Monday 18 February 2013

In The Ayr

Beliefs and phenomena - How they affect us - What we actually do

Friday 15 February 2013

'Jelly invasion' at Somerset nature reserve baffles scientists

RSPB officials said the slime bore the appearance of "something living" - and the public have been warned not to touch any of the pools of slime.

By Rob Waugh | Yahoo! News

A weird "slime" has invaded a British nature park - and RSPB experts have appealed for help in identifying the mysterious substance. RSPB officials said the slime bore the appearance of "something living" - and the public have been warned not to touch any of the pools of slime.

Local folklore suggests that the jelly appears in the wake of meteor showers. The jelly-like substance has been found at the RSPB Ham Wall Nature reserve in Somerset.

[Related: First meteorite fragments 'found' after Russian blast]

Steve Hughes, the RSPB site manager at Ham Wall, said: "This past week we've been finding piles of this translucent jelly dotted around the reserve. Always on grass banks away from the water's edge. They are usually about 10cm (4in) in diameter. We've asked experts what it might be, but as yet no one is really sure. Whatever it is, it's very weird."

Scientific speculation as to the nature of the jelly is varied - one of the more favoured explanations is that it is a form of cyanobacteria called Nostoc.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/-jelly-invasion--at-somerset-nature-reserve-baffles-scientists--150928727.html

Pluto’s 2 moons to get new names through contest

by PHENOMENICA on FEBRUARY 14, 2013

in SOLAR SYSTEM, SPACE

Astronomers have launched a campaign asking the public for suggestions to name the two moons of Pluto, discovered over the past two years.

Pluto is the Roman equivalent of the Greek’s Hades, lord of the underworld, and its three bigger moons have related mythological names: Charon, the ferryman of Hades; Nix for the night goddess; and the multi-headed monster Hydra.

The two unnamed moons – no more than 20 miles across – will also take their names from the underworld myth. At the moment they go by the bland titles of P4 and P5.

Online voting will last two weeks, ending on February 25.

Twelve choices are available at the website http://www.plutorocks.com and more suggestions are welcome, but they need to come from Greek or Roman mythology and deal with the underworld, the Telegraph reported.

http://www.phenomenica.com/2013/02/plutos-2-moons-to-get-new-names-through-contest.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Phenomenica+%28Phenomenica%29&utm_content=Yahoo%21+Mail

Morphic Resonance & Morphic Fields: Collective Memory & the Habits of Nature

Friday, 15 February 2013 10:26

'The word morphic comes from the Greek morphe, meaning form. Morphic fields organise the form, structure and patterned interactions of systems under their influence – including those of animals, plants, cells, proteins, crystals, brains and minds. They are physical in the sense that they are part of nature, though they are not yet mentioned in physics books.

All self-organising systems are wholes made up of parts which are in turn lower-level wholes themselves – such as organelles in cells, cells in tissues, tissues in organs, organs in organisms, organisms in social groups. At each level, the morphic field gives each whole its characteristic properties, and coordinates the constituent parts.

The fields responsible for the development and maintenance of bodily form in plants and animals are called morphogenetic fields.'

Huge Asteroid To Skim Past Earth At 18,641mph

A 150ft-long asteroid will skim past the Earth today - closer than any other near-miss on record. The huge chunk of rock - so big it is capable of wiping out London - will travel closer to the planet than many satellites.

But while it should be visible as a tiny dot of light crossing the sky to those using binoculars, scientists say there is no chance it will hit Earth. There is a remote possibility that it could collide with one of more than 100 telecommunication and weather satellites in fixed orbits.

Experts have been closely tracking the asteroid, 2012 DA14, since its discovery a year ago.
They say it will reach its nearest point to Earth at around 7.30pm UK time on Friday. It will stay at least 17,200 miles (27,681km) away - easily far enough to be safe - but very close in astronomical terms.

Astronomer and asteroid expert Dr Dan Brown, from Nottingham Trent University , said: "It will be too faint for the naked eye but with binoculars it should be visible if you know where to look. It will be low to the northeastern horizon and moving quite quickly.

"You'll be able to see it pass from the constellation Leo to roughly the Plough, more or less from anywhere in the UK, and it will be bright for about an hour."

