Worldwide Webb

From the cosmos to Piccadilly Circus, the James Webb Space Telescope is making science fun again.

On July 12, 2022, Webb’s First Images were displayed in Piccadilly Circus in London, on Piccadilly Lights. Images/Video posted with permission. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (Credit: Piccadilly Lights)

Those fatigued by a constant diet of apocalyptic political news predictions and talking-heads apoplectic over some new outrage or another can find solace elsewhere in the universe of news.

Science news rarely disappoints.

Ancient artifacts have been revealed over the summer due to prolonged droughts in some areas. Though many spectacular archeological finds have been discovered over the centuries since Herodotus wrote his histories, plenty of fantastic historical finds remain hidden.

The ancient crowns of early dynastic Egyptian rulers have never been found. The highly-advanced civilization of the Ancient Egyptians lasted for thousands of years. It lasted so long in fact, we are closer in time today to one the last and perhaps best known rulers of Ancient Egypt, Cleopatra- who was a member of the Ptolemy family and Greek- than Cleopatra was to the builder of the Great Pyramids of Giza.

There are a great many crowns depicted in Ancient Egyptian art. Physical specimens, however, have never been found.

Nor has the tomb of Alexander the Great. The conquerer’s burial place remains one of the most sought after lost treasures of history as yet to be discovered.

A close relation to homo sapiens was discovered recently by Chinese scientists. Dubbed “Dragon Man”, it remains to be seen if this specimen will help fill the gaps in our knowledge of human development over time. Until we know for sure, the Missing Link remains missing.

Neurobiologists and neuroscientists still don’t understand why we need sleep, why placebos work on us, or why we age. Things are looking up on that front: Scientists in Israel may have just unlocked the secrets of how to reverse the process of cellular aging.

The seat of the human soul remains a persistent mystery to all and sundry. Brain scientists can find the control room alright; but nobody’s at the controls.

Neurologists of every variety have decades of research to pool at this point, and plenty of computerized power and globalized connectivity to pool it. They’ve gone as far as issuing the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness but they still can’t…