Ehrich Weisz may not have had much formal education, but he grew up to be Harry Houdini, self-educated stunt performer, escape artist, and owner of "one of the largest libraries in the world on psychic phenomena, Spiritualism, magic, witchcraft, demonology, evil spirits, etc., some of the material going back as far as 1489." Houdini bequeathed much of his collection to the Library of Congress, which received 3,988 volumes from his collection in 1927, including a number of magic books inscribed or annotated by well-known magicians. Archive.org has more of the Harry Houdini Collection online. He also put a great deal of research into his tricks, as seen in his letter to Dr. W. J. McConnell, a physiologist at the U.S. Bureau of Mines, written up after Houdini's watery grave stunt in 1926.
posted by filthy light thief on Dec 3, 2012 - 5 comments

Anamorphic illusions of items on a desk is the latest of many interesting original visual illusions, tricks, and fun science experiments by Brusspup on Youtube (previously). For handy viewing: Anamorphic playlist; Illusions playlist; Science experiments playlist, plus more, including a playlist of how-to videos for various tricks and activities . [more inside]
posted by taz on Nov 30, 2012 - 9 comments

Things about the research in progress.
posted by Blasdelb on Oct 27, 2012 - 12 comments

Fossil Angels - written by Alan Moore in December 2002 to appear in KAOS #15, which never appeared. Published here for the first time.
posted by MetaMonkey on Oct 24, 2010 - 22 comments

Ted Chiang on Writing (and other things) (Previously)
posted by Artw on Jul 26, 2010 - 49 comments

Bay Area Yuri's Night 2007 Bay Area Yuri's Night 2007 Yuri's Night Bay Area will be held at Moffett Field in the NASA Ames Research Center's massive SOFIA hangar, home to the world's largest aerial observatory. Our host for the evening is pioneering space traveler Anousheh Anasari, the first privately funded female to reach orbit. She is joined by Dr. Chris McKay, world renowned expert in astrobiology and terraformation with the Space Science Division of NASA Ames Research Center, as they welcome you to a dazzling array of interactive art installations and science demos, interwoven with musical and acrobatic performances by some of the world's finest entertainers. Complete write up. Partially via MeFi's own lannanh.
posted by loquacious on Apr 6, 2007 - 23 comments

The Global Consciousness Project at Princeton (which may be remembered from this MeFi Post, and this one) has apparently claimed a detected prediction (or statistical anomaly) for the recent tsunami catastrophe. See the Registry of Formal Specifications for Global Events at the main project site. (The tsunami event is listed near the bottom.) For further random statistical anomaly reading, see Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research, which has a more local focus. Or attempt to bend some digital forks in the not-quite-real-time Egg Basket Observer (Java). Find your nearest egg if you prefer shorter distances.
posted by loquacious on Feb 13, 2005 - 26 comments

Grand Illusions: Optical illusions, scientific toys, visual effects, brain teasers, and (perhaps) just a little bit of magic!
posted by anastasiav on Oct 23, 2003 - 15 comments