather think we’d have heard, in the 20 yrs since his death, if alkalinizing cells cured cancer. ..And, if anything, acidifying them would be more likely to do them harm. However, an exhasutive search on Medline revealed one recent paper in a proper journal dosing rats with prostate-derived implanted tumours with CsCl, so doubtless that will soon be cited in the “Caseium therapy” advertising literature to help snare the unwary and desperate.

The Finchley Clinic / “Oxygen Elements Plus is a liquid Oxygen supplement ” site is even more mind-boggling. I tried to see if they said what was actually in this concoction and found:

“Oxygen Elements Plus is a liquid Oxygen supplement also containing digestive enzymes, metabolic enzymes, 21 amino acids and 77 trace minerals.”

www.thefinchleyclinic.co.uk/nojavascript/products/Oxygen_Elements_What.htm

- which left me little the wiser as to how this, quote, “floods your body with oxygen”

Although I WAS left thinking:

Hmmm… take large quantities of a mixture of amino-acids… mix with a supermarket-type multivitamins-and-minerals formula… add a bit of “antioxidant cocktail”… plus some trypsin and amylase… mix well…. then bottle and sell to incredible idiots at a price sufficient to make myself a nice little wedge. Lovely.

The site also explains that:

“…for SERIOUS ILLNESS, it needs to be taken IN MUCH HIGHER THAN STANDARD DOSES, in which case we strongly reccomend (sic) buying several bottles at a time”

They also give some testimonials from satisfied customers:

www.thefinchleyclinic.co.uk/nojavascript/products/Oxygen_Elements_Plus_testimonials.htm

..from which I learnt that it works on dogs as well as humans.

Incidentally,it is pleasing to find that “Oxygen Elements Plus comes with a 60 day money back guarantee from the manufacturers”. Wonder if anyone ever asks for a refund?

Havnig shown how not to make Cs explode, they could have then gone on to repeat the catapult experiment shown in in the tinyurl post.

That would be educational, and pretty entertaining (plenty of suspens when it doesn’t blow, followed by a climatic finale)

Casual dishonesty in the media worries me. For instance, you may recall a fuss over – was it John Prescott, in the late 1990s? – pictured in a bar with wine bottles in the foreground, which, it turned out, were painted in in place of beer bottles – or something like that. But more alarming to me is when the principle of elegant page composition, where IIRC posed human figures are supposed to face into the centre of the page, is applied to people carrying protest banners: a digitally produced newspaper’s photo editor will just flip a picture around and then flip the words to match. If it’s done for something as insignificant as that, then there really is no barrier to gross dishonesty as well.

As far as Brainiac Science Abuse goes, if they’re making cartoons of science experiments then that’s one thing, but they should be more clearly marked as cartoons. But if they’re leading people to believe – as you normally would when you aren’t watching fiction – that a television camera was pointed at a real thing happening, that’s cheating.

Maybe they should go like “[u]Mystery Science Theater 3000[/u]” and set it on a space station, so that you can see they’re pretending, or have the Teletubbies present it. “Ooh! Big bang!” “The Teletubbies love to blow things up very much!”

How did you find the site, Ben?
His ‘party page’ includes some most dubious looking ads:
www.thefinchleyclinic.com/shop/oxygenelementsplus-p-10.html selling “Oxygen Elements Plus is a liquid Oxygen supplement “. Presumably Hydrogen peroxide.

And

“Cesium Chloride Therapy ( www.essense-of-life.com/info/cesium.htm )
Kill cancer cells with high body ph Find information and research here. ”

I seem to remember you writing about the oxygen scam – the Cesium one looks much more unpleasant in that it is pitched at people with cancer. Even though the site warns to consult your doctor, the science quoted is awfully (fills me with awe) bad:

“Cesium Chloride is one of the most alkaline elements. Otto Warburg won a Nobel prize for showing that cancer thrives in anaerobic (without oxygen), or acidic, conditions. Research by Keith Brewer, PhD and H.E. Sartori has shown that raising the pH, or oxygen content, range of a cell to 8.0 creates a deadly environment for cancer. ”
Have you inveighed against this?

John