By Marcia Dunn
Stargazers are in for a double treat on Aug. 30: a rare blue supermoon with Saturn peeking from behind.
The cosmic curtain rises Wednesday night with the second full moon of the month, the reason it’s considered blue. It’s dubbed a supermoon because it’s closer to Earth than usual, appearing especially big and bright.
This will be the closest full moon of the year, just 222,043 miles (357,344 kilometers) or so away. That’s more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) closer than the Aug. 1 supermoon.
As a bonus, Saturn will be visible as a bright point 5 degrees to the upper right of the moon at sunset in the east-southeastern sky, according to NASA. The ringed planet will appear to circle clockwise around the moon as the night wears on.
If you missed the month’s first spectacle, better catch this one. There won’t be another blue supermoon until 2037, according to Italian astronomer Gianluca Masi, founder of the Virtual Telescope Project.
Clouds spoiled Masi's attempt to livestream the supermoon rising earlier this month. He’s hoping for clearer skies this time so he can capture the blue supermoon shining above St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican.
Weather permitting, observers don’t need binoculars or telescopes — “just their own eyes." said Masi.
“I’m always excited to admire the beauty of the night sky,” he said, especially when it features a blue supermoon.
The first supermoon of 2023 was in July. The fourth and last will be in September.
The theme of Bill and Melinda Gates' annual letter for 2019 is "surprise." The letter, released Tuesday, acts as a roadmap for how the Gates Foundation plans to invest in technology that will help make the world a better place in the years to come. And, as Melinda Gates told Cheddar in an interview, it starts with poop.
There's a dearth of research to back up the abundance of miraculous health claims tied to CBD ー but that won't stop celebrities from endorsing it. CBD, or cannabidiol, is a component of cannabis or hemp with little to no psychotropic effects. It is purported to have an array of applications to treat everything from epilepsy to anxiety, pain, depression, and sleeplessness. When Congress and President Trump signed the latest version of the Farm Bill into effect, they also legalized hemp, and thereby CBD derived from hemp.
More than 50 years after the psychedelic Summer of Love, psilocybin, the psychoactive component in magic mushrooms, is having a moment. Researchers at leading universities have been conducting research on the purported medical benefits of mushrooms for years, but as studies yield promising results, the opioid epidemic persists and sentiment warms toward cannabis, mushrooms are earning a lot more attention. Lawmakers and psychotropic advocates have concurrently advanced separate measures in Oregon, Colorado, and, most recently, Iowa, that attempt to loosen restrictions on these hallucinogenic fungi.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Thursday, Feb. 7, 2019.
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Millions of people around the world are getting ready for the Super Bowl on Sunday. And while the day is all fun and games, there's still a serious discussion happening about player safety. Now, two leading sports brands have teamed up to design new, state-of-the-art equipment using 3D printing. Joe DeSimone, co-founder and CEO of Carbon, stopped by Cheddar with more on how technology is making football more safe, head to toe.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Friday, Feb. 1, 2019.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019.
Canopy Growth is planning its entry to the U.S. on the back of the new Farm Bill ー and aims to establish a hemp "hub" in New York, according to CEO Bruce Linton."New York is setting up a pretty progressive approach and we have an earlier first license under that system so we can actually create a hub," Linton told Cheddar on Tuesday.
Meditation app Headspace is zen about its future. Coming off a profitable year in 2018, with more than $100 million in revenue, CEO and co-founder Rich Pierson told Cheddar on Monday that the company is looking to continue its domination of the digital meditation space by pushing into healthcare and international markets.
