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The Pale Blue Dot (by Carl Sagan),

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The Pale Blue Dot The Pale Blue Dot was the name given to a photograph taken by the Voyager 1 space probe on 14th  February  1990. 6 billion  kilometres  from earth. In 1994 Carl Sagan presented the image to a public lecture at Cornell University and reflected on a deeper meaning behind the idea of the pale blue dot. "The spacecraft was a long way from home.  I thought it would be a good idea, just after Saturn, to have them take one last glance homeward. From Saturn, the Earth would appear too small for Voyager to make out any detail. Our planet would be just a point of light, a lonely pixel hardly distinguishable from the other points of light Voyager would see: nearby planets, far off suns. But precisely because of the obscurity of our world thus revealed, such a picture might be worth having. So, here they are: a mosaic of squares laid down on top of the planets in a background smattering of more distant stars. Because of the reflection of su...
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The Dance of the Nematodes Some time ago a dear friend and artist Maura Summers produced this work which I called " The Dance of the Nematodes ", it reminded me of the little squiggly things I'd first seen when looking down a microscope whilst studying biology with the Open University in the 1980's. I can remember thinking the world is a much bigger place when you take the time to slow down and look. For me Maura's work epitomised the beauty of small things, pick up a handful of organic soil and your probably holding millions of nematodes, some are good.... some are bad, but each has a role in life just like you and me.  The American Nematologist, Nathan Cobb (1859 - 1932), wrote of the Nematode: "In short, if all the matter in the universe except the nematodes were swept away, our world would still be dimly recognisable, and if, as disembodied spirits, we could then investigate it, we should find its mountains, hills, vales, rivers, lakes, and oceans...
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