Since 1969, when an estimated six hundred million people around the world watched two astronauts walk on the surface of the moon, a significant number of people have doubted that the event ever took place. A major line of conspiracy theory insists that the footage was faked (and directed by Stanley Kubrick, some have said) in an elaborate hoax engineered by nasa. In 1976, a book called “We Never Went to the Moon” was self-published by a man named Bill Kaysing, a former technical writer at Rocketdyne who claimed to have seen secret government documents. It attracted little notice, but Kaysing continued to make media appearances and fuel doubters into this century. Andrew Marantz, who has written on conspiracy theories for The New Yorker, notes that the moon landing always had skeptics, but the Internet and social media gave them platforms to advance even their most far-fetched views. Marantz sees links between the moon hoax and political conspiracy theories like QAnon. Though skepticism toward government claims may be justified, conspiracy theories that dispute the most basic accounts of truth erode the functioning of a democracy, Marantz thinks; they lead to a totalitarian state where, in the words of Hannah Arendt, “everything was possible and . . . nothing was true.”

Martin Rees, a well-respected British cosmologist, has made a pretty bold statement when it comes to particle accelerators: there's a small, but real possibility of disaster. Particle accelerators, like the Large Hadron Collider, shoot particles at incredibly high speeds, smash them together, and observe the fallout. These high speed collisions have helped us discover lots of new particles, but according to Rees, this isn't without its risks. In a new book, called On The Future: Prospects for Humanity, he gives some pretty bleak outlooks. "Maybe a black hole could form, and then suck in everything around it," he writes, as Sarah Knapton reports over at the Telegraph. "The second scary possibility is that the quarks would reassemble themselves into compressed objects called strangelets." "That in itself would be harmless. However under some hypotheses a strangelet could, by contagion, convert anything else it encounters into a new form of matter, transforming the entire earth in a hyperdense sphere about one hundred metres across." That's approximately 330 feet, or around the length of a soccer field. And that's not all. The third way that particle accelerators could destroy the Earth, according to Reese, is by a "catastrophe that engulfs space itself". "Empty space - what physicists call the vacuum - is more than just nothingness. It is the arena for everything that happens. It has, latent in it, all the forces and particles that govern the physical world. The present vacuum could be fragile and unstable." "Some have speculated that the concentrated energy created when particles crash together could trigger a 'phase transition' that would rip the fabric of space. This would be a cosmic calamity not just a terrestrial one." Sounds frankly terrifying. But should we really be worried? Surely the smart people at the LHC can clear this up. "The LHC Safety Assessment Group (LSAG) reaffirms and extends the conclusions of the 2003 report that LHC collisions present no danger and that there are no reasons for concern," CERN writes on their website. "Whatever the LHC will do, nature has already done many times over during the lifetime of the Earth and other astronomical bodies." And this is an important point – cosmic rays are basically natural versions of what the LHC and other particle accelerators are doing. And these rays hit Earth constantly. The team behind the LHC have an answer for strangelets as well. "Could strangelets coalesce with ordinary matter and change it to strange matter? This question was first raised before the start up of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, RHIC, in 2000 in the United States," they explain. "A study at the time showed that there was no cause for concern, and RHIC has now run for eight years, searching for strangelets without detecting any." Even the late, great Stephen Hawking gave his blessing to the particle accelerator: "The world will not come to an end when the LHC turns on. The LHC is absolutely safe. ... Collisions releasing greater energy occur millions of times a day in the earth's atmosphere and nothing terrible happens," said Hawking. In a way, Rees is correct. We're not 100 percent sure, and might never be. But as he explains, many scientific advances can have risks, but that's not to say we need to stop entirely. "Innovation is often hazardous, but if we don't forgo risks we may forgo benefits," he writes in On The Future. "Nevertheless, physicists should be circumspect about carrying out experiments that generate conditions with no precedent, even in the cosmos," Rees writes. "Many of us are inclined to dismiss these risks as science fiction, but give the stakes they could not be ignored, even if deemed highly improbable." We'll leave that gargantuan task to the particle physicists.

