Star Guide

Andromeda and the Sea Monster Sea monsters are the stuff of legend - lurking not just in the depths of the oceans, but also the darker corners of our minds. What is it that draws us to these creatures, asks Mary Colwell. "This inhuman place makes human monsters," wrote Stephen King in his novel The Shining. Many academics agree that monsters lurk in the deepest recesses, they prowl through our ancestral minds appearing in the half-light, under the bed - or at the bottom of the sea. "They don't really exist, but they play a huge role in our mindscapes, in our dreams, stories, nightmares, myths and so on," says Matthias Classen, assistant professor of literature and media at Aarhus University in Denmark, who studies monsters in literature. "Monsters say something about human psychology, not the world." June 23; http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33226376 This essay on sea monsters that lurk in our psyche appeared ...

“Though the mills of God grind slowly; Yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience He stands waiting, With exactness grinds He all”. "Retribution" by H. W. Longfellow NEW YORK — James "Jimmy" Lee, the JPMorgan Chase banker who helped arrange some of the biggest corporate deals for companies including General Motors, News Corp. and Facebook, died Wednesday. He was 62 years old. JPMorgan Chase & Co. announced Lee's death, saying he passed away "unexpectedly." The bank did not give further details. Lee was among the best-known dealmakers on Wall Street. If a company wanted to go public, sell a business or merge with a competitor, Lee was often in the middle of it. The fact that Lee was advising on a deal was a stamp of credibility, in and of itself. June 17 http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/06/17/us/ap-us-obit-james-jimmy-lee.html?_r=0 The mysterious death (or is it killing ?)  of J.P Morgan  bankers h...

Deputies believe that in a crisis the return of the Imperial dynasty will become a symbol of revival of spiritual power of the country. Members of the house of Romanov's were offered to return to Russia. A deputy of legislative assembly of Leningrad region, Vladimir Petrov, sent the appropriate address to the official members of the Romanov family, permanently residing abroad, – Duchess Maria Vladimirovna in Spain and Prince Dmitry Romanovich in Denmark (copies of the letters were obtained by "Izvestia"). Deputies intend to develop a draft law establishing a special status of members of the Royal family and providing for their return. In particular, the official residence of the Romanov's could become one of the abandoned palaces in St. Petersburg or Crimea. June 23  http://fortruss.blogspot.in/2015/06/the-house-of-romanov-invited-to-return.html The cardinal ingresses of the Sun have a traditional reputation as  important mundane events....

Virgin goddess Astraea with scales of Justice Children as young as three show a natural inclination towards restorative justice fed by a strong concern over the welfare of victims, say researchers. A new study, published today in Current Biology, reveals three and five-year-olds are sensitive to harm to others and given a choice would rather restore things to help the victim than punish the perpetrator.  The researchers say the findings, based on experiments with 112 three-year-olds and 79 five-year-olds in Germany, provide insights into the roots of justice in human society. Previous studies have shown children are more likely to share with a puppet that helps another individual than with one who behaves badly. They also prefer to see punishment delivered to a doll that deserves it than one that doesn't. By the age of six, children will pay a price to punish fictional and real peers. Preschoolers can also be encouraged with threats of punishment to behave more generous...

Mumbai (CNN) Toxic moonshine has killed 99 people and seriously sickened scores of others of drinkers from a Mumbai slum, Indian police say. Forty-six others have been hospitalized, with many in a critical condition, after consuming the illegal homebrew, Mumbai police spokesman Dhananjay Kulkarni told CNN. Authorities said four men and two women had been booked over the deaths, on charges including culpable homicide, poisoning and abetting a crime. Eight local police have also been suspended for negligence, he said, while the suspect liquor has been sent for testing. The incident took place near Laxmi Nagar, a large slum in Mumbai, India's financial capital. Deaths from cheap, illegally brewed liquor -- often containing toxic methanol -- are not uncommon in India. June 23 http://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/22/asia/india-moonshine-deaths-mumbai/index.html The incident occurred on June 21, the very day the Sun moved into tropical Cancer, a very important event in mu...

