Pravda: The Mayan calendar that many say predicted the end of the world this December of 2012 was a little off. Actually, it was quite late. In truth, the world ended approximately two decades ago. Oh, we are still physically here and breathing. But what are we? Who are we? Is this really the phenomenon […]
An Episcopal pastor from a church not far from the White House has been chosen to replace evangelical Christian pastor Louie Giglio of Passion City Church to perform the official benediction at President Barack Obama’s public inauguration on Jan. 21. The Rev. Dr. Luis León has led Saint John’s Church in Washington, D.C. since 1995, […]
[FOR HIGH RESOLUTION, CLICK ON IMAGE / Hubble Legacy Archive A gorgeous spiral galaxy some 100 million light-years distant, NGC 1309 lies on the banks of the constellation of the River (Eridanus). NGC 1309 spans about 30,000 light-years, making it about one third the size of our larger Milky Way galaxy. Bluish clusters of young […]
I was around nine years old when Dad took me to see the movie The Ten Commandments, starring Charlton Heston, at the Town Theater in downtown Baltimore. It was a big deal for us because the theater had just begun admitting blacks. Etched in my brain is the scene when Moses came down from the […]
It’s 27 October 1954. A reserve game between Fiorentina and nearby rivals Pistoiese is under way at the Stadio Artemio Franchi. A crowd of around 10,000 has gathered to watch. Among them is Gigi Boni (second left in the aboave picture) a lifelong Fiorentina fan who in later years would become the co-ordinator of the […]
The nation’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, reports it received $542 million from government sources in 2011-2012 while performing 995,687 abortions from 2009-2011. In 2011 alone, its clinics performed 333,964 abortions. When broken down on an approximate annual basis, that means Planned Parenthood receives around $1,622 in government funds per abortion. From a time perspective, […]
[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION / Marco Lorenzi] How do clusters of galaxies form and evolve? To help find out, astronomers continue to study the second closest cluster of galaxies to Earth: the Fornax cluster, named for the southern constellation toward which most of its galaxies can be found. Although almost 20 times more […]
The disappearance last week of the airplane carrying Italian fashion mogul Vittorio Missoni and five others across the Caribbean Sea has been blamed on everything from mechanical failure to kidnapping by drug smugglers. Now, a new theory has emerged: The airplane and its passengers fell victim to the “Los Roques Curse,” a phenomenon that some […]
[T]he Religious Right-dominated Republican Party has a God Problem. They externalize this by telling us that we’re the ones with the issue but, as we don’t put God in our politics in the first place (this is our problem, of course!), we can’t possibly have an issue with “Him.” The issue is all theirs, and […]
[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION / Martin Pugh] AE Aurigae is called the flaming star. The surrounding nebula IC 405 is named the Flaming Star Nebula and the region seems to harbor smoke, but there is no fire. … The bright star AE Aurigae, visible near the nebula center, is so hot it is […]
