Picture Perfect

Scott LaFee
Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800
Lifestyle

Exactly 40 years and one day ago, the residents of Earth received an unprecedented present.

American astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders were orbiting the moon in Apollo 8, 69 miles above the lunar surface. Apollo 8 was the first manned spacecraft to orbit the moon, a preparatory mission for later lunar landings.

On the evening of Dec. 24, 1968, the astronauts were wrapping things up. They would be heading home in the morning. NASA had arranged for Apollo 8 to transmit a televised Christmas message to hundreds of millions of viewers.
Updated: Wed Dec 31, 2008

Exactly 40 years and one day ago, the residents of Earth received an unprecedented present.

American astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders were orbiting the moon in Apollo 8, 69 miles above the lunar surface. Apollo 8 was the first manned spacecraft to orbit the moon, a preparatory mission for later lunar landings.

On the evening of Dec. 24, 1968, the astronauts were wrapping things up. They would be heading home in the morning. NASA had arranged for Apollo 8 to transmit a televised Christmas message to hundreds of millions of viewers.

The original plan called for Borman simply to read a Bible passage — the story of creation from the Book of Genesis — followed by the astronauts taking turns pointing out various lunar features.

But the Apollo 8 crew had an inspiration. At the right moment, Borman tilted the spacecraft's camera up above the moon's horizon to reveal something no one on Earth had ever before seen: the home planet rising — a pale, beautiful ornament in the vastness of space.

'TRUE FACTS'

Next time you take a moment to admire your Christmas lights, thank the geologists, chemists and minerals scientists who helped concoct the colors. The materials used to color or coat the bulbs' glass includes cadmium sulfide for yellow; gold chloride for red; cobalt oxide for blue; manganese dioxide for purple; and chromic oxide for green.

BRAIN SWEAT

AHW EVES-ETTEL ROW NINAEM "SENISUB TAICOSSA" LIW MOCEB EHTONA ROW NINAEM "RUTPAC" EHW OY VOMER TI ANIF ETTEL NA RUT I RAWKCAB?

VERBATIM

Santa, you will never return to Earth. You belong to Mars now.

— Actor Leonard Hicks as Kimar, one of the little green men in the 1964 sci-fi movie "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians"

BRAIN SWEAT ANSWER

The answer is PARTNER, but first you have to decode the question, which is admittedly a bit tricky. Translated and amended, the question is: WHAT SEVEN-LETTER WORD MEANING "BUSINESS ASSOCIATE" WILL BECOME ANOTHER WORD MEANING "CAPTURE" WHEN YOU REMOVE ITS FINAL LETTER AND TURN IT BACKWARD?

PARTNER reversed spells ENTRAP.

QUIRKS OF NATURE

As many as 120 million Christmas Island red crabs (Gecarcoidea natalis) are estimated to live on Christmas Island in the South Pacific, or about 75,000 per human resident. The bright red crabs are famous for their multitudinous migrations, but surprisingly, early settlers hardly ever mentioned them.

One possible reason: There weren't so many crabs a century ago because an indigenous rat called Maclear's rat kept the population in check. Maclear's rat went extinct in 1903, and the crab population took off, presumably sideways.

A new threat to the crab has emerged, however. An invasive species called the yellow crazy ant (Anoplolepis gracilipes) has been accidentally introduced onto Christmas Island and Australia. The African ant is believed to have killed 15 million to 20 million red crabs in recent years.

ELECTRON INK

Christmas Bird Count

audubon.org/Bird/cbc/

For more than a century, the Audubon Society has sponsored an annual bird count covering North America. The 109th version began Dec. 14 and continues through Jan. 5. Anyone can participate. For more information, log on here.

PRIME NUMBERS

1,300 — Number of known species of mistletoe in the world

2 — Mistletoe species native to the United States (American and dwarf)

20 — Mistletoe species considered to be endangered

Source: U.S. Geological Survey