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/huge-asteroid-skim-past-earth-18-641mph-031636509.html

Meteorite Shower Hits Russia Injuring 400

More than 900 people have been injured after a meteor strike in central Russia, the country's interior ministry said. Fragments of at least one meteorite - the weight of a double-decker bus - were seen falling from the sky in the Chelyabinsk region at around 9am local time, around 1,500km east of Moscow.

A regional governor said 950 people have been injured. Russia's Ministry of Emergencies said at least 82 children were hurt and 34 adults and 12 children were being treated in hospital. Two people are in intensive care. Many were hurt by flying glass as windows were blown in. Witnesses described feeling a pressure wave and hearing explosions overhead as the object hurtled to earth.

The Russian Academy of Sciences estimates the meteor weighed about 10 tonnes and entered the Earth's atmosphere at a speed of at least 33,000mph (54,000kph) - 15 times the speed of a rifle bullet - and shattered up to 32 miles (50km) above ground. Meteors typically cause sizeable sonic booms when they enter the atmosphere because they are travelling much faster than the speed of sound.

The defence ministry said it had identified a six metre crater near a lake in this region and has sent soldiers to the site of the impact. The emergencies ministry said that 20,000 rescue workers had been dispatched to help the injured and locate those needing help.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/meteorite-shower-hits-russia-injuring-400-084133496.html

Believe It Or Not: Skeptics Brains Are Different

Carrie Steckl, Ph.D. Updated: Nov 30th 2012

Do you believe in the supernatural? Or do you think that all-things-ethereal are full of hogwash?
brain

If you're not sure - or if you're on the fence about such touchy matters - a brain scan might be able to help you out.

Researchers from Finland recently explored whether brain activity differed between supernatural believers and skeptics using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

Read more... http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=49000&cn=21

Saturday 14 May 2011

Belief in God is part of human nature - Oxford study

Humans are naturally predisposed to believe in gods and life after death, according to a major three-year international study.

By Tim Ross, Religious Affairs Editor 8:17PM BST 12 May 2011

Led by two academics at Oxford University, the £1.9 million study found that human thought processes were “rooted” to religious concepts. But people living in cities in highly developed countries were less likely to hold religious beliefs than those living a more rural way of life, the researchers found.

The project involved 57 academics in 20 countries around the world, and spanned disciplines including anthropology, psychology, and philosophy. It set out to establish whether belief in divine beings and an afterlife were ideas simply learned from society or integral to human nature.

One of the studies, from Oxford, concluded that children below the age of five found it easier to believe in some “superhuman” properties than to understand human limitations. Children were asked whether their mother would know the contents of a closed box. Three-year-olds believed that their mother and God would always know the contents, but by the age of four, children start to understand that their mothers were not omniscient.

Separate research from China suggested that people across different cultures instinctively believed that some part of their mind, soul or spirit lived on after death. The co-director of the project, Professor Roger Trigg, from the University of Oxford, said the research showed that religion was “not just something for a peculiar few to do on Sundays instead of playing golf. We have gathered a body of evidence that suggests that religion is a common fact of human nature across different societies. This suggests that attempts to suppress religion are likely to be short-lived as human thought seems to be rooted to religious concepts, such as the existence of supernatural agents or gods, and the possibility of an afterlife or pre-life.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8510711/Belief-in-God-is-part-of-human-nature-Oxford-study.html

Friday 29 April 2011

Monkey see, monkey recall: Like humans, they can remember what they've seen, say scientists

By Daily Mail Reporter Last updated at 8:01 AM on 29th April 2011

Monkeys can recollect what they've seen, according to the study which offers some of the first clear evidence that, like humans, they have the capacity for memory.

Scientists found that rhesus monkeys can flexibly recall extremely simple shapes from memory, as evidenced by their ability to reproduce those shapes on a computer touch screen. They say the findings suggest that human and monkey memory is more similar than scientists knew. Unlike recognition, recall shows an ability to remember things that are not present in the moment, the researchers explained. Recall is necessary for planning and imagining and can increase the flexibility of navigation, social behaviour, and other cognitive skills.

