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Some startling admissions about the placebo effect...? You no doubt have heard of the "placebo effect," or the healing power of belief. It's also known as the "sugar pill effect." Any medical research includes a test group which receives the remedy being investigated and, more importantly, a "control" group, or one which receives a fake remedy, usually a sugar pill or some other harmless offering such as an IV fluid injection. The idea is to compare the difference to decide if, or why, the remedy works. The trouble? No matter what the test, a percentage of those receiving the sugar pill -- the placebo -- improve as if they had received the remedy. And, in the case of one researcher interviewed by CBS News, up to 50 percent of those in the control group showed improvement.

So, asks the CBS story, "what's the difference between that and magic perpetrated by a shaman 700 years ago or in a tribal situation?" "There is none," psychiatrist Dr. Brown told the network. "This is the modern equivalent of shaking rattles and blowing smoke and dressing up in a costume."

'The Force' translates to art museums ... A touring exhibit of "Star Wars" paraphernalia that has been at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts for the last three months has been a membership boon for the inner-city institution while it has been, at best, a break-even or slightly profitable exhibit. The show, though, is being credited with boosting membership by about 4,000 -- or slightly more than 16 percent. The Smithsonian Institution traveling exhibit opened in San Diego before heading to the Twin Cities. It moves to Chicago before stops in Houston, Toledo and Brooklyn. If you wish, go ahead and take a virtual tour of the exhibit.

Staying on it ... Remember the "Love Bug" computer virus? The one that was a weekend-spreading e-mail bomb that went off on businesses and institutions just a month ago? Well, authorities are now apparently "spinning their wheels" even as they continue to encircle a Manila computer school from which they believe the virus was launched. Meanwhile, the media seem to be "shrugging (their) shoulders at this virus that is so over," writes Wired News.

VIDEO Space program fans will soon be able to experience rocket travel through their computers and televison sets: NASA and Dreamtime announce partnership

Cyberspace soon to really include space ... NASA has partnered with an online firm to digitize the space agency's 80-year archive of movies and film, along with offering live HDTV camera and microphone feeds from future space shuttle missions and the space station. Online viewers will be able to virtually watch the space station when it comes alive and follow along on rocket rides into orbit. The story also hints at marketing high-resolution footage to documentary filmmakers and Hollywood studios to make money for NASA.

Making sure you didn't miss this one ... Renowned attorney F. Lee Bailey -- testifying at a Florida hearing where he's fighting to keep his law license -- has testified about a lie detector test taken by his former client, O.J. Simpson. Bailey said Simpson did so poorly on a polygraph taken in the days following the murders of his ex-wife and Ronald Goldman that the test was ordered stopped, with the results snatched up by Simpson attorney Robert Shapiro, according to several published and broadcast reports. The test results haven't been seen since.

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