Here is a rundown of the top stories in pseudoscience, paranormal and anomaly news from the past week courtesy of Doubtful News

The big news this past week was one of skeptical activism. Several blogs (including Bad Astronomy by former JREF president Phil Plait) spread the word about American Airlines allowing a promotion by the anti-vax group the Australian Vaccination Network. As a result, American Air was deluged with comments of those who were unhappy about their choice to give Meryl Dorey and her unscientific view a platform. By expressing the critical points that children’s lives were at stake and vaccination works, the public outcry did it’s job and they will not run the pieces</a>. Meryl then complained about censorship. In the newspapers.

Meanwhile, Canadian pediatricians are getting fed up with anti-vax parents and are telling them to leave.

A new University of B.C. study suggests analytical thinking can be harmful to religious faith.

UFO believers see another object orbiting the Sun in a new NASA image. Do you get the impression they just wait for these images to come out so they can go anomaly hunting?

In a thought-provoking piece about our concepts of UFOs, magical entities and paranormal experiences, people in Nigeria experience a “flying city”.

In a story to remind us that people can believe incredibly insane ideas, a woman died of starvation after embarking on sunlight only diet thanks to a movie made by an Indian guru.

Several stories reminded us of the popularity of incredulous media:

The influence of ghost hunter TV shows has made ghost gadgetry a big business. We can’t measure spirits but this father is capitalizing on his deepest wish to communicate with dead daughter.

So much for reality television. The Syfy channel will premier 3 new ghosts shows and have 4 in the pipeline.

Will this new website be a tool for social commentary or hoax generator?

A new film on creationists and the politicization of education debuts at the Tribeca Film Festival.

In monster news:

Was it a giant rat killed in the U.K.? And, a sonar photo from Loch Ness is touted as possible evidence for the famous monster.

Movie merchandizing jumps on the magnetic technology bandwagon as the new Avengers movie promotes a magnetic bracelet.

 

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Sharon Hill runs Doubtful News, a unique feed of news stories about the paranormal, pseudoscience, the weird and the unexplained with questioning commentary.