A British wildlife film-maker has returned from one of the most inaccessible parts of the world with extraordinary footage of ancient rock art that has never been filmed or photographed before. In an area of Colombia so vast and remote that contact has still not been made with some tribes thought to live there, Mike Slee used a helicopter to film hundreds of paintings depicting hunters and animals believed to have been created thousands of years ago. He said: “We had crews all over the place and helicopters filming all over Colombia. As a photographer, Francisco Forero Bonell discovered and took the pictures for my movie.” The extraordinary art includes images of jaguar, crocodiles and deer. They are painted in red, on vertical rock faces in Chiribiquete national park, a 12,000 square kilometre Unesco world heritage site that is largely unexplored. There are also paintings of warriors or hunters dancing or celebrating. “It is the land that time forgot,” Slee told the Observer. June...

Anubis attending the mummy of the deceased (CNN)For centuries, dogs have been humans' loyal, domesticated companions. They've been wild animals, doing what's needed to survive. And in ancient Egypt, they served as bridges to the afterlife, with the hope that they'd intercede with the god Anubis on their owner's behalf.But only now is it becoming known the extent to which dogs served this latter role -- 8 million times over. That is the number of dead animals, most of them dogs, estimated to have laid in the catacombs of Anubis around Saqqara, one of Egypt's most historic and oft-visited sites, according to a group of British researchers. While such mass burials aren't unprecedented, given the numerous animal cults of ancient Egypt, this one's scale makes it unique.  June 20 http://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/20/africa/egyptian-millions-mummified-dogs/index.html In mundane astrology the conjunction of planets are among impo...

Researchers at Monash University have found physical differences in the brains of people who respond emotionally to others' feelings, compared to those who respond more rationally, in a study published in the journal NeuroImage. The work, led by Robert Eres from the University's School of Psychological Sciences, pinpointed correlations between grey matter density and cognitive and affective empathy. The study looked at whether people who have more brain cells in certain areas of the brain are better at different types of empathy. "People who are high on affective empathy are often those who get quite fearful when watching a scary movie, or start crying during a sad scene. Those who have high cognitive empathy are those who are more rational, for example a clinical psychologist counselling a client," Mr Eres said. June 18; http://goo.gl/ODmOVt Have you noticed how much scientific research is being published recently on understanding how  the b...

We are approaching the 100th anniversary of the demonstration that the brain is an oscillatory organ, and the first recording of a human electroencephalogram (EEG). German psychiatrist Hans Berger was a keen observer who recognized that the first oscillations he detected (eponymously named 'Berger waves', and later 'alpha waves') were reactive to the stimulation of the patient, and sensitive to the presence of illnesses such as dementia. The enthusiasm generated by Berger's discovery soon gave way to skepticism: his interest in cerebral energetics and psychic phenomena led him to speculate about using EEG to quantify the energy of a human thought, and transmitting thoughts from one individual to another. For much of the past 100 years, the relationship between psychiatry and the study of cerebral oscillatory activity continued to be marked by swings from enthusiasm (generated by exciting research findings) to skepticism (generated by the challenge of relating r...

Seven decades after it crash-landed on a French beach during the Battle of Britain, and 35 years after it reemerged from the sand, the last Vickers Supermarine Spitfire Mk.1—GR-J/P9374 in private hands will go to auction at Christie’s London on July 9 , carrying a presale estimate of roughly $2.3 million to $3.9 million. The single-seater aircraft, delivered to the Royal Air Force (RAF) in March 1940, was shot down less than three months later. The pilot Peter Cazenove belly flopped the stricken Spitfire on the sands of Calais beach and became a POW; he later took part in the Great Escape, as would another of the plane’s eight World War II–era pilots.   http://goo.gl/DwfgJ5 We will see how the last lunar eclipse of April 4 explains the news story elegantly. Notice that the eclipse fell very significantly on the meridian axis at London.  The eclipse luminaries  highlight a slightly skewed Grand Cross comprising Uranus-Pluto-Mercury-Kronos...