Can you forge an emotional bond with a brand so strong that, if forced to buy a competitor’s product, you suffer separation anxiety? According to a new study, the answer is yes. In fact, that bond can be strong enough that consumers are willing to sacrifice time, money, energy and reputation to maintain their attachment to that brand. Researchers C. Whan Park and Joseph A. DeBell asked consumers about several prominent brands: Quaker Oats oatmeal, iPod, and a university. Their study suggests that the greater a person’s brand attachment, the greater sacrifices a consumer will make to connect with or remain connected to it. In fact, their study suggests that this brand attachment can even be strong enough to induce separation anxiety when favorite brands are replaced by other products.read more

A huge alien planet has a strange hot spot on its side, and astronomers don’t know what it is. The planet resembles Jupiter, because it’s a hot gas giant, and one side of it is constantly boiling under its parent star. But the warmest part of it isn’t facing its sun, it’s facing AWAY from it. NASA’s Michael Werner says, "This is a very unexpected result. Spitzer (NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope) is showing us that we are a long way from understanding these alien worlds." Meanwhile, if we ever start up our space program up again, we’ll be able to use the moon as a base of operations, because it turns out there is lots of water there.read more

This week’s Dreamland host Marla Frees sure thinks we can, and many of us who are NOT psychic mediums have found that sometimes we can do it too. A 2002 survey by the National Science Foundation shows that 60% of Americans think that some people are psychic. These are folks who claim to be able see the future on a regular basis–is there any scientific evidence behind their claims? Researcher Daryl Bem of performed 9 experiments with more than 1,000 Cornell University students, asking them to identify an erotic photo on their computers BEFORE they saw it, and found that most of them could do it.
read more

For our subscribers: Betty and Becky Andreasson are rarely interviewed in person, but Marla Frees visited them on her trip to the Monroe Institute, and this extraordinary and fascinating interview brings us up to date on the lives of Betty and Becky and Betty’s husband Bob Luca. Are they still having experiences? What challenges are they facing now? Listen as the whole family tells us about what has become one of the best-documented close encounter stories in history.

Becky Andreasson’s website is BeckyAndreasson.com.
read more