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Has Your Horoscope Changed?.



By Claudine Zap



Fans of the Zodiac have been bombarded with the unsettling news that their astrological sign may not be what they thought.



The horror of switching from Gemini to Taurus had people rushing to the Web for answers, sending searches for "zodiac signs" into the stratosphere.



So has your sign changed? Probably not. But it all depends on what kind of astrology you follow. Let us explain.



It may come as a surprise that there are different branches of astrology. A main Eastern form, for example, called Sidereal astrology, looks to the background stars, those famous constellations, as its guide.



Western astrology -- which uses the zodiac -- has its signs fixed to the seasons. Most Westerners, and all those horoscope pages we eagerly check, go by the zodiac. These signs follow what early astrologers called star signs, whose reference points are the tropics that form a ring around the earth. The zodiac is based on our relationship to the sun, not the stars.



The back story: About 2,000 years ago, the astrological signs and the astronomical ones were the same. But not anymore. The locations of the signs are based on the sun's location on the first day of spring. That location in the sky has slowly drifted westward because of something called "precession" -- the earth continually wobbles (a scientific term for a slight motion) every 26,000 years. Since the constellations were first identified, they have shifted some 30 degrees. Translation: The signs have slipped about a month westward, relative to the stars.



What this means to you: If you follow astrology that is linked to the constellations, your sign would go from say, a Gemini to a Taurus. You could even have a 13th sign, Ophiuchus, which you may have read about.



"It's a huge point of confusion for the public," says Bing Quock, assistant director of Morrison Planetarium at the California Academy of Sciences. For those who follow Western astrology, "astrologers are not talking about the constellations at all. When an astrologer says the sun is in a certain sign, they're talking about the sign, the location relative to the equinox. They're not talking about the location of the constellations. "



In short, if you follow the Sidereal astrology, the Eastern branch, your sign may have shifted. (And most likely, no surprise to you at all: This news is hundreds of years old).



But for the rest of us, our horoscope, and our signs, are still the same.



http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/life/has-your-horoscope-changed-2439951/

Town puzzled after dead birds fall from sky

Updated Sun Jan 2, 2011 8:53pm AEDT



Wildlife officials in the US are trying to determine what caused more than 1,000 blackbirds to die and fall from the sky over an Arkansas town.



The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission says the dead birds fell over a two-kilometre area with an aerial survey revealing that no dead birds were found outside of that area.



Ornithologist Karen Rowe says the birds showed physical trauma and she believes the flock could have been hit by lightning or high-altitude hail.



http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/01/02/3105090.htm?section=justin



State commission says dead fish now cover 20-mile section of Arkansas River



By Associated Press



6:20 p.m. CST, January 1, 2011



OZARK, Ark. (AP) — An Arkansas Game and Fish Commission spokesman says dead drum fish now cover a 20-mile section of the Arkansas River near Ozark.



Seven teams from the state agency visited the affected portion of the river Friday. Commission spokesman Keith Stephens says an official estimate of how many fish have died is expected on Monday, but he tells the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that the number is likely in the hundreds of thousands.



The commission determined the fish died in the river from a dam near Ozark to a bridge along State Highway 109 near Clarksville.



Stephens says some of the live drum fish were sick and will be sent to a lab at the University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff for testing.



Drum fish are bottom feeders that eat other fish and insects.



___



Information from: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, http://www.arkansasonline.com





The mass death of birds has reached Sweden.



The U.S. has already dropped thousands of dead from the sky.



- I thought immediately that there must be a connection, "said Drilon Hulaj, 23, who discovered hundreds of dead birds in the middle of the street in Falkirk last night.



Streets, rooftops and lawns were covered by thousands of black birds in Beebe Arkansas in the United States on New Year's Day.



And now, the mass death reached Sweden. On the way home from work late last night saw Drilon Hulaj and his peers colleagues suddenly to the street in front of them was studded with black fågellik, probably jackdaws.





Source in Swedish: http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article8370375.ab