Benjamin Basile, of Emory University in the United States said: 'The ability of monkeys to recall these shapes flexibly suggests that they might be able to recollect other types of information that would be useful to them in the wild. 'It's exciting to speculate that they may be able to recollect the appearance of monkeys they know, what favourite foods look like, or the path they would have to take to get to a water source.'

He said it's also possible that the monkeys use their recollection in very limited ways Basile added: 'Maybe it's often just easier to recognise the monkey, the food, or the landmark in front of you. What we do know is that they do seem to have the ability to recall information in the lab.' Earlier studies had shown that recall and recognition tests given to humans require different types of memory.

However, it had been difficult to devise recall tests suitable for other primates, given that they don't draw or talk. In the new study, Basile and Robert Hampton trained five rhesus monkeys on a novel recall test in which they had to reproduce a simple figure on a touch screen from memory. Those shapes included two or three boxes in a grid. After a delay, part of the shape appeared in a different location, and the monkeys had to 'draw' in the rest of the shape by touching where the other boxes should be.

As in humans, the monkeys remembered less in recall than in recognition tests, even under matched conditions, and recall performance deteriorated more slowly over time. Importantly, the monkeys were able to transfer their memory skill to novel shapes; their recall ability wasn't limited only to the shapes they had seen during training. The researchers say that the ability of rhesus monkeys to recall what they've seen in the past suggests that the ability to recollect does not depend on language and may have been present in our common ancestor 30 million years ago.

Sunday 24 April 2011

Did aliens establish a primitive postcode system in ancient Britain?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2011/apr/21/aliens-postcode-system-ancient-britain

Ancient monuments align with every postcode in the UK, suggesting powerful extraterrestrial influences at work. The uncanny alignment of prehistoric monuments indicates some form of external guidance.

Every single location in the UK is at the convergence of three or more ley lines between ancient monuments. As I type this, the line formed by the ancient Brill Earthworks and the Southam Holy Well crosses the line running through Morden Park Mound and the Leydene Ditches, pinpointing my precise current location. Not only that, but the ley line that crosses Small Down Knoll and the most renowned of all ancient sites, Stonehenge, also goes right through my house.It's as though prehistoric Britons built monumental sites as a form of "ancient postcode".

In fact, all modern postcodes mark the convergence of three or more prehistoric ley lines, one of which will always include Stonehenge. If you want to look up your home's ancient monumental alignments, just enter your postcode into this site built by programmer Tom Scott.

The "ancient postcodes" theory is very similar to the work of Tom Brooks, who believes the locations of ancient monuments in England and Wales form such precise isosceles triangles that prehistoric Britons must have built them as a form of ancient satnav. Mr Brooks has been back in the news recently as he has just reissued his press release from 15 months ago to help promote his new book, Prehistoric Geometry in Britain: the Discoveries of Tom Brooks.

The fact that every single modern postcode is mapped out in the alignment of prehistoric monuments must be significant because, in the words of Mr Brooks, "you cannot do that by chance". We are forced to interpret these amazing alignments the same way he does his triangles and "conclude that they received some form of external guidance".

Saturday 19 March 2011

World to see biggest full moon in two decades

Wednesday, March 9 04:39 pm

Yahoo!UK News

The world is set to experience the biggest full moon for almost two decades when the satellite reaches its closest point to Earth next weekend. On 19 March, the full moon will appear unusually large in the night sky as it reaches a point in its cycle known as 'lunar perigee'.

Stargazers will be treated to a spectacular view when the moon approaches Earth at a distance of 221,567 miles in its elliptical orbit - the closest it will have passed to our planet since 1992. The full moon could appear up to 14% bigger and 30% brighter in the sky, especially when it rises on the eastern horizon at sunset or is provided with the right atmospheric conditions.

This phenomenon has reportedly heightened concerns about 'supermoons' being linked to extreme weather events - such as earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis. The last time the moon passed close to the Earth was on 10 January 2005, around the time of the Indonesian earthquake that measured 9.0 on the Richter scale.

Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was also associated with an unusually large full moon. Previous supermoons occurred in 1955, 1974 and 1992 - each of these years experienced extreme weather events, killing thousands of people.

However, an expert speaking to Yahoo! News today believes that a larger moon causing weather chaos is a popular misconception. Dr Tim O'Brien, a researcher at the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester, said: "The dangers are really overplayed. You do get a bit higher than average tides than usual along coastlines as a result of the moon's gravitational pull, but nothing so significant that will cause a serious climatic disaster or anything for people to worry about."

