It was an unusual 'weekend' for me. Several group members had asked me, jokingly, if I had taken a vow of silence. I knew that I was in receiving mode, with no wish to project outside myself.

It became clear last week what the Work means to me now. We were on holiday in Italy. On the first day we were both violently ill; the 'vacation' became an 'evacuation', not only of body waste, but of emotional toxins, old turning thoughts, and every expectation.

I felt the anger rising in me, old, dirty anger, like engine oil that badly needed to be changed.

From Friday night on, I had sought to bring head and sensation together. They flanked me, like two elephants, as in the Indian analogy. But what was the horse doing?

Space.com, 3 June 2010

The long-standing mystery over exactly what famed poet Walt Whitman saw streaking though the sky 150 years ago has apparently been solved by a team of bookworm astronomers.

Following a trail that began with a 19th century painting and led to hundreds of newspaper reports, the researchers discovered that the "strange huge meteor-procession" mentioned in Whitman's noted collection "Leaves of Grass" indeed refers to a rare procession of earth-grazing meteors that occurred in 1860.

"Meteor processions are so rare most people have never heard of them," said Texas State University physics professor Donald Olson, who worked on the investigation. "There was one in 1783 and a Canadian fireball procession in 1913. Those were all the meteor processions we knew of."

Earth-grazing meteors unmasked

Earth-grazers enter the atmosphere at low angle, from the point of view of a given skywatcher, and appear to scoot slowly and dramatically along the horizon. They're much different than meteors appearing overhead and shooting swiftly toward the horizon

For years, Whitman's description had been alternately attributed to several events, including: The 1833 Leonid meteor shower, the 1858 Leonids shower and a famous 1859 fireball.

But the timeframe of the poem, which is titled "Year of the Meteor," listed under "1859-1860," and includes a definite reference to the Great Comet of 1860, conflicted with the 1833 sighting.

Evidence for the1858 sighting was also weakened when the date of a separate meteor shower observation by Whitman was corrected from 1858 to 1833. Additionally, a fireball is only one blaze in the sky, while a meteor procession exhibits multiple blazing objects.

Olson and his team describe their astronomical investigation in the July 2010 edition of "Sky & Telescope" magazine.

Painting shows the way

A single painting by 19th century landscape artist Frederic Church was the happenstance clue in solving the puzzle behind Whitman's reference. Titled "The Meteor of 1860" and picturing a procession of meteors through the night's sky, the work was glimpsed by Olson on the back cover of an art exhibition catalog.

Upon visiting Church's house in New England and a research library that contained old diaries of a friend, the team learned that Church lived in Catskill, N.Y., in July 1860, when the painting was produced.

That date allowed the researchers to focus their study on the time period's newspapers, which surprisingly enough verified the sighting of an Earth-grazing meteor during the evening of July 20, 1860.

Breaking apart in the atmosphere, the meteor split into multiple fireballs that burned overhead in skies visible from the Great Lakes to New York State.

The New York Times, Smithsonian, and Harper's Weekly all covered the event, with Scientific American calling it "the largest meteor that has ever been seen."

According to Olson, the eyewitness accounts from town newspapers alone totaled in the hundreds and provided enough information about the meteor's changing location for the team to extrapolate its route.

"From all the observations in towns up and down the Hudson River Valley, we're able to determine the meteor's appearance down to the hour and minute," Olson said. "Church observed it at 9:49 p.m. when the meteor passed overhead, and Walt Whitman would've seen it at the same time, give or take one minute."

"A really cool part is that the Catskill newspaper describes it as dividing into two parts with scintillations, exactly like the painting," said co-researcher Ava G. Pope, an Honors Program at Texas State University who contributed to the project.

Despite its extreme rarity as an astronomical phenomenon and its heavy documentation in the day's newspapers and magazines, the event was forgotten by the mid-20th century, researchers said in a statement.

Daily Mail, 4 June 2010

A simple test that would revolutionise the diagnosis of autism is being developed by British scientists. Like a pregnancy test, it would detect the condition from just a few drops of urine, providing doctors with a simple 'yes' or 'no'. The test would save toddlers the trauma of the countless psychological tests and hospital visits currently needed to pinpoint autism.

Speeding up diagnosis would also mean youngsters start treatment earlier, greatly improving their quality of life in years to come. The test, which is still in the early stages of development, builds on research showing that people with autism have different bacteria in their guts from others. Jeremy Nicholson, of Imperial College London, said the urine of children with autism contained a different 'chemical fingerprint', the Journal of Proteome Research reports. Professor Nicholson, who worked with Australian scientists on the project, said: 'It might seem strange that there's a relationship between autism and what's happening in someone's gut. 'However, your metabolism and the makeup of your gut bacteria reflect all sorts of things, including your lifestyle and your genes. We hope our findings might be the first step towards creating a simple urine test to diagnose autism at a young age.

A urine test would enable autistic children to receive assistance, such as advanced behavioural therapy, earlier in their development than is currently possible. 'We know that giving therapy to children with autism when they are very young can make a huge difference to their progress.'If trials on hundreds of youngsters show the new test to work, it could be on the market by 2015.

More than one in 100 British children has autism or a related condition such as Asperger's Syndrome - a ten-fold increase on 30 years ago. But with many cases being undiagnosed, the true figure could be much higher.

