Skeptics are often dismayed at the antics and messages coming from 'celebs'. When they aren't poisoning themselves with drugs, or pickling themselves with drink, they are often promoting weird religions, odd health claims and beliefs from alternative medicine or dangerous ideas such as anti-vaccination propaganda.

How refreshing then to see Bjorn Ulvaeus, co-songwriter of ABBA's fabulous songs which are so popular again with the success of the musical Mamma Mia, writing so intelligently on faith in schools in The Guardian's comment is free section today.

We're now tweeting! If you're on Twitter too and you want to follow UK-Skeptics then just click the link above and choose to follow us.

It's a very convenient way to share links and keep up to date with what's happening in the skeptosphere!

Since the British Chiropractic Association decided to sue science writer Simon Singh for defamation, chiropractic has been under a lot of scrutiny.

Many chiropractors claim that they can cure childhood illnesses such as colic, asthma, etc., with their spinal manipulations yet the evidence base for these claims seems to be extremely poor or non-existent; hardly surprising when you look at the theory behind chiropractic: Chiropractic

Professor Edzard Ernst, writing in New Scientist, has openly invited chiropractors to inform the British public where they stand on non-spinal treatments. There are three possibilities:

• They no longer hold that chiropractic is an effective treatment for non-spinal conditions like asthma;


• They admit that the inclusion of treatment of non-spinal conditions in chiropractic means that it can no longer be considered an evidence-based profession; or


• They can provide good evidence that chiropractic can treat non-spinal conditions.

Here's a website showing some excellent photographs of UK landscapes and panoramic views.

Some of the photos were taken near Muncaster Castle, the location of the UK-Skeptics conference this year. Some of the sunsets were taken at Ravenglass just half a mile down the road and there's some of nearby Irton church.

Check them out to see what a beautiful location this is!

The first UK-Skeptics newsletter has been released.

The newsletters will be a good way of keeping up to date with what's going on at UK-Skeptics and elsewhere. The newsletters will contain information on events as well as features such as articles, interviews, book reviews and competitions.

The newsletter is a free publication. To keep up to date with the latest newsletter check the link above regularly as newsletters will be published every month or two, or alternatively, you can sign up to our mailing list (see the joining form to the left) and we will send you a reminder when updates are released.

The UK-Skeptics conference 2009 will take place at Muncaster Castle in Cumbria during the weekend 18^th - 20^th September. Muncaster Castle is a fabulous location on the west coast where a lot of research has been done into haunting experiences and so serves as an excellent backdrop for a conference examining the topics of paranormal and anomalous experiences.

For further information and a list of speakers and topics, visit the link provided above.

Michael Shermer, the president of the Skeptics Society in the USA, gives a lecture on what it is that skeptics are all about: the type of things we're interested in, and the way we examine them.

There's also a section illustrating just how easy it is for us to hear (or see, etc.) things when we're already primed to do so. This is illustrated using the lyrics from "Stairway to Heaven" and is a superb example of this effect.