But according to Dr Victor Gostin, a Planetary and Environmental Geoscientist at Adelaide University, there may be a link between large-scale earthquakes in places around the equator and new and full moon situations. He said: "This is because the Earth-tides (analogous to ocean tides) may be the final trigger that sets off the earthquake."

Written by Gaby Leslie

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/38/20110309/tsc-world-to-see-biggest-full-moon-in-tw-98fda55.html

Friday 18 March 2011

Mainstream media halts accurate reporting on Japan's worsening nuclear catastrophe; disinfo campaign now underway

Friday, March 18, 2011, by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, Editor of NaturalNews.com

Almost as if on cue, the mainstream media today halted nearly all accurate reporting of the worsening situation in Japan, writing off the whole thing as a "non issue." This all happened in a seeming coordinate effort following President Obama's speech on Wednesday that urged Americans to NOT prepare for anything. The American people, Obama insisted, should simply watch television to "stay informed." (http://www.naturalnews.com/031735_O...) Shortly after, mainstream television news returned to its regularly-scheduled sports and entertainment programming, barely touching on the reality of the worsening situation at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan.

Nuclear experts that were on mainstream news channels two days are now nowhere to be found today. Scary (but accurate) news stories about Fukushima have now been all but completely banned from the MSM. The word from the top is clearly that media outlets should start downplaying this nuclear accident, which even now ranks as the second worst nuclear accident in the history of human civilization (right after Chernobyl).

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/031748_mainstream_media_nuclear_catastrophe.html#ixzz1H2XxqrIk

Census: How religious is the UK?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12507319

A publicity drive has started for the census, now just five weeks away, but the survey is being criticised for its question on religion. So is it even possible to accurately measure how religious the UK is?

According to the Gospel of Luke, it was a Roman census that sent Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, where she gave birth to Jesus Christ And more than 2,000 years later, the same kind of counting exercise is being used to gauge the religious make-up of the UK.

According to the last census 10 years ago, more than two-thirds of people in Britain regarded themselves as Christian - 72% in England and Wales, and 65% in Scotland. More than 1.5 million in England and Wales, more than 3% of the population, said they were Muslim and nearly eight million ticked "no religion". There were also 390,000 self-proclaimed Jedi.

Is it a leading question?

"It fairly allows you to answer it because you can say 'no religion' but if you wanted to make it as neutral as possible, you might ask 'Which of these would you describe yourself as?' says Stephan Shakespeare of YouGov. "It does have a slight assumption, although not a strong one, but these wordings do make a difference."

But five weeks before the next census day, Sunday 27 March, some groups are questioning whether the religious numbers are at all accurate, and could ever be. They prefer to use the British Social Attitudes survey, carried out annually by the National Centre for Social Research, which paints a picture of a less-religious country, with 51% describing themselves as non-religious and 43% as Christian.

The religious question in the census was first introduced in 2001, as a voluntary option. In some other countries such as France, state questions about race, ethnicity or religion are not permitted. But in the UK, the vast majority of people answered it despite not having to, although the reappearance of the same question in the forthcoming census has prompted complaints. Question 20 in England and Wales will say: "What is your religion?" In Scotland, question 13 will ask: "What religion, religious denomination or body do you belong to?"

The British Humanist Association (BHA) believes they are leading questions that actively encourage people to tick a religious answer, thereby inflating the numbers, especially among Christians because many people hold a weak affiliation. The BHA begins a poster campaign next week on buses and at railway stations that urges people who are non-religious to "for God's sake, say so".

If you were baptised but had not been to church since then, you might be inclined to say you were still Christian, says Naomi Phillips, the head of public affairs at the BHA. She says the actual number of secular people is probably double the number the census recorded. "Many people tick Christian but wouldn't consider themselves to be religious if you asked them otherwise. And this is used to justify maintaining faith schools and used by local authorities to make their planning decisions to allocate resources to public services. "It means more budgets go to Christian groups and the needs of non-religious groups are not taken into account."

