JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

We’d like to thank all the concerned friends who’ve sent us the link to the article, Why are some people mosquito magnets? We have mentioned that mosquitoes love us. Put us in a crowd of thousands and if there is one mosquito in the area it will home in on us. At garden parties a crown of mosquitoes forms over our head, officially proclaiming us the Lord of the Mosquitoes.

According to the article, these are the factors that make certain people alluring to mosquitoes:

– Blood type O
– Beer ingestion
– Full moon
– Sockless stinky feet
– Pregnancy
– Carbon dioxide exhalation and sweat
– Dark-colored clothing, esp. black and red

Way to go, scientific research! You’ve just narrowed the field of potential mosquito meals to nearly every human in existence. (We especially like the part about exhaling carbon dioxide.) This method of reportage is known as reeeaching, and it is often driven by the desperate desire to meet a deadline—an impetus we know extremely well.

Tarot cards from facade.com

The mosquito magnet article reminds us of our own research in a very different field: manghuhula, fortune-tellers, psychics and tarot card readers.

Read our column at InterAksyon.com.

Koosi is the Magneto/Erik Lehnsherr of cats.

Koosi says: Although cats, being the perfect predators, are clearly the top of the food chain, it is in our best interest to let the humans believe that they are the dominant species. Let them think that we are cute, cuddly critters who give them something to make YouTube videos about since their own lives are generally unwatchable. In exchange for this useful deception they give us food, shelter, clothing (They try, we shred them), health care, etc, which beats scrounging in garbage cans.

Allow these needy hominids the illusion that we are their pets. “Oh wow, we wuv tweats! Here’s something for you in the litterbox (cough, cough, toxo).” Remember to look cute at all times, and to gaze upon them adoringly even when you’re really thinking, “You’re a good source of protein, person.” And we mean all times, even while you sleep.

Bilog, photo by Jen Villabona.

Thanks, the chronicler of boredom, for the Goddess Bast pin, which looks like Koosi.

That’s the Cat’s Eye Nebula, NGC 6543, on the top of the page beside our logo. We got it from one of our favorite sites, the NASA Astrology Picture of the Day Archive.

And here’s the Cat’s Paw Nebula, NGC 6334.

If we ever discover anything in space, we’re naming it after our cats.

Von Braun, the Nazi who built the space program, with US President John F. Kennedy. Photo from space.com.

On Thursday, September 20, 1945, Wernher von Braun arrived at Fort Strong. The small military site on the northern tip of Boston Harbour’s Long Island was the processing point for Project Paperclip, the government programme under which hundreds of German scientists were brought into America. Von Braun filled out his paperwork that day as the inventor of the Nazi V-2 rocket, a member of the Nazi party, and a member of the SS who could be linked to the deaths of thousands of concentration camp prisoners. Two and a half decades later on Wednesday, July 16, 1969, von Braun stood in the firing room at Kennedy Spaceflight Centre and watched another of his rockets, the Saturn V, take the Apollo 11 crew to the Moon.

That he was responsible for both the deadly Nazi V-2 and NASA’s majestic Saturn V makes Wernher von Braun a controversial historical figure. Some hold that his participation in the Nazi war effort necessitates classifying him as a villain. But while his actions during the Second World War were monstrous, he wasn’t motivated by some inherent evil or personal belief in Nazi ideology. Von Braun was motivated by his childhood obsession with spaceflight, a somewhat uncritical patriotism, and a naive grasp of the ramifications of his actions in creating one of the War’s deadliest weapons. How can we treat someone who brought technological triumph to two nations, in one case as a purveyor of death and destruction and in the other a bringer of wonder and inspiration?

Read Wernher von Braun: History’s most controversial figure? by Amy Shira Teitel.

When it comes to your moods, decisions and behaviour, the brain in your head is not the only one doing the thinking

Embedded in the wall of the gut, the enteric nervous system (ENS) has long been known to control digestion. Now it seems it also plays an important role in our physical and mental well-being. It can work both independently of and in conjunction with the brain in your head and, although you are not conscious of your gut “thinking”, the ENS helps you sense environmental threats, and then influences your response. “A lot of the information that the gut sends to the brain affects well-being, and doesn’t even come to consciousness,” says Michael Gershon at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, New York.

Read Gut instincts: The secrets of your second brain in New Scientist.

String Theory suggests that our universe may be like a page in a book, stacked alongside tens of trillions of others. Those other realities would be right next to us now. Photo by the Esch Collection/Getty

There is another you, sitting on an identical Earth, about 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 120 light years away

Read World Next Door by Michael Hanlon in Aeon. via 3QD.