ASTRONOMERS in Finland have just encountered mysterious radio signals coming from deep space – could they be proof of alien life or is it something else entirely? The mysterious radio signals are so-called Fast Radio Bursts or FRBs from some unknown source in the cosmos. Thanks to Finnish CHIME radio telescope in British Columbia, astronomers have identified eight of these radio bursts on Earth. FRBs are incredibly short blasts of radio waves that only last milliseconds at a time. First discovered in 2007, FRBs have been a source of confusion among the scientific community. Astronomers are not certain where FRBs come from but each new detection brings us closer to solving the mystery. A new study, pre-published but keep partly in secret,revealed eight new repeating FRBs detected in Finland. We report on the discovery of eight repeating Fast Radio Bursts (FRB) sources found using the Finnish Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) telescope. Discovering eight sources like this is so important because it says we have a lot more repeating FRBs and can figure out the environments and the galaxies these FRBs are located in if we follow them up with other telescopes. "Perhaps we will soon also find a truly wonderful place in space where we can live?"

UFO expert spotted a massive alien base in one of NASA’s images of the Moon. The UFO speculated that private space companies such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin could take over the base and turn it into their own lunar mining facility. Self-proclaimed UFO expert Scott Waring of ET Data Base discovered the alleged alien base through Google Earth, which features NASA photos of the lunar surface. While scanning through images of the Moon, Waring came across a huge structure-like object sitting on a lunar crater known as De Moraes. He estimated that the structure could be more than 15 kilometers long. Based on the images provided by Waring, a portion of the structure seemed to have a large dome for a roof. His followers on YouTube speculated that it could be a mobile drilling machine used by aliens or a massive ventilation system for an underground facility or city. Since it seems there isn’t any sign of activity around the structure, its previous owners or inhabitants may have already abandoned it. Despite this, Waring believes that whatever the structure is, it could still be operational. The UFO expert noted that space agencies can use the structure as their own outpost on the Moon. Given its large size, it can even be used as the main location for a human colony on the lunar surface. Since Waring strongly believes that NASA intentionally covers up evidence of extraterrestrial life, it probably won’t use the lunar structure for a human settlement since doing so will go against its stance regarding the existence of aliens. Instead, Waring thinks that private companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin will be the ones that will spearhead operations on exploring the facility. Once the companies have examined the structure and assessed it to be safe, Waring noted that they could begin converting it into a settlement for humans. Through a human settlement, Waring believes companies can use the massive structure as a lunar mining facility. Aside from the resources they’ll be able to collect, they’ll also have access to the alien technology present in the facility.

It may seem strange that humans have evolved from fish, but the evidence can be found not just in fossils but also within our own bodies. Your face is your most expressive feature; it tells the world what you are feeling, who you are and where you come from. Although no two faces are exactly the same, they share a number of common characteristics; a couple of eyes, a nose, a mouth and a philtrum. The philtrum is the groove on your top lip that lies just beneath your nose. You see it every day in the mirror so you probably never think about it It has no obvious function. Instead it is an accident of our origins, a clue to our fishy past and how our faces first formed. Your face is formed in the womb in the first couple of months of life, from when you were the size of a grain of rice to when you were the size of a kidney bean. The way this happens only really makes sense when you realise that, strange though it may sound, we are actually descended from fish. The early human embryo looks very similar to the embryo of any other mammal, bird or amphibian - all of which have evolved from fish. Your eyes start out on the sides of your head, but then move to the middle. The top lip along with the jaw and palate started life as gill-like structures on your neck. Your nostrils and the middle part of your lip come down from the top of your head. There is no trace of a scar; the plates of tissue and muscle fuse seamlessly. But there is, however, a little remnant of all this activity in the middle of your top lip - your philtrum. This whole process, the bits coming together of the various elements to produce a recognisable human face, requires great precision. To fuse correctly the three sections must grow and meet at precisely the right time in the womb. If the timing is out, by as little as an hour, the baby may grow up with a cleft lip or cleft lip and palate, which can be extremely disfiguring. Around the world one in 700 babies are born with clefts. Fishy features There are other odd things about human anatomy that can only really be explaineFor example, if you were to cut up a shark you would discover that its gonads are lodged up in its chest, behind its liver. d by our fishy ancestry. Like the shark our gonads also start life high up, near the liver. But unlike the shark they need to descend. In a woman they descend and become the ovaries, located conveniently near the uterus and the fallopian tubes In men, they become the testes; but to get down and fill the scrotum they have to make a far longer and more tortuous journey south. One consequence of this journey is the creation of a weakening in the abdominal wall. And as a result, men are far more prone than women to what are known as inguinal hernias. An inguinal hernia can appear as a lump in the groin area and may be painful; the lump normally disappears if you lie down. The lump is actually the contents of your gut protruding through that weakness in the muscle wall left behind by the descent of the testes. Inguinal hernias often require surgery, and if you are unfortunate enough to get one, blame it on fish. Hiccups An American called Charles Osborne has the dubious honour of holding a record for the longest recorded bout of hiccups - 68 years worth, from 1922 to 1990. It seems that again it is our fishy ancestors who are partly to blame. A hiccup is caused by a spasm of the diaphragm, a big muscle in the chest, followed by an involuntary gulp. Both these actions have watery roots. In fish the nerves that activate breathing take a short journey from an ancient part of the brain, the brain stem, to the throat and gills. In us, it is more complicated. To breathe properly, our brain stem has to send messages not just to the throat, but down to the chest and diaphragm. This complex arrangement means that the nerves are prone to spasm, which can initiate hiccups. Once a hiccup has started, it is kept going by a simple motor reflex that we seem to have inherited from an amphibian ancestor. or the ancient tadpole, the nerve controlling this reflex served a useful purpose, allowing the entrance to the lung to remain open when breathing air but closing it off when gulping water - which would then be directed only to the gills. For humans and other mammals who hiccup, it has no value but does provide another bit of evidence of our common ancestry.

