A detailed study of therapeutic practitioners who claim to be able to treat medical conditions by using "human energy fields" has shown them to be unable to detect the fields they claim to manipulate. The technique is in widespread application and is taught in more than 100 colleges and universities in 75 countries according to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Yet in a controlled trial when 21 practitioners were tested on their ability to perceive the "energy field" of a person who passed her hand over those of the test subjects, their detection rate was lower than randomly guessing yes or no.
Ireland's only science and technology magazine, Technology Ireland, celebrates 30 years in print this month. Its inaugural issue sold for a princely 3/6d when one of the hottest topics was "low cost mechanisation" in industrial automation, explained joint editor Ms Mary Mulvihill. Volume 1 appeared when publication was the responsibility of the old Institute for Industrial Research and Standards (who remembers the IIRS?) and the late George Colley was the Minister for Commerce. The magazine was greatly changed since those days and was now much more directed towards the general reader, Ms Mulvihill stated.
Features in Volume 30 include a report on coeliac disease, what digital television will mean to viewers and the pros and cons of genetic engineering.
Contact Science on Monday by emailing Dick Ahlstrom, Science Editor, at dahlstrom@irish-times.ie