Ms Phillips says it would be preferable not to have the question, because it's hard to get an accurate picture. "It's very difficult to measure. There are so many different things to measure - by belief, practice, whether you believe in God, whether you attend places of worship, whether you pray." The census question pre-supposes you have a religion, she says, and a two-part question like they have in Northern Ireland would be fairer, which differentiates between your faith at birth and your faith now.

The humanists are not alone in wanting the question changed. The Foundation for Holistic Spirituality (F4HS) wants it easier for those people who have a spiritual but non-religious tendency to answer the question.

Census director Glen Watson explains changes

Click to play

Holier than thou

Outside London, the counties with the highest proportion of Christians were Durham, Merseyside and Cumbria, all with 82% or more
The districts with the highest proportions of Christians were all in the North West: St Helens, Wigan and Copeland (Cumbria) each with 86% or more
The number of people who stated Jedi was 390,000

Source: 2001 census

Tuesday 22 February 2011

Elephants are quick learners, offer helping hand

Posted by gp at Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Elephants quickly learn to lend each other a helping hand — ah, make that a helping trunk. In a series of tests, the giant mammals learned to cooperate to solve a problem, researchers report in Monday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Elephants are socially complex, explained lead researcher Joshua M. Plotnik. "They help others in distress," he said. "They seem in some ways emotionally attached to each other, so you would expect there would be some level of cooperation." However, he added, "I was surprised how quickly they learned."

The elephants caught on as quickly as chimpanzees, elevating themselves to such heady company as great apes, dolphins and crows, according to Plotnik, of the department of experimental psychology at England's Cambridge University.

The tests, conducted in Thailand, involved food rewards placed on a platform on the ground connected to a rope. The elephants were behind a fence. To get the food, the elephants had to pull the two ends of the rope at the same time to drag the platform under the fence. Pull only one end and all you get is rope.

Six pairs of elephants were tested 40 times over two days and every pair figured it out, succeeding on at least eight of the last 10 trials. Then the scientists tried releasing the elephants into the test area separately, up to 45 seconds apart. The elephants quickly learned to wait for their partners, with a success rate of between 88 and 97 percent for various pairs on the second day.

However, one young elephant had what the researchers termed an "unconventional" solution to the problem. As Plotnik and co-authors explained, the elephant firmly put one foot on the end of her rope, "forcing her partner to do all the work to retrieve the table." In another experiment, the researchers left only one end of the rope within reach of the elephants, with the other end coiled on the table. The elephants didn't bother to pull the rope, seeming to recognize that it wouldn't work if their partner couldn't pull the other end.

It is hard to draw a line between learning and understanding, the researchers concluded, but the elephants did engage in cooperative behavior and paid attention to their partner.

http://www.phenomenica.com/2011/03/elephants-are-quick-learners-offer.html

Friday 28 January 2011

Monkeys 'display self-doubt' like humans

By Victoria Gill Science and nature reporter, BBC News

Monkeys trained to play computer games have helped to show that it is not just humans that feel self-doubt and uncertainty, a study says.

US-based scientists found that macaques will "pass" rather than risk choosing the wrong answer in a brainteaser task. Awareness of our own thinking was believed to be a uniquely human trait. But the study, presented at the AAAS meeting in Washington DC, suggests that our more primitive primate relatives are capable of such self-awareness.

Professor John David Smith, from State University of New York at Buffalo and Michael Beran, from Georgia State University, carried out the study.

They trained the macaques, which are Old World monkeys, to use a joystick-based computer game.

The animals were trained to judge the density of a pixel box that appeared at the top of the screen as either sparse or dense. To give their answer, the monkeys simply moved a cursor towards a letter S or a letter D.

When the animals chose the correct letter, they were rewarded with an edible treat. There was no punishment for choosing the wrong answer, but the game briefly paused, taking away - for a few seconds - the opportunity for the animals to win another treat. But the monkeys had a third option - choosing a question mark - which skipped the trial and moved on to the next one. This meant no treat, but it also meant no pause in the game.

The scientists saw that the macaques used this option in exactly the same way as human participants who reported that they found a trial too tricky to answer; they chose to "pass" and move on. Dr Smith presented footage of the animals playing the game at a session that was organised by the European Science Foundation.

"Monkeys apparently appreciate when they are likely to make an error," he told BBC News. "They seem to know when they don't know."

