E.T. sees red

thinking of Earth as ‘the blue planet’ has been a popular myth, particularly since we saw the first snap shots the astronauts took from orbit and the moon

but from farther away, ‘pale blue dot’-distance and beyond, planets like Earth actually look red because biological molecules such as oxygen, water, carbon dioxide and methane show up in the red wavelengths

so if E.T. is looking for us, she’s not likely to be paying attention to blue dots

more next time

Blessed Be

Solstice at the 'henge

is it just me, or is there some kind of dichotomatic puzzle about how people who celebrate Solstice could be so disrespectful of the environment?

why don't they just stay home and watch Oprah?

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Blessed Be

Barack’s betrayals

has Barack Obama completely compromised the ability for plebians to ever again trust or believe anything a politician says?

consider:

✪ did Obama misrepresent himself to the so-called ‘left-wing’, who were primarily responsible for electing him?

✪ and didn’t he promise to wind up the war?

✪ instead of starting new ones?

✪ what was the Guantánamo reversal about?

✪ what did he really mean when he spoke of transparency?

✪ even when he does some good thing, he strays from his campaign position and acts more like a right-wing Republican; remember the financial reforms needed to deal with the ‘crisis’? hope you didn’t expect any action on obscene salaries or accountability for the criminals

✪ and don’t even get me started on his ‘gay’ [i.e. LGB ... etc] equality platform

more next time

Blessed Be

how many links are missing?

it wasn’t that long ago that ‘we’ thought Ida was ‘the missing link’

but a 2004 discovery suggests homo sapiens and the great apes parted at an evolutionary crossroads much more recently than that, and that the split happened in Europe, long after the apes had expanded beyond Africa

more next time

Blessed Be

war inspires peace

one of the many human mysteries has been the question of how we evolved from the pack mentality of our caves and tribes to living together as social animals in [relatively] peaceful communities

apparently it was our warlike nature that drove us toward peaceful coexistence; constant bloody and lethal conflict with our neighbours drove us to build alliances with them instead [to organize bigger neighbourhoods, which let us have bigger wars]

wonder how far away we are yet from the global neighbourhood?

then we can declare war on the UFOs!

you can pay for the full article at Science mag or read a summary on the New Scientist website

more next time

Blessed Be