You may already know this, but psychic powers might really exist. Research suggests that far from being a trick employed by fairground fortune tellers, many of us are blessed with the ability to see into the future. Influencing events before they happen is also within our remit, the study by a respected psychologist found.

In another experiment, the students were shown an image of two curtains on a computer screen and told one concealed an erotic picture. The students chose the curtain hiding the naughty picture slightly more often than could be explained away by chance, this week's New Scientist reports. Importantly, the position of the picture was randomly allotted by a computer which didn't make its decision until after the volunteer chose one curtain or the other. To believers in the paranormal, this suggests the students were actually influencing future events.

In a third study, the students were shown a picture of a tempting-looking basket of fruit or a menacing pit bull terrier and timed while they rated the image as pleasant or unpleasant. After making their choice, they were shown a word such as luscious or menacing. Amazingly, the words shown seemed to affect their reaction time, despite them being flashed up after they'd rated the picture. This suggests that they had had a premonition of the word and the thought of a menacing basket of fruit had slowed them down, compared to the mental image of a menacing dog. In other words, they were able to see into the future.

The odds against the combined result being down to mere chance or being a statistical fluke are 74 billion to one, says the professor, who has a plea for the science world to open its mind to the possibility of the paranormal.