In the same trial, capuchins, which belong to the group known as New World monkeys, failed to take this third option.

Dr Smith explained: "There is a big theoretical question at stake here: Did [this type of cognition] develop only once in one line of the primates - emerging only in the line of Old World primates leading to apes and humans?"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9401000/9401945.stm

Half of us believe in the Hereafter... and 1 in 5 want to talk to Diana

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 9:00 AM on 28th January 2011

More than half of Britons believe in life after death and two in five believe in angels. Some 53 per cent believe in psychic powers and the possibility of life after death, a survey reveals. One in five say they have seen a ghost or felt the presence of a spirit while two in five believe in ‘guardian angels’.

Many people believe they have seen the ghost or felt the spirit of a close friend or relative who has passed away. Two in five say they want to speak to dead relatives and one in five has visited a medium or psychic to help them do so – spending an average of £31 per visit.

Almost two in five adults believe someone in their family is gifted with psychic ability. A third of the nation describe themselves as ‘spiritual’ but only a quarter claim to be ‘religious’, according to the study carried out for the Clint Eastwood film Hereafter.

However, a third of the nation still believes in heaven and a fifth believes they will be reincarnated when they pass away. One in five British adults would also love to have a conversation with the former Princess of Wales. Albert Einstein came second in the online poll of 3,000 adults, followed by Marilyn Monroe and Freddie Mercury. Seven per cent of us want to chat to Adolf Hitler.

Penny Sartori, an expert on near-death experiences and author of the study, said people are now less worried about being ridiculed for believing in spirits. But one in five of us would still be too embarrassed to admit we had seen or felt the presence of a ghost.

Tuesday 18 January 2011

Fox 'may have been prehistoric man's best friend'

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 8:43 AM on 28th January 2011

Early man may have preferred the fox as a pet rather than dogs, new findings suggest. Researchers analysing remains at a prehistoric burial ground in Jordan have uncovered a grave in which a fox was buried with a human, dated thousands of years before dogs were kept as companions.

The University of Cambridge-led team believes that the unprecedented case - in which the remains of the animal and the man were then partially transferred to an adjacent grave - points to some kind of emotional link between human and fox. Their research suggests that the fox may have been kept as a pet and was being buried to accompany its master, or mistress, to the afterlife. If so, it marks the first known burial of its kind and suggests that long before man hunted foxes using dogs, our ancestors were keeping them as pets.

The cemetery, at Uyun-al-Hammam, in northern Jordan, is about 16,500 years old, which makes the grave 4,000 years older than the earliest known human-dog burial. However, the close relationship between man and fox was probably short-lived. Writing in the journal, PLoS One, published today, the researchers say it is unlikely foxes were ever fully domesticated and, despite their early head start, humans took to the more companionable dog for pets as time went on.

Prairie dogs have a language all of their own and 'can describe what humans look like'

Rodent species: Prairie dogs - only found in North America - call out to warn their friends when a predator approaches their habitat, scientists believe

By Graham Smith , Mail Online
Last updated at 5:49 PM on 21st January 2011

It's a language that would twist the tongue of even the most sophisticated linguist. Prairie dogs talk to each other and can describe what different human beings look like, according to scientists. The species - only found in North America - call out to warn their friends when a predator approaches their habitat.

Not only that, but they have calls for 'human', one for 'hawk' and another for 'coyote', radio station NPR reports. Professor Con Slobodchikoff, of Northern Arizona University, has been studying prairie dogs for 30 years. He is particularly interested in deciphering their language because to do so would 'open the door for understanding how other species communicate'.

The prairie dog's barks, yips and chirping sounds are really a sophisticated form of communication that contains a vocabulary of at least 100 words, Professor Slobodchikoff claims. 'The little yips prairie dogs make contain a lot of information,' he said. 'They can describe details of predators such as their size, shape, colour and how fast they are going. They also can discriminate whether an approaching animal is a coyote or a dog, and they can decipher different types of birds.'

Professor Slobodchikoff and his students hid themselves in prairie dog villages and recorded the noises the rodents made whenever a human, hawk, dog or coyote passed through. What they found was that the prairie dog issues different calls depending on the intruder. The researchers discovered this by analysing the recorded calls for frequency and tone.

