So, the Singularity is near, eh? We are all going to live forever in comfortable & efficient robotic bodies, while nano-machines will magically produce everything our heart/cyber-pump desires, eh??

Well, the thing is: predicting the Future is pretty tricky; and to prove that, how about taking a look at this hilarious compendium of crazy —and failed— past predictions brought to you by Seymour Chwast's publication The Nose?

The predictions are animated based on illustrations by Chwast. Here's a tiny example:

[Prediction made in 1900 for the year 2000]:No foods will be exposed. Storekeepers who expose food to air breathed out by patrons or to the atmosphere of the busy streets will be arrested along with those who sell stale or adulterated produce.

I would like to send this link to Ray Kurzweil, but it's never fun to see a grown man cry ;-)

(H/T to Cartoon Brew)

The latest issue of Fortean Times (#250) has been released, with the usual bunch of strange reportage:

This issue, we explore the world of 'imaginary childhood friends' - from helpful gnomes and talking cats to Thunder Cloud the laughing policeman - and wonder if there's more to this widespread phenomenon than we like to think. And staying with the childhood theme, Martin Gately, aka the Crypto Kid, casts his mind back to the year of the Queen's Silver Jubilee, when he had just one week to find Nessie while under close parental supervision.

Also this month, we are bemused by a Saudi craze for old sewing machines, stunned by some strange coma awakenings, horrified by tales of contemporary witch-hunts, and saddened by the death of writer, Neoplatonist and fortean John Michell.

Full details, and archived article from previous issues, are available at the FT website.

The latest issue of Fortean Times (#247) is now available, with details available at the FT website:

Dead & Buried? - Strange tales of mummies, necromancers and corpses that come to life

Subjects of this month's death-themed issue include holy necromancy in modern-day Finland, a Neapolitan cult of grannies who 'adopted' skulls, Victorian tales of people buried alive, a Spanish festival where the living parade in coffins, and our strange compulsion to personalise anonymous corpses.

Also this month we ask whether the unusual incidence of twins in a Brazilian town might be the work of Auschwitz's 'Angel of Death', and whether a rotting cadaver on a Devon beach could be the remains of the Beast of Exmoor; we puzzle over reports of unusual thieves, including a man who was held captive by a ghost in a house he broke into, and a would-be car-jacker who turned into a goat; and we are disturbed by tales of pregnant women attacked and robbed of their unborn babies, and of a woman who discovered she had a worm living in her brain.

Remember you can find archived articles from previous issues, up to the minute Fortean news and reviews, and much more at the FT website.

The Anomalist rocks. I'm sure many of you agree. If so, and you've got some design skills, you might like to put forward an image for consideration for the cover of volume 14 of The Anomalist (titled "Electricity of the Mind"):

Help Create The Anomalist 14 Cover

This group is for people who wish to put forward an image for consideration for the cover of volume 14 of The Anomalist "Electricity of the Mind". (See www.anomalist.com/print/print.html for previous volumes)

Any image or illustration you put forward should either be your own copyright and free for us to use (we don't get paid for putting this together, and we can't afford to pay contributors - it's a labour of love!) or covered by Creative Commons.

Visit the link for required design specs for the image. And check out previous copies of The Anomalist for some great content (some free PDFs available via the link, as well as ordering details for recent releases).

The latest issue of Fortean Times (#246) is now available for purchasing:

Celebrating Darwin's anniversaries this month, we consider those who haven't bought into Darwinism as enthusiastically as most of us, with Patrick Harpur wondering whether it's just another origin myth full of 'missing links', and Anna Smith-Spark uncovering the sometimes bizarre alternative theories proposed by the likes of Madam Blavatsky and David Barclay.

Also in this issue we hunt the Almasty with the CFZ, investigate claims that a UFO flew into a wind turbine, are troubled by the tale of a dead wife texting her husband, puzzle over the mysterious case of Cardinal Newman's vanishing corpse and are astonished by the boy born with a foot in his brain.

Full details at the FT website, as well as archived articles from previous issues, Fortean news links and more.

The latest issue of Fortean Times (#245) is now available on news-stands, with a cover story on the Dyatlov Pass Incident. Here's a rundown on the contents:

• Dyatlov Pass Incident: In 1959, nine skiers met mysterious deaths in the Ural Mountains, victims of "an unknown force".
• Night People: Exploring the historical belief that sleepwalkers possessed supernatural or visionary powers.
• Gabriel Feather: Investigating an elusive holy relic said to be a feather from the wing of the Archangel Gabriel.
• Tallest Story Ever?: A strange tale of the acoustic levitation of stone blocks up Tibetan mountainsides.
• Ghosts of East Berlin: The spectres of World War II and the German Democratic Republic still haunting this once divided city.

More details, and free sample material from past issues, are available at the FT website.

The latest issue of Fortean Times is now available:

This issue, we visit the Jeane Dixon Museum and Library during its final days, and reflect on the life and times of America's "national psychic".

Also this month we examine the claims of "earthquake sensitives", pity a girl who bleeds through her skin despite not having a scratch, laugh at a horse who got his head stuck in a tree, and another who got drunk and fell in a swimming pool, marvel at the silliness of this year's Ig Nobel award winners, and hope to bump into the munificent Fuel Phantom.

Full details, and archived articles from past issues, are available at the FT website.

The latest issue of Fortean Times has been release, with the usual damned data filling its pages. The cover story is on the 'two-headed boys', "the tragic story of the Tocci twins, touted around Europe by their parents as sideshow freaks". Other topics covered include US government plans to harness the power of ball lightning, new evidence against the Betty Hill 'star map', and the giant spiders of 19th century Paris. Full details at the Fortean Times website, as well as extra online content and archived material from previous issues.

For those who don't enjoy reading long articles online, the latest issue of New Dawn Magazine (#110) features a reprint of my interview with Jacques Vallee about his UFO classic, Messengers of Deception (Amazon US and Amazon UK). Besides that, the ND website has two free sample articles available, and a full list of the contents. Remember too that New Dawn can now be purchased as an electronic (PDF) version as well as the usual print edition.

The annual Fortean Times 'UnConvention' is scheduled for the weekend of November 1 and 2 this year, at the University of Westminster in London. Speakers include some of our good friends: Mark Pilkington of Strange Attractor, The Anomalist's Patrick Huyghe, Theo Paijmans, Jon Downes, David Clarke and Andy Roberts. You can purchase tickets through the website. Anybody want to shout me an airfare to London...