Hope your day is going swimmingly. Here’s some news to make things interesting…
- Want to see something no living person has witnessed before? Check out the solar transit of Venus today (just you and the other billion people). Like a good parent, I’ll ask that you take protection with you.
- Experimental pill halts breast cancer in eight weeks.
- On July 1st, we’ll get closer to Saturn than we have ever done before, courtesy of the Cassini probe. They’ll have to set up a cable TV channel devoted entirely to space exploration soon.
- Explanation put forward for Milky Way galaxy’s mysterious filaments. Perhaps it’s unravelling.
- NASA decides on high-risk plunge into crater for Mars rover Opportunity.
- Brisbane statue still far from miraculous. Quite the publicity-gainer though.
- Green sweat puzzles Chinese doctors. The disturbing aspect is that the doctor is fine with red and blue sweat, but is upset about green sweat.
- Ghostbusters called into haunted theatre. Two decades on, but it seems ghostbusting is becoming a respectable profession.
- Can dying people postpone their death until after a meaningful event has passed? New research says no.
- Review of Barbara Weisberg’s TALKING TO THE DEAD, the story of the (in?)famous Fox sisters.
- Satanic ritual blamed for death of Italian teens.
- Maverick inventor’s amazing electric motor uses permanent magnets to its advantage. Don’t we all love a maverick inventor.
- Farmers to control wi-fi herds from home like a computer game? Good news for Grandma Grail who was target practice for one of her cows last weekend.
- Biotech crops cropping up where they shouldn’t.
- Is the world’s oil running out quickly? Hard to tell – one news story says this, the next says oil is here to stay. Perhaps we should all run our engines 24/7 and settle this debate quickly.
- Hospital tests barcoding of patients. Here’s hoping you’re never labelled ‘out of stock’.
- The skylarks did it! Crop circles help boost skylark populations.
- Ancient Islamic map shows egg-shaped England.
- Pharaoh Zahi says the Egyptian Museum will begin proper recording and storage of its treasures after some items disappeared.
- Petra: an eroding archaeological treasure.
- Embryonic stem cells link up as neurons, suggesting positive outcomes for use in brain diseases.
- US doctor loses job after suggesting we are paranoid about the dangers of the sun, and need to spend some time outdoors to improve our Vitamin D levels. Beware the orthodoxy Dr Holick!
- New research techniques could end animal testing.
- Diabetes linked to bowel cancer.
Quote of the Day:
I remember hearing once of a little dying child shrinking timidly from the idea of going alone; but just before the end there came a spirit of sublime confidence, a supernatural opening of vision, a recognition of some companionship, and the little one cried out: ‘I am not afraid; they are all here.’ … I believe the chamber of the dying is filled with the holy angels.
Basil Wilberforce