Diagnosis is a lengthy process, which starts with a GP examining the way the youngster interacts with others. A psychologist, psychiatrists or paediatricians, or a team involving all three, then carries out a series of interviews and psychological tests and a physical examination. Patients are usually treated through a combination of speech, behavioural and other therapies.

A National Autistic Society spokesman said: 'Studies which consider differences in urine samples are interesting, but before these findings could be applied more widely, they would need to be tested and scrutinised on a much broader scale. 'While some children with autism do have additional gut problems, this is not true for everyone, so the differences observed in this study, might not be representative.'

ScienceDaily, May 25, 2010

Exposure to specific bacteria in the environment, already believed to have antidepressant qualities, could increase learning behavior, according to research presented at the 110th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in San Diego.

"Mycobacterium vaccae is a natural soil bacterium which people likely ingest or breath in when they spend time in nature," says Dorothy Matthews of The Sage Colleges in Troy, New York, who conducted the research with her colleague Susan Jenks.

Previous research studies on M. vaccae showed that heat-killed bacteria injected into mice stimulated growth of some neurons in the brain that resulted in increased levels of serotonin and decreased anxiety.

"Since serotonin plays a role in learning we wondered if live M. vaccae could improve learning in mice," says Matthews.

Matthews and Jenks fed live bacteria to mice and assessed their ability to navigate a maze compared to control mice that were not fed the bacteria.

"We found that mice that were fed live M. vaccae navigated the maze twice as fast and with less demonstrated anxiety behaviors as control mice," says Matthews.

In a second experiment the bacteria were removed from the diet of the experimental mice and they were retested. While the mice ran the maze slower than they did when they were ingesting the bacteria, on average they were still faster than the controls.

A final test was given to the mice after three weeks' rest. While the experimental mice continued to navigate the maze faster than the controls, the results were no longer statistically significant, suggesting the effect is temporary.

"This research suggests that M. vaccae may play a role in anxiety and learning in mammals," says Matthews. "It is interesting to speculate that creating learning environments in schools that include time in the outdoors where M. vaccae is present may decrease anxiety and improve the ability to learn new tasks."

Daily Mail, 12 April 2010

A photographer has captured some of the most stunning examples of the Northern Lights ever seen.

Travelling each year to Northern Manitoba in Canada to capture the Aurora Borealis, Linda Drake braves temperatures of minus 20 degrees in search of that elusive perfect shot.

Making the pilgrimage to just south of the Arctic Circle, in March each year, the 40-year-old has developed a passion for the heavenly phenomenon.

Linda Drake uses a variety of different camera exposure times to photograph the spectacular lights

'Most people travel to Churchill in Manitoba to photograph the polar bears coming out of hibernation in February and March, but I like to set up camp and wait each evening for the dancing lights and nature's most breathtaking show,' said the San Luis Obisto based photographer.

'It never ceases to amaze me how grand the shows of colour are and how each one differs so wildly from the last.

'Hopefully in these pictures I have managed to capture the beauty that has transfixed me.'

The photographer braves temperatures of minus 20c in Canada's northern Manitoba to capture the light shows

Usually catching the light shows between midnight and two in the morning, Linda uses a variety of different camera exposure times to photograph the aurora.

'Sometimes I leave the lens open for two to three seconds and on other occasions go for 30 seconds to one whole minute,' said Linda.

'The longest display of the northern lights that I have seen has lasted for up to two hours.'

Caused by photon emissions in the upper ionosphere around 50 miles up, the light shows are the result of ionised nitrogen atoms becoming excited by solar wind particles funnelling through the Earth's atmosphere.

'I have braved the coldest temperatures I have ever experienced to get these photographs,' said Linda.

'The way that the sky moves like an ocean current is mesmerising and takes my breath away.

'I have been doing this for four years now and hope to continue into the future with my northern light fascination.'

The Northern Lights are the result of ionised nitrogen atoms becoming excited by solar wind particles funnelling through the Earth's atmosphere

The light shows typically take place between midnight and 2am

Splashing through the surf or cantering along the sand, Lydia Gallichan has remarkable confidence in her horse Herbie.

Remarkable because the 20-year-old Appaloosa is blind.

He lost one eye nine years ago when he speared it on a corn stalk while grazing.

Two years ago he lost his sight completely after a tumour developed in his other eye.

However he has adapted so well that the casual observer would never notice any difference from the rest of the horses at his stable on the island of Jersey.

'Sometimes I really do forget he is blind,' said Miss Gallichan, 27.

'I just want people to know that if a horse loses its sight it's not the end. Herbie is still the same character, if not even more so.'

Miss Gallichan, who works in a bank, has owned Herbie since she was 11.

She says she has to take a little extra care to steer him round obstacles.

If he needs to climb uphill she says 'up, up' so he knows to expect the change in gradient and going downhill she tells him 'steady' to make sure he doesn't go too fast.

'His hearing is incredibly sensitive,' she said. 'I can lead him in from the field and he will just follow my voice.'

Herbie's vet, Max Allan, said he believed that because the horse went blind slowly he had time to adjust to his disability.

'Horses are remarkably adept at coping. So long as they know where their food and water is, they will not worry about being blind.'