Iguana

Supermoon on Sunday won't wreak havoc

Supermoon folklore http://mnatu.re/11q77Uf Is there any truth to it or is it #lunacy? 

Supermoon on Sunday won't wreak havoc
Despite all the folklore, this year's largest and brightest full moon will not incite lunacy or cause women to go into labor.

By
Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience
Thu, Jun 20 2013 at 3:19 PM

Veteran astrophotographers Imelda Joson and Edwin Aguirre captured this view of the supermoon of 2012, the full moon of May, on May 5, 2012, from Woburn, Mass. (Photo: Imelda Joson and Edwin Aguirre)
The full moon that will rise Sunday (June 23) will be the largest of the year, a "supermoon" caused by the slightly asymmetrical orbit of the moon around Earth.

A supermoon is a full moon that happens within 12 hours of the lunar perigree, or the point in the lunar orbit that brings the moon closest to Earth. The moon's orbit is slightly elliptical; at its closest approach, the moon is 225,622 miles (363,104 kilometers) from Earth. At its farthest, the moon is 252,088 miles (405,696 km) away.

The nearest full moon appears about 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter than the full moon at its farthest point from the planet. But despite folklore to the contrary, the supermoon is not responsible for natural disasters, babies being born or people going mad. [Infographic: Science of the Supermoon]

Sunday's Supermoon
Sunday's supermoon will reach its peak fullness at 7:32 a.m. EDT. The moon's closest approach of 2013 will be about 221,300 miles (357,000 km) from Earth, about 20 minutes before peak fullness.

Traditionally, the full moon of June is known as the Full Strawberry Moon, because June is strawberry-harvesting season, according to the Farmer's Almanac. (In Europe, June's full moon was traditionally known as the Rose Moon).

The 2013 supermoon also comes in close conjunction with another astronomical event,the summer solstice, the official beginning of summer in the Northern Hemisphere and the longest day of the year. This year's summer solstice is on Friday, June 21, at 1:04 a.m. EDT, the moment the sun reaches its farthest point north of the equator. For those in Mountain and Pacific Daylight Time, the moment of the solstice occurs late Thursday, June 20.

Moon myths and lunacy
The supermoon gets blamed for all manner of worldly happenings, from the sinking of the Titanic to Japan's earthquake and tsunami of 2011. But Earth science experts say linking geological events to the full moon is foolish. The gravitational changes created by a few tens of thousands of miles of difference in distance between the moon and Earth aren't enough to alter tectonic forces in any meaningful way.

"A lot of studies have been done on this kind of thing by USGS scientists and others," said John Bellini, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey told LiveScience last year. "They haven't found anything significant at all."

Nor have studies turned up evidence that the moon affects human health and behavior. A 1985 review of research published in the journal Psychological Bulletin found no convincing evidence that full moons spur mental hospital admission uptakes, psychiatric disturbances, homicides or other crimes. A 2010 study similarly found a lack of excess criminal lunacy on full-moon days.

Pregnant women hoping the supermoon will trigger labor shouldn't hold their breath, either. Despite traditional beliefs linking the moon with fertility, a 2001 study of 20 years of live births in the United States (about 70 million babies) found no moon-related patterns to when babies were born. The findings were published in the Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society.

More on LiveScience and MNN:

Stop the Lunacy! 5 Mad Myths About the Moon
Gallery: The Fantastic Full Moon
Full Moon Rising: Glitzy Photos of a Supermoon

MNN: 10 things you didn't know about the moon
This story was originally written for LiveScience and is republished with permission here. Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company.









Source: https://twitter.com/PlanetGreen

http://planetgreen.com/

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/space/stories/supermoon-on-sunday-wont-wreak-havoc

Quotes

"The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a
person's determination."
- Tommy Lasorda



A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but wont cross the street to vote in a national election.

- Bill Vaughn 

A man does not have to be an angel in order to be a saint.
- Albert Schweitzer,  physician (1875 - 1965)

The Cost of an Education

QUOTATION OF THE DAY

"I have $70 per student per year to spend. In the U.S. you spend $20,000, in Pakistan $130. You don't expect to do much for $70 a year."

FAROUK WARDAK, Afghanistan's education minister, defending advances in schooling despite limited resources.