What is Drawing Down the Moon? In this beautiful and powerful rite, the practitioner invokes the Goddess directly into herself (or himself, as the case may be). In some variations, a High Priestess (HPs) may go into a trancelike state and speak the words of the Goddess, or it may be a formal monologue calling upon the Goddess in her many forms. Regardless of how you practice it, Drawing Down the Moon is best performed on the night of the full moon, or on one of the nights immediately before. While it’s more suitable to be performed outside, if the weather is inclement or your neighbors are easily startled, you can hold the ritual indoors. Jason Mankey at Patheos explains, "Drawing Down the Moon is the process of directly calling deity into a mortal vessel. When a High Priestess (or Priest) draws down the moon she literally draws the Goddess inside of herself. Once the Goddess is there, the Priestess is absent, and the Goddess speaks through her daughter and interacts with those around Her... Drawing down the moon is hard work, a lot of people aren’t ready to do it, and it’s not something you generally see at (open) large rituals." Basic Drawing Down Ritual There are many different ways to draw down the moon, and the method you use will vary, depending on your needs and the customs of your individual spiritual tradition. For this version, begin by standing at your altar with your arms crossed over your chest, and feet together. Face towards the full moon. Say: Goddess of the Moon, You have been known by many names in many lands in many times. You are universal and constant. In the dark of night, You shine down upon us and bathe us in Your light and love. I ask You, O Divine One, to honor me by joining with me, and allowing me to feel Your presence within my heart. Move your feet apart to about shoulder width, and raise your arms up and out to welcome the Goddess into you. The next part is one that you can memorize and learn, or you can speak spontaneously from the heart. You may begin to feel a surge of energy, a palpable tingle – don’t worry, that’s the Goddess making Herself known to you. Feel free to change these words as you like. You are speaking for Her, in Her voice, so let Her say what She wishes. Say: I am the Mother of all life, the One who watches over all. I am the wind in the sky, the spark in the fire, the seedling in the earth, the water in the river. Continue with: I am the vessel from which All Things spring forth. Honor Me from within your heart! Remember that acts of love and pleasure are My rituals, and that there is beauty in all things. Honor Me on this night of the full moon! I have been with you since the moment you were created, and shall remain with you always. Let there be beauty and strength, wisdom and honor, humility and courage within you. If you need Me, call upon Me and I shall come to you, for I am everywhere, always. Honor Me as you seek knowledge! I am the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone, and I live within you. Feel the power of the Goddess within you. When you are ready, conclude with: I look down upon the sands of the desert, I crash the tides upon the shore, I shine on the mighty trees of the forests, and watch with joy as Life continues every cycle. Be true to Me, honoring that which I have created, and I shall be true to you in return. With harm to none, so it shall be. Take a few moments to stand and bask in Her glow, and to meditate upon that which you have just experienced. Once the energy surge has subsided, lower your arms, and proceed with your ceremony as you normally would at the conclusion of a ritual. Tips Drawing Down the Moon is often considered an altered state of consciousness, a ritual possession by the Divine. It is not uncommon to feel the energy of the Goddess for quite some time following Drawing Down the Moon, so don’t be alarmed if you feel a heightened sense of clarity over the next few days. You may also feel extremely emotional – it's not uncommon to cry or laugh spontaneously during this rite. The above ritual is a customized one, but for more variations on Drawing Down the Moon, there are excellent versions in Wicca For One by Raymond Buckland (pp. 87 – 89 and The Grimoire of Lady Sheba (pp. 167 - 168).