Glorious Views

Those of you who follow popular science news in the papers may be aware that a few years ago Mars was remarkably close to the earth in a once in a lifetime event. Here's an e-mail explaining it from back then: *Two moons on 27 August* 27th Aug the Whole World is waiting for...* Planet Mars will be the brightest in the night sky starting August. It will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. This will cultivate on Aug. 27 when Mars comes within 34.65M miles of earth. Be sure to watch the sky on Aug. 27 12:30 am. It will look like the earth has 2 moons. The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287. Share this with your friends as NO ONE ALIVE TODAY will ever see it again. I slept through it - but fortunately we have an even rarer event coming up later this year. Mars won't be quite as close as last time, but this time it will be in line with the moon! Come 12:30 UTC on the 10th of December the red disc of Mars (first with its hazy atmosphere) wil...

Today (sort of, time being relative n'all), the 9th of November, is the birthday of a great man. Carl Sagan - born in Brooklyn in 1934 - was an astronomer, author, educator, dreamer and science advocate. He chaired the panel that created the gold records that have flown, with Voyager, past the heliopause. He persuaded NASA to turn around Voyager for one last look at Earth from six billion kilometres. He studied Nuclear Winter and the conditions on Venus. And, more than anyone else, he kindled the love of science. In 1980 PBS released Cosmos - a personal journey discovering the universe with science. I'm not sure when exactly I saw it - but I think it was on an old black and white TV (that's right kids - they didn't always come in colour 3D) in the back room of our old rental house in outback New South Wales. Each Sunday I'd wait eagerly for the next episode and marvel at the wonders of space and the Earth. Tonight I took a break from my hardcore podcast catchup...

I passed a local church yesterday and was quite surprised to see a their huge motivational board proudly proclaiming "ALLERGY / GLUTEN FREE COMMUNION BREAD". That got me thinking... a dangerous activity while driving. If communion magically transforms communion nibbles into the actual body of a Christ, wouldn't it be gluten free anyway. Today Google/Wikipedia sucked me down and into the rabbit hole that's the swirling vortex of Christian dogma. If I'm going to have my brain explode into confused lumps I want to share - so here we are. What we have here is the Catholic tradition of the Eucharist, followed to varying degrees in other Christian sects. The wafer and wine are blessed and undergo Transubstantiation - transforming into the body and blood of Jesus. It turns out that it's not as simple as the communion wafer actually turning into the physical body of Christ. I mean, you can test that sort of thing. The wafers would go all floppy - unless it's ...