Link:  http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2013/07/21/todaysheadlines/index.html

RAVENS ARE CLEVER INDEED

  

RAVENS ARE CLEVER ENOUGH TO HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR AND TO BE MISCHIEVOUS. 

Ravens in the Tower of London

According to legend, the Kingdom of England will fall if the ravens of the Tower of London are removed.

It had been thought that there have been at least six ravens in residence at the tower for centuries.

The earliest known reference to a Tower raven is a picture in the newspaper The Pictorial World in 1883.

This and scattered subsequent references, both literary and visual, which appear in the late nineteenth to early twentieth century, place them near the monument commemorating those beheaded at the tower, popularly known as the “scaffold.” 

This strongly suggests that the ravens, which are notorious for gathering at gallows, were originally used to dramatize tales of imprisonment and execution at the tower told to tourists by the Yeomen Warders.

There is evidence that the original ravens were donated to the tower by the Earls of Dunraven, perhaps because of their association with the Celtic raven-god Bran.  

However wild ravens, which were once abundant in London and often seen around meat markets (such as nearby Eastcheap) feasting for scraps, could have roosted at the Tower in earlier times. 

During the Second World War, most of the Tower's ravens perished through shock during bombing raids, leaving only a mated pair named "Mabel" and "Grip." 

Shortly before the Tower reopened to the public, Mabel flew away, leaving Grip despondent. A couple of weeks later, Grip also flew away, probably in search of his mate. The incident was reported in several newspapers, and some of the stories contained the first references in print to the legend that the British Empire would fall if the ravens left the tower.  

Since the Empire was dismantled shortly afterward, those who are superstitious might interpret events as a confirmation of the legend. Before the tower reopened to the public on 1 January 1946, care was taken to ensure that a new set of ravens was in place. 

Ravens in the Tower of London

SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_depictions_of_ravens

Portrait by Colin O’Brien

LINK: http://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/late-shift-1/lecture-creative-connections-spitalfields-life-25072013.php

Has capitalism failed the world? - Head to Head - Al Jazeera English

Has capitalism failed the world?

Former financial regulator Lord Adair Turner discusses the role of banks, the politics behind austerity, and capitalism. At the famous Oxford Union, Mehdi Hasan challenges former top financial regulator Lord Adair Turner on the role of the banks, the politics behind austerity and whether capitalism has failed. It seems that mistakes made in Wall Street and the City of London are paid for by people around the world, but can we govern greed within the realm of capitalism or is it all just money down the drain? Is austerity really needed? Can we trust the banks? I think we, as authorities, central banks, regulators, those who are involved today, are the inheritors of a 50-year-long, large intellectual and policy mistake. Lord Turner Lord Turner said: “I’m not an egalitarian, I’m not a socialist, but I am worried about the sheer extent of the inequality that’s now growing. I think finance is part of that story.” Lord Turner was at the helm of the UK’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) in the wake of the financial meltdown and is now trying to find ground-breaking solutions to global problems at the Institute of New Economic Thinking. Hasan challenges a man at the heart of rethinking the global economic system about his past experience, his present thoughts, and our future. “I am concerned that we have not been radical enough in our reform,” concluded Lord Turner. But he also sounded a note of hope based on some of the new ideas and policies coming out from previously orthodox bastions of economic thinking. Joining our discussion are: Jon Moulton, a venture capitalist and the founder of the private equity firm Better Capital. He has nurtured a reputation for forthrightness even to point of challenging his private equity peers for abusing tax regimes. He is also one of the few men in the City of London who warned about the impending crash before it happened; Professor Costas Lapavitsas, who teaches economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London and is the author of several notable books on the crash and its consequences including Crisis in the Eurozone and Financialisation in Crisis; and Ann Pettifor, the director of PRIME (Policy Research in Macroeconomics), and a fellow of the New Economics Foundation. She was one of the first to warn about the debt crisis in her book The Coming First World Debt Crisis, and is also well-known for her leadership of the successful worldwide campaign to cancel developing world debt - Jubilee 2000. Watch Has capitalism failed the world? with Lord Adair Turner from Friday, June 28, at the following times GMT: Friday: 2000; Saturday: 1200; Sunday: 0100; Monday 0600. Join the conversation on Facebook and on Twitter Source: http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/headtohead/2013/06/201361294652861958.html

Has capitalism failed the world? - Head to Head - Al Jazeera English