Skeptical Reporter @ 2014-02-14

Skeptical Reporter for February 14th, 2014 The "jelly doughnut" rock that seemed to appear out of nowhere on Mars last month did not fall out of an extraterrestrial pastry box. The rock had been mysterious to scientists because Mars rover Opportunity photographed it in a spot where the rock had not been present just four days earlier. Steve Squyres, lead scientist of the Mars Exploration Rover mission, described it as a white rock with a dark red low spot in the middle. The rock was named Pinnacle Island. Researchers have concluded that it is a piece of a larger rock, which Opportunity broke and moved with its wheel in early January. Further images from the rover reveal the original rock that the rover's wheel must have struck. No, that's not as exciting as if the rock had crawled into view on its own or been dropped there by aliens. But now that this puzzle has been solved, the rover team plans to drive Opportunity south and uphill to look at exposed rock layers on a slope. The rock has high levels of manganese and sulfur, which may have been concentrated in the rock because of water. He's been to a doctor and a vet just to make sure, but New Zealand Prime Minister John Key is adamant he's not a shapeshifting reptilian alien. Mr Key was unusually forced to deny any previously non-declared extraterrestrial connections to reporters after an Auckland man put in an Official Information Act (OIA) request asking for proof he might be one. "To the best of my knowledge, no. Having been asked that question directly, I've taken the unusual step of not only seeing a doctor but a vet, and both have confirmed I'm not a reptile," a smiling Mr Key explained, adding: "So I'm certainly not a reptile. I've never been in a spaceship, never been in outer space, and my tongue's not overly long either." Last month, Auckland resident Shane Warbrooke put in an OIA request to the prime minister's office, asking for "any evidence to disprove the theory that Mr John Key is in fact a David Icke style shapeshifting reptilian alien ushering humanity towards enslavement". The authenticity of the Shroud of Turin has been in question for centuries. Some believe it is a miracle, while some state in is an elaborate hoax? Now, a study claims neutron emissions from an ancient earthquake that rocked Jerusalem could have created the iconic image, as well as messed up the radiocarbon levels that later suggested the shroud was a medieval forgery. But other scientists say this newly proposed premise leaves some major questions unanswered. Radiocarbon dating tests conducted at three different labs in the 1980s indicated the cloth was less than 800 years old, produced in the Middle Ages. The first records of the shroud begin to appear in medieval sources around the same time, which skeptics don't think is a coincidence. The new study wishes to demonstrate that the shroud is much older, dating from the time of Jesus. Even if it is theoretically possible for earthquake-generated neutrons to have caused this kind of reaction, the study doesn't address why this effect hasn't been seen elsewhere in the archaeological record, Gordon Cook, a professor of environmental geochemistry at the University of Glasgow, explained. It seems unlikely that the new study, published in the journal Meccanica, will settle any of the long-standing disputes about how and when the cloth was made, which depend largely on faith. In the US, the Prince George’s County Police Department is transforming how detectives conduct photo lineups in an effort to prevent innocent people from going to prison. Starting this spring, detectives must show witnesses photos of potential suspects one at a time on separate pieces of paper rather than all at once on a single page. Lineups must also be “blind,” which means a detective unfamiliar with the case must present photos to witnesses instead of an officer investigating the crime. The method is called the “double-blind sequential lineup...