(Source: blackmedic, via visualamor)
Broom-Balancing at Equinox: For Real?
DNews Ed-In-Chief Lori Cuthbert (follow her Tumblr here) has the scoop:
A rash of people are claiming to be able to suddenly stand their brooms on end. The brushy end, that is.
Some folks think this has something to do with the coming of spring, or the vernal equinox. The spring equinox is the moment when the sun crosses its equator on its way North, signaling the end of winter in the Northern Hemisphere and the start of it in the Southern Hemisphere. That happens this year, in the Northern Hemisphere at least, on March 20 at 1:14 a.m. ET.
But why would brooms start standing at attention just now, weeks before the actual date? Because people are trying to balance their brooms just now, that’s why. I had visions of brooms worldwide jumping simultaneously upright, but since mine didn’t that couldn’t be it.
If you try to balance an old broom, like the one I use to chase my mean duck into the pond, it won’t work; it’s the wrong shape. If you use a new broom that still has a straight bottom, it’s not hard to get it to stand upright.
Photo caption: OMG! My broom is balancing! Credit: Lori Cuthbert
Difference Between Astronomy and Astrology
by Carl Edward Sagan — From Cosmos: A Personal Voyage
There are two ways to view the stars, as they really are.. or as we might wish them to be. These, are the Pleadeas a group of young stars leaving their stellar nurseries, gas, and dust, and this.. is the Crab Nebula, a stellar graveyard where gas and dust are being dispersed back into the interstellar medium. Inside it lies a pulsar. Both the Pleadeas and the Crab Nebula are in a constellation where Astrologers long ago named Taurus The Bull, They imagined it to influence our daily lives. Astronomers say, that the Planet Saturn is an immense globe of hydrogen and helium and circled by a ring of snowballs 50,000 Kilometers wide and that Jupiter’s great red spot was a giant storm raging for perhaps a 1,000,0000 years.
But Astrologers see the Planets, as affecting human character and fate. Jupiter represent a regal baring and a gentle disposition and Saturn the gravedigger fosters they say, stress, suspicion & evil. The Astronomers Mars was as real as the Earth, a world awaiting exploration. But the Astrologers saw Mars as a warrior a creator of quarrels, violence, and destruction. Astronomy and Astrology were not so distinct, for most of human history the one encompassed the other. But there came a time when Astronomy escaped from the confines of Astrology. The two traditions became to diverge in the life and mind of Johannes Kepler. It was he who demystified the heavens by discovering that a physical force laid behind the motions of the Planets.
He was the first astrophysicist and the last scientific astrologer. Intellectual foundations of astrology were swept away 300 years ago and yet it is still taken serious by yet many people. You ever notice how easy it is to find a magazine about astrology? Virtually every newspaper in America has a column on Astrology. Almost none, have even a weekly column on Astronomy. People wore Astrological pendants, checked their Horoscopes before leaving the house, even our languages preserve some astrological consciousness. For example take the word, “Disaster” it comes from the Greek for “Bad Star” Italians believed disease was caused by the influence of the stars its the origin of our word “Influenza”. The Zodiacal signs used by Astrologers even ornament this statue of Prometheus in New York City.
Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods…
When people fled Fukushima and other parts of Japan a year ago, thousands of pets were left behind. While many pets have since been reunited with their owners, a horrific situation still exists in the no-go 12.5-mile radiation zone around the damaged nuclear plants.
There, homeless dogs and cats are still wandering around the area, according to World Vets founder and CEO Cathy King. She told Discovery News that “a lot of these animals have since been rescued out, but some remain.”
The problem demonstrates how difficult recovery has been after the 9.0 magnitude earthquake that struck off the northeast coast of Japan on March 11, 2011.
The resulting tsunami and nuclear woes devastated the area. Animal support teams from all over the world descended upon the region and are still trying to improve the situation.More images and information about the rescue efforts here
photo 1 & 2: Corbis
I want a sleeve, no joke. I just don’t know what to fill it with.
Alas, my life.
(Source: foreveronadventures, via visualamor)
(Source: chrisfabian, via supremecunt)
