Reporters "skeptical". Bah.

And CNN is supposed to be the "serious" news channel.

Medical myths

Medical myths exposed the Guardian! (I confess, I believed the last one):

Everyone must drink at least eight glasses of water a day

This advice is thought to have originated in 1945 from the Nutrition Council in the US, which suggested people needed to consume 2.5 litres of water a day. But Vreeman said the water contained in food, particularly fruit and vegetables, as well as in milk, juice, coffee and soft drinks, also counts towards the total.

We only use 10% of our brains

"The myth arose as early as 1907, propagated by multiple sources advocating the power of self-improvement and tapping into each person's unrealised latent abilities," say Vreeman and Carroll. "The many functions of the brain are highly localised, with different tasks allocated to different anatomical regions. Detailed probing of the brain has failed to identify the 'non-functioning' 90%."

Hair and fingernails continue to grow after death
According to Vreeman, the myth persists because of an optical illusion. "As the body's skin is drying out, soft tissue, especially skin, is retracting. The nails appear much more prominent as the skin dries out." The same is true, but less obvious, with hair. "As the skin is shrinking back, the hair looks more prominent or sticks up a bit." The actual growth of hair and nails requires a complex set of precisely regulated hormones, which do not continue after death.

Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight

Generations of parents have warned their children not to read in poor light, telling them that it could somehow damage their sight. Though dim lighting can cause stress in the eye, the important thing to remember, say the researchers, is that the effects are not permanent. "Suboptimal lighting can create a sensation of having difficulty in focusing. It also decreases the rate of blinking and leads to discomfort from drying. The important counterpoint is that these effects do not persist."

Shaving causes hair to grow back faster or coarser
This theory may go some way toward sustaining the multimillion-pound waxing industry. But it, too, is an optical illusion: when hair first grows after being shaved, it has a blunt edge on top, which gets worn away over time and results in the fine taper of long hair. Also, the sun naturally bleaches hair over time so hair that is newly emerged may seem darker but is, in fact, no darker than any other new hair growth.

Mobile phones are dangerous in hospitals
Early studies in the UK showed that mobile phones interfered with only 4% of devices and only at a distance of less than one metre. In a 2005 US study, 510 tests were carried out with 16 medical devices and six mobile phones - the incidence of clinically important interference was 1.2%. Conversely, a recent survey of anaesthetists found that the use of mobiles by doctors reduced the risk of medical error or injury from delays in communication between hospital staff.

Eating turkey makes you especially drowsy
Vreeman and Carroll admitted that even they initially believed this myth. Tryptophan, a chemical that is contained in turkey, can cause drowsiness but there isn't really very much of it in the bird. Chicken and ground beef contain about the same amount per gram while other protein sources such as pork and Swiss cheese contain more.

The real reason you might feel sleepy after a huge Christmas dinner is more straightforward: the vast amount of food diverts blood away from the brain and towards the stomach, which has the mammoth task of digesting the turkey, sausages, stuffing, vegetables and Christmas pudding.

Yep, turkey doesn't make you especially drowsy. I feel drowsy after Christmas dinners because I stuffed my face. (I'll try to be more careful this year, honest!)

Don't piss off your Roomba.

Don't piss of your Roomba. No really, don't piss it off. It's got a bigger brother. From Wired:

We're not used to thinking of [real robots] this way. But many advanced military weapons are essentially robotic -- picking targets out automatically, slewing into position, and waiting only for a human to pull the trigger. Most of the time. Once in a while, though, these machines start firing mysteriously on their own. The South African National Defence Force "is probing whether a software glitch led to an antiaircraft cannon malfunction that killed nine soldiers and seriously injured 14 others during a shooting exercise on Friday."

...

[SA National Defence Force spokesman] told The Star that it “is assumed that there was a mechanical problem, which led to the accident. The gun, which was fully loaded, did not fire as it normally should have," he said. "It appears as though the gun, which is computerised, jammed before there was some sort of explosion, and then it opened fire uncontrollably, killing and injuring the soldiers."

Fortunately (?) we are reassured:

Defence Ministry spokesperson Sam Mkhwanazi said the "friendly-fire" tragedy was the worst he could remember.

"Without hesitation I can say it is very rare; I can't even think of one - I can't remember when last an accident of this magnitude happened."

This isn't reassuring. You were supposed to reassure me... You can't remember? You could forget an event of this magnitude?

Is it just me, or does giving firing capability to a robot targeting system seem like a bad idea? One little software bug, and it's choosing the wrong targets. I'm not worried about a Terminator-style rebellion here, I'm more worried that if the number of software bugs in your average computer is any indicator, they're going to have a lot of extremely tragic software errors...

Meanwhile, Roomba is also getting in on the action:

The makers of the cuter-than-cute robotic vacuum cleaner are rolling out a new machine: A big, fast-moving, semi-autonomous 'bot capable of killing a whole bunch of people at once.

Early versions of the iRobot Warrior X700 "are slated to be ready by the second half of next year," according to Army Times' Kris Osborn. And unlike previous offerings from iRobot -- which tended to be on the light, bordering-on-flimsy side -- the Warrior will weigh up to 250 pounds. It'll be able to lug a 500-pound payload, and carry 150 pounds with a newly muscular arm. Which will mean the machine is more than buff enough to pack heat.

“We’re looking at urban warfare... It can be deploying weapons systems. It can be doing re-supply operations, taking ammo or water to troops who are pinned down, perimeter security and building clearing,” Helen Greiner, iRobot chairman and co-founder, tells Army Times.

“Right now, it can go 10 miles per hour. When we finish the development, it will be able to do a four-minute mile,” said retired U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Joe Dyer, iRobot’s president of the government and industrial division. “You are starting to see the first robot that can really haul your pack and be not only a partner but be a stronger and faster partner.”

Unlike other armed robots -- which are entirely remote-controlled -- the Warriors are "being engineered with advanced software, giving them the ability to perform some battlefield functions autonomously."

I have a picture in my head of a little Roomba, moving through a room, randomly bumping into things, and when it bumps into something soft and squishy, shooting it. In all seriousness, I would hope that they could get the software designed in such a way as to get rid of all the bugs (unlike standard systems) but the story above suggests that perhaps programmers are not able to write bug-free software. Please don't give the Roomba guns!