Win a copy of The Geek Manifesto!

UPDATE: The much anticipated ‘The Geek Manifesto‘ is now out!

We’ve got three crisp new copies to give away. It’s a truly fantastic read and we awarded it 5 Guru stars – read the full review here.

Winners will be announced in the next issue of Guru (Issue Six, free to download from 1st June 2012) when we’ll also be featuring an exclusive interview with Mark Henderson.

Want a copy? It’s easy…

Find the geeks – win the prize!

All you have to do is find one of these cheeky little geeks:

This is what the geeks look like - how many can you find?

The Geek’s are hiding in mysterious places. Try hunting around on the Guru website, Mark Henderson’s webpage and the publisher Transworld Digital Blog.

When you find one, just click on it and you’ll be taken to a secret page where you can enter your contact details. There are four types geeks hiding and the more geeks you find, the higher your chances of winning. Keep searching though because they might move around!

The competition closes on Friday 25th May 2012. Winners will be selected at random and announced in the next issue of Guru (Issue Six – released 1st June 2012). Unfortunately, the competition is only open to residents of the UK.

Get hunting and good luck!

We will never pass your details onto third parties or use them for marketing purposes. Competition terms and conditions.

Get in shape with our Fitness Guru!

It’s Easter Monday, and you’re probably feeling like we are right now – lethargic, lazy, and rather greedy after eating one too many Easter eggs. But fear not – help is at hand in the form of Matthew Linsdell, the new ‘Fitness Guru’ for Guru Magazine.

Read Guru Magazine and you too could look like this* (*not guaranteed).

Matthew, 35, is the owner and head trainer at Smart-Fit, a new concept in Fitness Education which is all about science and skepticism; at his facility in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Matthew only teaches methods which have been established through evidence-based enquiry – put simply, anathomy, physiology and efficient training.

Avid readers of our website may have already read a few of Matthew’s articles – not one to avoid controversy, he’s already looked at a wide range of health topics, including some of the ways we’re deceived by weight loss, why cardio is meaningless, the Body Mass Index myth, and answered the long-running question: is running really bad for your knees?

Matthew’s sure to kick the rest of the Guru team into shape – so we caught up with him recently to find out what’s in store for us:

GURUMAG: Welcome to the team as our new Fitness Guru! You clearly know your stuff when it comes to personal fitness, but what is your background?

MATTHEW: I was born in Manchester England, but my family moved to Montreal, Quebec, Canada, when I was very young. I was diagnosed with Dyslexia in Grade 2, but they also told my parents that I had tested remarkably high on some IQ tests (which didn’t mean much!), so they put me in a special class with a few other kids who had similar strengths with similar weaknesses. They found these kids of different ages from all over Montreal, but there were only seven of us at first I think. The program was meant to give us help in areas of learning where we struggled, but to challenge us in every other way. I think the hope was that we would become super-thinkers. Some of us did. Others had a hard time with life. It would make a good documentary to follow up with them all.

I started to exercise right after high school as a way to deal with the mental stress I was experiencing. I have an addictive personality and I fixate on things: details, activities, music, conversations. Exercise is something I just can’t stop thinking about. Better exercise than crack I guess! I went into Environmental Science because I thought I would be able to work outdoors collecting data without shoes or a shirt. The movie Medicine Man, with Sean Connery, was what was running through my mind when I applied for the program. I got in and the curriculum was highly varied across the biology world. I loved it. It impacted me greatly. The endless details to explore. And it really hammered home the importance of the scientific method. If it gave me nothing more than an appreciation for the self correcting nature of science I would have considered it all worthwhile. Everything I learned I’ve tried to apply to exercise. Tissue samples in histology class or discussions of the fermentation cycle in Microbiology. If you think creatively you can relate it all to exercise science. This provides me a richer understanding and heightens my enjoyment of it all. I would have studied exercise science properly if I had thought it would be a career path I would pursue. But I am glad I didn’t because my education was so varied, so multidisciplinary. Seeing all the different facets of the natural world through this lens has been instrumental to my enjoyment of our world. (more…)

Issue Five – Out Now!

