| Apocrypha Now! Archive | |
by David Emery
One million British schoolkids leap to the aid of science
09/10/01: There is an old scientific conundrum I once saw posed this way: "If all the fat people in China jumped up and down at once, would it cause an earthquake?" Don't laugh. With the aid of a million British youngsters last Friday, seismologists actually got close to a concrete answer... of sorts. In an experiment called the Giant Jump, students in playgrounds all across England were asked to jump up and down simultaneously for one minute while technicians measured the results on the Richter scale. Although some labeled the outcome "underwhelming," scientists say they did detect a "squiggle" on seismic instruments. It didn't cause a tidal wave in France and probably won't go down in scientific textbooks, but the event will be commemorated in the Guinness Book of World Records as the "greatest simultaneous jump in history."
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'Doonesbury' creator admits being duped by hoax 09/07/01: The G.W. Bush IQ hoax claimed another media victim last weekend when "Doonesbury" creator Garry Trudeau based his Sunday strip on the faux academic study claiming that G.W. Bush's IQ is lower than the average American's. In a statement scarcely more credible than the hoax itself, Trudeau admitted having repeated the story in error and apologized for "unsettling anyone who was under the impression that the President is, in fact, quite intelligent." The incident is now referred to on Trudeau's Website as "IQ-gate." Previously, newspapers ranging from The Guardian in London to Russia's Pravda repeated the same hoax as fact, earning criticism from their journalistic peers. News coverage: |
