Astrology Watch: Partial Eclipse of the Moon

Let's ignore all those quantum physicists and astronomers for a moment and have a look at what the mythological interpreters of the stars are saying.  Astrologers are pretty excited about a partial lunar eclipse  of the full moon on June 26 in Capricorn.  The Wiki entry on the eclipse is here.  Everyone from NASA to the Lexington Vampire Examiner are reporting on it. Twelve major American cities will be hosting special events for Twilight fans.  Astrologer Susan Miller has announced that this lunar eclipse is the most important eclipse, astrologically speaking, in 500 years.

Ghost Particle (almost) Measured

BBC is reporting that a presentation at the Weizmann conference, The Cosmic Enigma: Scientific Symposia, running at UCL on 22 and 23 June, will reveal that scientists have narrowed down the weight of one of the smallest particles, the neutrino, popularly known as the 'ghost particle.'  This discovery in the world of the very small depends upon examination of the world of the very large.  Scientists examined data on the distribution of galaxies in order to determine that mass of a neutrino is "no greater than 0.28 electron volts [which] ... is less than a billionth of the mass of a single hydrogen atom."  This is important because neutrinos are considered to be a verifiable component of Dark Matter.

Fountain of Youth 7: Welcome to Midsummer

Midsummer Night's Dream by P. D. White.

I am running late, I hope Titania won't mind.  Happy Midsummer!  In Roman times, the solstice was celebrated on June 24th and in some places, still is.  This year, the solstice fell astronomically on the 21st.  Ancient pagans were on to something, with their religious awareness of the ebb and flow of the natural world, the tilt of the planet, the angle of the sun, the length of days, the magnetic pull on the senses.

Kubrick's Lost Concept Art

New York under water: Concept art for A.I. by Stanley Kubrick.

I09 is reporting that concept art by Stanley Kubrick has surfaced for the movie on artificial intelligence that he never made.  Steven Spielberg finished the film, A.I. in 2001.

Fountain of Youth 6: The Methuselah Mouse Prize

Mus musculus.

Since 2003, the Methuselah Foundation has run a competition for the most avant-garde research on anti-aging.   It awards the Methuselah Mouse Prize, also called the M Prize, "a prize designed to accelerate research into effective life extension interventions by awarding monetary prizes to researchers who extend the healthy lifespan of mice to unprecedented lengths."

Fountain of Youth 5: Michio Kaku on Time and Immortality

Pillars of Creation. Star birth in the Eagle Nebula. Hubble Telescope, 1995.  NASA, ESA, STScI, J. Hester and P. Scowen (Arizona State University)

Quantum physicists increasingly weigh in on matters originally confined to the provinces of religion.  Michio Kaku, the famous string theorist and popularizer of quantum scientific theories who teaches at City College of New York, and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York is working on the Theory of Everything, which even eluded Einstein.  It's a very popular quest at present, attempting to unite the forces of gravity, electro-magnetism, the strong force and the weak force.  

Fountain of Youth 4: Life Extension is tied to the Reproductive System

Roundworm life extension.

Surprise! Sex and death are connected. I09 has picked up a report from Nature based on Stanford University research conducted on the life extension of roundworms.  Scientists have figured out how to make the worms live 30 per cent longer through genetic drug therapy, namely, by blocking the activity of certain genes.  But the therapy only works if the worms are still fertile, confirming that life extension is tied to the reproductive system.  For the i09 report go here for the original Nature report, go here.  For the Stanford announcement, go here, which lets you read a bit about the research without paying for the article if you don't have subscription access to Nature.

Fountain of Youth 3: David Eagleman at the Museums of Curiosity

 Sum, by David Eagleman. Pantheon, 2009.

On June 14, BBC Four interviewed Neil Gaiman, David Eagleman and Sarah Millican on the last episode of its current series for the radio show Museums of Curiosity. You can listen to the show between June 14 and June 20 here. After that, it goes offline. David Eagleman, best-selling author of Sum: Forty Tales of the Afterlives , and neuroscientist at Baylor College of Medicine, Texas described his perception of time and the anticipated merger of science and religion.