There’s nothing boring about our latest issue! See for yourself – April 2012 is kicking off with the release of Issue 5 of Guru Magazine.

As you may have guessed from the front cover, we’re tackling some pretty serious subject matter in Issue 5: we’re looking at the London Riots, and meeting with acclaimed director Albert Nerberg to discyss his forthcoming documentary Boredom - in which he claims that crime – including riots – is caused by … boredom.

As always with Guru, there’s a host of other topics too: Physics Guru James Lloyd takes a look at the best pop, rock and indie songs inspired by science, Evolution Guru Charlie Harvey channels some pet power and argues why dogs deserve to be man’s best friend, and Mind Guru Kim Lacey asks can cryogenics really give you second life?

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg (note the well-timed Titanic reference? It’s out in 3D apparently, in case you misses that one). Never far from controversy, Sceptic Guru Daryl Ilbury debunks the notion of morphic resonance, while the Technology and Art Gurus are feeling nostalgic and reveal how the technologies of yesterday are making the comeback. They’re not the only ones longing for a bit of old-school action – our Design Guru also reveals her favourite Vintage Gadgets!

But don’t keep listening to us talk about it – read Issue 5 for yourself, right now. It’s crowd-sourced, free and designed for everything digital. We don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Download FREE your copy now!

1860′s photography meets the 21st Century [Issue Five Preview!]

The much anticipated Issue Five of Guru Magazine is nearly here. Here’s a sneak peek of what our Art Guru Michele Banks has got in store…

Photography is easy, right? Now that cellphones come with high-quality cameras and a myriad of apps to tweak and share your snaps, why would anyone bother making it harder than it needs to be?

Well, some people just love a challenge, and others can’t get enough of the imperfect but undeniably arresting images produced by one of the oldest photographic methods of all: wet-plate collodion. It is a photographic process developed in the 1860s – and it is making a comeback. The cumbersome method of making collodion prints requires a large format camera, an array of toxic chemicals and an on-site darkroom. It has been rapidly gaining fans over the last 10 years thanks to – you guessed it – the internet.

Shutterbugs who want their photos to look like their great-great-grandfather’s can now order collodion kits, share tips, and show off their images via the internet.  While some prefer to stick to traditional subjects such as portraits and still-lifes, others have branched out into more modern subject matter.  Photographer John Milleker Jr. combined the two, posing in period garb while displaying a digital copy of one of the most up-to-date publications we know: (more…)

What’s your favourite vintage gadget? Tell us and to win £15!

Missed the last competition? Fret not – here’s another chance to grab yourself in the run up to Issue Five (out on April 2nd 2012).

To nab yourself a £15 eVoucher from the nice folks over at Funky Gadgets, all you need to do is tell us what your favourite vintage gadget is. For example, something that was once new, shiny and cutting-edge but has now been superseded by even more trendy hi-tech stuff. Everyday technology is good – We’re thinking film cameras, dial phones, wind-up watches, Tupperware, collectibles… well, you tell us! Just tweet @GuruMag your suggestions, email them to info@gurumagazine.org or post them in the comments box below. Feel free to send your photos!

In need of inspiration? Here’s some from Sarah, Design Guru’s treasure trove… (more…)

Back to the Future! When would YOU travel? The clock is ticking…

“If you could travel to any point in time, when and where would you go?”

Answer this simple question to win a brand new copy of ‘Higgs Force‘ – a book that explains the ‘God particle’ in easy to understand language.

It’s the debut book of writer and scientist Nicholas Mee and we give it a full review in the next, free issue of Guru Magazine (released 2nd April). It normally retails at £15 / $30 but publisher Lutterworth Press have kindly given us three copies of the book to give away.

But hurry – there isn’t long…

This competition expires 55 days, 21 hours, 5 minutes ago!

Rats, ran out of time! Try our latest competition instead…

Wait a minute Doc, you're telling me I can win a prize?

The competition closes at midnight tonight (23rd March) and three lucky entrants will bag themselves a copy of the book. Winners will be announced in Issue Five of Guru.

