Blood moon and the longest total lunar eclipse of the century

The moon will turn red this month during the longest total lunar eclipse of the 21st century. But don’t worry, it’s not a sign of the apocalypse but a natural wonder caused when Earth passes between the sun and moon.

This year, the eclipse takes place on July 27 and will last one hour and 43 minutes.

The eclipse will be particularly long because the moon will be at one of its furthest points from the Earth, meaning our planet’s shadow is particularly long.

A blood moon is a slightly scarier sounding name for a lunar eclipse. This only occurs when the sun, Earth and moon are aligned when our planet’s satellite passes directly behind the Earth into its umbra (shadow).

Because of this, it gives the moon a reddish-orange colour on the moon, which is why it’s called a blood moon. Whilst astronomers are very excited about the eclipse, doom-mongers fear it heralds the end of the world.

Poisonous books found in library

Three rare books, dating from the 16th and 17th centuries have been found by scientists to be covered in a deadly poison. The books were discovered in the library of University of Southern Denmark.

The discovery in a university library has echoes of the novel and film The Name Of The Rose, which sees a string of monks in a 14th-century Italian monastery killed off by the toxic pages of a forbidden manuscript.

X-ray analysis of the books revealed a large concentration of arsenic on the covers. The volumes were being studied because it had previously been discovered that mediaeval manuscript fragments had been used by bookbinders to make their covers.

In attempting to identify the Latin texts used, researchers found they were hard to read because of a heavy layer of green paint obscuring the letters. The study of this green pigment layer revealed it to be arsenic — one of the most toxic substances in the world.

It is likely that it was applied to the books to protect them against insects and vermin. The three volumes are now stored with safety labels in a ventilated cabinet. It is planned to digitise the content to reduce the handling of the books.

Man with world’s longest fingernails cuts them after 66 years

The Guinness World Record holder for the longest fingernails ever on a single hand has had his claws cut after 66 years.

The extraordinary long nails of Shridhar Chillal, from India, are now on display at the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! museum in New York. The 82-year-old’s talons have a combined measurement of 909.6cm (358.1ins). His thumbnail, the longest of the set, measures an incredible 197.8cm (77.8ins).

He stopped trimming his fingernails in 1952 after he was told off by a teacher for messing around with a friend and accidentally breaking the teacher’s nail.

The teacher said Mr Chillal would never understand what it took to take care of long fingernails and the student set out to prove his teacher wrong, going on to dedicate his life to taking care of his claws.

Despite Mr Chillal’s fingernails causing him to lose function in his left hand due to their weight and length, and his fingers being permanently fused together, he went on work as a photographer for a government agricultural magazine for 22 years.

Published in Dawn, Young World, July 21st, 2018