Cost of ignorance

This from Reuter's suggests that Saudi Arabia is paying the price for an educational system (and culture) based on religious fundamentalism.

The English-language Saudi Gazette newspaper said some buyers were willing to pay up to 200,000 riyals ($50,000) for an old Singer sewing machine proven to contain red mercury.
Mobile phones are supposedly employed as instruments to prove the existence of the phony substance. Popular belief in the Middle East has it that it can help uncover hidden gold treasures, though there are other theories which say it can be used to create a nuclear bomb.
"If the line cuts off when the telephone is placed close to the needle ... that proves the existence of the substance," Saudi Gazette said.