things that should not be

First, a welcome to Tim, our new resident electrical engineer, who will be working with Angie to develop a prototype sensor. Says Tim of why he decided to get involved, "I don't think I am a skeptic or a true believer on ghosts. I think I would say I am interestedly neutral on the whole subject."

And in the vein of other scientists not afraid to look for things that might not be there and/or shouldn't exist by the current "laws" of nature (but who are willing to spend oodles of cash in the pursuit of academic curiosity):

Team finds proof of dark matter (Paul Rincon; BBC News; Aug, 21, 2006)

"Dark matter and dark energy are not what anyone would have expected starting from the perspective of what the Universe should be like," said Sean Carroll, a cosmologist at the University of Chicago, who was not involved with the study, "but we're trying to understand why it's like that and this result puts us on that path." In order to locate the mass in the clusters, researchers used the Chandra and Hubble space telescopes, along with the Very Large Telescope and Magellan optical telescopes in Chile.

Perpetual Motion Claim Probed (John Borland; wired.com; Aug, 21, 2006)

The company hasn't released specific details about the process, other than to say it involves magnetic fields configured in precisely the right way. Using the magnets results in a motor that's more than 100 percent efficient ... For scientists and engineers, this is the equivalent of a perpetual motion machine, and is almost unanimously viewed as flat-out impossible.

And proof of what we're all up against: Steorn, the company which has made the claims, has offered unfettered access to test their claims, but according to a poll on the company's website, currently 72% of the 84,000 people polled do not think the scientific community should test their claims. Now why on Earth wouldn't we want to test legitimate claims of "never having to recharge your phone, never having to refuel your car. A world with an infinite supply of clean energy for all"? Simply because we're afraid of proving our other long-held, dogmatic scientific theories wrong?