About the authors

Stephen L. Macknik

Stephen Macknik is the Director of the Laboratory of Behavioral Neurophysiology in the Departments of Neurosurgery and Neurobiology at the Barrow Neurological Institute (Phoenix, Arizona, USA). He was a postdoctoral fellow with D. Hubel at Harvard Medical School (Boston, Massachusetts, USA) and with Z. Mainen at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (Cold Spring Harbor, New York, USA). He received his Bachelor's degree in Psychobiology, Biology and Psychology from the University of California, Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, California, USA), and obtained his Ph.D. in Neurobiology working in M. Livingstone's laboratory at Harvard University (Boston, Massachusetts, USA). His research seeks to understand the neural underpinnings of visibility and awareness.

Mac King

Hailed by many as the premiere comedy magician in the world today, Mac King was just named Magician of the Year by the Magic Castle in Hollywood. He has made many television appearances and stars in The Mac King Comedy Magic Show, which is in its ninth year in Las Vegas. He is the co-author (with J. Dobson) of the paper Audience Management in the Classroom. Mac King is an inventor and magical consultant. Between his how-to book Tricks With Your Head, his made-for-television Mac King School of Magic and his nationally syndicated comic strip, Mac King's Magic in a Minute, and its related merchandise, Mac has probably started more people on the road to magic as a hobby than anyone else.

James Randi

James Randi is a retired professional magician (The Amaz!ng Randi), author, lecturer, and amateur archaeologist and astronomer. As a performer and lecturer he has completed three world tours and visited five continents. He hosted his own radio show, The Randi Show (WOR-Radio, New York City), and he has been featured in television specials in nine countries. He has also appeared in many television documentaries (including Secrets of the Psychics on NOVA — a public television show in the United States — which featured his career and his efforts to debunk supposedly paranormal phenomena), interviews and variety productions all over the world. He leads the James Randi Educational Foundation (www.randi.org), which offers a million-dollar prize to anybody who can prove themselves to be a 'psychic'. He is a Fellow of the MacArthur Foundation for his investigations of those who have claimed to have supernatural, occult and paranormal powers, and he has exposed television evangelists/healers, 'psychics' (such as Uri Geller) and paranormal psychologists in Russia. He has been honoured by the Israeli Society for Promoting the Art of Magic, the Society of American Magicians (Award of Merit), the Academy of Magical Arts &Sciences in Los Angeles, and the International Brotherhood of Magicians.

Apollo Robbins

Apollo Robbins is a unique combination of performer, speaker and consultant. He makes his living as an honest thief. He first made national news as the man who pick-pocketed the Secret Service while entertaining former US president Jimmy Carter. In his performances he uses pick-pocketing and sleight-of-hand to demonstrate proximity manipulation, diversion techniques and attention control. This unique set of skills has led to several US television appearances, as well as corporate and academic speaking engagements. Most recently he founded Whizmob Inc., a consulting agency that teams up law-enforcement officials with ex-felons to train individuals and companies on how to protect themselves from current theft, fraud and scam trends.

Teller

Teller is the smaller, quieter half of the double-act Penn &Teller. He has been a professional magician, writer, actor and director for 33 years. With his partner P. Jillette he has performed in long runs both off and on Broadway and in Las Vegas (Penn &Teller are in their sixth year as resident headliners at the Rio All Suites Hotel in Las Vegas), co-written bestselling books and made numerous television specials and series in the United States and the United Kingdom, including Penn &Teller's Bullshit! (the longest-running series on the Showtime cable network, now in its sixth season). Earlier this year he co-directed an acclaimed production of Shakespeare's Macbeth at the Folger Shakespeare Theater in Washington, D.C. His work has won an Obie, an Emmy and the Golden Rose of Montreaux.

John Thompson

Johnny Thompson is regarded in magic as the most versatile and knowledgeable performer and consultant/director in the United States. His art in sleight-of-hand is unsurpassed, and his comic stage act has played from the Playboy clubs to the London Palladium. As an expert in illusions both intimate and grand, he lectures around the world and routinely consults for Penn &Teller, Criss Angel, Lance Burton and a host of others from San Francisco to Singapore. He's an actor, director, musician, composer and former member of the Harmonicats.

Susana Martinez-Conde

Susana Martinez-Conde is the Director of the Laboratory of Visual Neuroscience in the Department of Neurobiology at the Barrow Neurological Institute. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School, with D. Hubel. She received her B.Sc. degree from the University Complutense de Madrid (Madrid, Spain), and her Ph.D. in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Santiago de Compostela (Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain), where she worked with C. Acuña and J. Cudeiro. Her research seeks to discover how visual perception is constructed in the brain and how eye movements influence what we see.