Good luck – the clock is ticking…

This competition is open to entries from anywhere in the world. One entry per person. We won’t ever use any of your personal details for marketing or spam, and will never pass them on to any third party. Gurus and their family members aren’t allowed to take part – sorry.








Front slider image by renatodantasc, on Flickr

Superhuman Doc Martin Lee: 100 Marathons in 100 days in bid to raise £100,000

When Martin first told me what he was doing, I thought he had gone mad. To look at him, he is far from superhuman, but consultant Rheumatologist Dr Martin Lee is about to embark on a fundraising challenge of heroic proportions.

Few of us ever run a Marathon. Fewer of us would dare attempt one in a kayak. Come April 1^st 2012, Martin will be paddling 26 miles a day – for 100 days! Circumnavigating the UK coast, covering a total distance of 2,600 miles, he is about to attempt something no one has done before. If successful, he will be the first person to kayak around Great Britain without a support crew. It’s brave, some might say foolish, and it’s all being done in the name of charity.

With a target of £100,000 ($150,000), his efforts will help provide for better care for people with rheumatoid arthritis – a cause close to his heart. I met up with Martin to find out more about his motivations and fears… (more…)

Competition Time! Win the book that explains what the ‘God Particle’ actually is.

Competition closed!

Don’t worry – there might still be time to try our latest competition…

Every so often, physics gets sexy.

The Big Bang and black holes regularly grab the headlines, but more recently, something else has become the latest scientific superstar – the ‘God particle’. The international search for this enigmatic subatomic fleck has captured the public’s imagination unlike anything else since Albert Einstein. But ask anyone what it actually is and you’re guaranteed to get a tumbleweed moment.

Enter Nicholas Mee: particle physicist from Cambridge University. In this, his first book ‘Higgs Force: The Symettry-Breaking Force that Makes the World an Interesting Place’, Mee aims to do for the Higgs boson what Stephen Hawking did for the black hole. ‘Higgs Force’ sets to bring particle physics to the masses, just as ‘A Brief History of Time’ taught the world about space-time and black holes.

A full review of the book will be appearing in the next issue of Guru – available for free download from 2^nd April 2012. We thought ‘Higgs Force’ was rather good and we awarded it a lofty four Guru Stars out of five.

It’s the sort of thing a Guru reader would love to sink their teeth into, so we’ve decided to give some copies away. There are three books up for grabs, and to be in a chance of winning one, all you need to do answer the following question: (more…)

Interested in science writing? Get published!

Are you interested in science? The science publishing business can be a tough one to break into – many a passionate science communicator dreams of getting a book deal or a newspaper column. Guru is proud to be a crowd-sourced project and we encourage anyone with an interest in science to contribute.

In our first six months, Guru Magazine was downloaded an estimated 80,000 times – not counting the number website visitors. We exist to prove science can be accessible to a general interest reader without compromising on the facts. Our philosophy is to let scientists, writers and the general public engage with a wider audience – to stimulate interest, excitement and debate. We’re also here to give new and upcoming writers and artists a platform to showcase their work. (more…)

Guru Magazine supports World Kidney Day

Guru Magazine isn’t just about interesting articles and a stylish digital magazine. The team behind Guru have a real heart for doing our bit to help good causes. One group of medical conditions that you don’t hear much about are kidney diseases. It’s a shocking fact that globally there are an estimated 5 million people receiving life-saving dialysis every day – and many more in developing countries need it.

An organ that produces urine is hardly glamorous – but for those with long-term kidney problems, life can be a real struggle. With rates of kidney failure on the rise, in large part due to the soaring numbers of people with diabetes, it’s not a problem that is likely to go away any time soon.

8th March 2012 is World Kidney Day – a day of global action to raise awareness, funds for research and opportunities for anyone to provide support for those suffering with kidney disease. Guru is offering its support for what we think is an extremely worthwhile important cause. We’d love it if you took the time to find out more – how you can help, give a donation or simply to learn how you can look after your kidneys.

Click here to go to the official World Kidney Day website. (more…)