They concluded that it doesn't have one call for 'danger', rather it has a collection of warning noises - or a language. To further develop this line of investigation, Professor Slobodchikoff gathered four volunteers and had them walk through a prairie dog village four times. On each occasion they wore the same clothing, except for different colour shirts.

The prairie dogs responded by issuing different calls, depending on the colour of the volunteers' shirts. Professor Slobodchikoff then discovered they also issued different calls for varying heights, and even for abstract shapes including cardboard circles, squares and triangles. He told NPR: 'Essentially they were saying, "Here comes the tall human in the blue," versus, "Here comes the short human in the yellow."'

Friday 14 January 2011

Unlucky for some: How hitherto unknown 13th sign of zodiac Ophiuchus could be why your stars never seem right

By Daniel Bates, Mail Online
Last updated at 12:05 AM on 15th January 2011

Horoscope horror because Earth has 'wobbled' out of alignment with the moon
Most who thought they were Virgo are actually Leo - but only in the East

If your horoscope has never made any sense to you, there may be a good reason why - it could be out of date. Astronomers have called for the zodiac signs to be overhauled because they no are no longer accurate.

The ancient Babylonians based zodiac signs on the constellation the sun was ‘in’ on the day a person was born. But during the thousands of years since, the moon's gravitational pull has made the Earth shift on its axis and created a one-month shift in the stars' alignment. Astronomers are now proposing to move all the star signs back one month and introduce a 13th star sign, Ophiuchus, to help readjust the zodiac calendar.

The change will come as a shock to many who will discover they have been reading the wrong star sign their entire lives - and will not necessarily be happy with their new ones. Those under dominant and creative Leo could now find themselves a Cancer, which means they are moody and sensitive. A passionate Scorpio could become a more diplomatic and balanced Libra whilst if you were a Taurus, you could now find yourself a stubborn Aires.

The change was suggest by Professor Parke Kunkle, who teaches astronomy at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. Astronomers study space and the stars from a scientific viewpoint whilst astrologers write horoscopes and claim that celestial bodies can give clues to personality traits.

Professor Kunkle said that those who read theirstar signs could have been reading the wrong one their whole lives and should readjust accordingly. ‘When astrologers say that the sun is in Pisces, it's really not in Pisces,’ he said.

STAR WARS: REVENGE OF THE SIGN

There are two major systems that control our zodiac signs - tropical astrology and sidereal astrology. Tropical astrology is based on Earth's relationship with the Sun and the four seasons. It preserves the seasonal associations of the star signs worked out by early astrologers by laying out new horoscopes against a first-millennium sky.

‘Historically, people looked at the sky to understand the world around us. But today I don't think people who are into astrology look at the sky very much.’ The signs of the zodiac have roots in mythology and relate to the legend of how the 12 Olympian gods took animal shapes to flee the monster Typhon who was causing havoc on Earth. They date back to Roman and Babylonian times and are based on the ecliptic, which is the path of the sun over the celestial sphere, or imaginary path around the Earth for a year.

In the beginning your star sign was indeed determined by the constellation in the sky that the sun lined up with at the time of your birth. Since then, however, astrologers have adopted a mathematically equal division of the sky, so the position of the constellations is no longer relevant.

The proposed 13th star sign, Ophiuchus, is a constellation in space and existing prints of its symbol indicate it is a heavily muscled individual holding a snake to the sky. Those born under Ophiuchus are said to have lofty ideals, enjoy longevity and are inventive. Those who are currently Scorpio or Saggitarius could make the switch.

The Earth 'wobbles' on its axis, so the star constellations we see change over a cycle of 26,000 years. So it is irrelevant that the solsticial points (tropics) have drifted from one constellation to another over time as the relationship is symbolic.

Tropical astrology is mainly practised in North America and Europe. The alternative is Sidereal astrology which is the Hindu system and is also practised by some western astrologers. It is based on Earth's relationship with the stars and therefore zodiac signs against the actual sky.

An adjustment is made for the 'precession of the vernal equinox'. This is the gradual shift in the orientation of Earth's axis of rotation, which traces out a cone once every 26,000 years. Therefore the dates of the zodiac signs change.