The use of magic tricks as a way of studying the human brain has recently gained traction in the scientific community, with a couple of peer-reviewed articles coming out this month and next. Money quote:
"I think magicians and cognitive neuroscientists are getting at similar questions, but while neuroscientists have been looking at this for a few decades, magicians have been looking at this for centuries, millennia probably. What magicians do is light-years ahead in terms of sophistication and the power of these techniques."
2006-2011 archives for The Daily Dish, featuring Andrew Sullivan