Those of you who have read Passage by Connie Willis will remember that the book centers around the idea that people who are dying can have “out of body” experiences. Are such things real? Well, The Guardian reports that a group of researchers at Southampton University plan to find out. One of the classic elements of the “out of body” report is that people report being able to look down upon their bodies lying in bed, so the experimenters will place a number of postcards in places that can only be seen by someone hovering above the bed. If their subjects can correctly recall seeing the postcards (the contents of which they do not know in advance) then their viewpoint will be proven to have moved.

The Guardian journalist manages to demonstrate about as much knowledge of logic as a creationist, but then it is her job to incite a flame war so I guess I shouldn’t be too hard.