Auction of works created by intergalactic art forces

Auction of works created by intergalactic art forcesFor art collectors willing to spend a cool million, the latest must-have objects are fal...

Auction of works created by intergalactic art forces

For art collectors willing to spend a cool million, the latest must-have objects are falling from the sky. Big names like Steven Spielberg, Nicolas Cage and Yo-Yo Ma are buying meteorites at prices that are out of this world. On October 28, Bonhams auctioneers will hold their first-ever sale devoted to them, and some lots are expected to fetch seven figures. “The natural world is making a foray into the art world,” says Barbara Tapp, editor of Art & Antiques. “Given global warming, these pieces reflect attention on how our world is changing.” Aesthetic meteorites, as they’re called, are mostly iron-based and admired for their sculptural beauty. Private dealers trade rare finds, such as lunar rocks, with museums for less scientifically significant meteorites. The jewel of the Bonhams sale is the crown piece of the American Museum of Natural History’s Willamette meteorite (in picture above), priced at $1.3 million. “Scientists don’t care about money,” says Darryl Pitt, who traded a scientifically useful stamp-size piece from Mars for the chunk of Willamette. “They just want to write abstracts.”

Fasting can open up mind to perceptions

The Jews observed Yom Kippur last week by keeping a fast. The Muslims will be fasting and praying for a month during the current Ramzan. Fasting is common to nearly every major religion; mystics fast to induce divine visions, and the rest of us fast to remind ourselves periodically that worldly pleasure is fleeting. Fasting has immediate physical effects—stomach pangs, lightheadedness, fatigue—and one wonders whether the ancients, in their wisdom, understood the physiological interplay between starvation and feelings of transcendence better than we do.

Story continues below this ad

Scientists have not deeply studied the ways in which fasting alters the human brain, but Andrew Newburg, a radiologist at the University of Pennsylvania, has some ideas. Newburg looks at the effects of meditation on the brains of monks. He imagines that a brain deprived of fat and sugar may become “looser” or “more fluid,” as he puts it: fasting may “open you up to these kinds of transcendent experiences.” If you ask the starving brain to focus on a physical ritual—repetitive prayer, or a series of standing and kneeling positions, it may direct its shrinking stores of energy to those activities, further “loosening” its perceptions. Scientists also believe that calorie restriction or intermittent fasting can lead to longevity and better health—at least in lab animals.

Full face transplants: Rejection rate is less than 10 per cent

French doctors made history with the world’s first successful face transplant in 2005. Their procedure on Isabella Dinoire (in picture), whose face was ravaged by a dog, provided a fillip to full face transplants. But only two similar operations have been tried since. One big reason is the belief that the new tissue is likely to be rejected, a view supported by a landmark British Royal College of Surgeons study. But new research published by US doctors in the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery claims that the risk of permanent rejection is less than 10 percent. So it’s time to put on a happy face.

(Newsweek)