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Some Scientific Facts Worthy of Arousing Awe
by Matthew Fox of The A.W.E. Project 

Here are some facts staring us right in the face if we want to listen.  

Matter is frozen light and for every molecule of light that is matter there are a billion particles of light that are not matter. This means matter is rare and special - we are light.

Sixty percent of the matter of our bodies is made up of hydrogen atoms, which were present in the first years of the fireball, 13 billion years ago.

The remaining 40 percent of our bodies is made up of atoms forged in the stars about 5.5 billion years ago.

The human body holds 100 trillion cells each with 100 trillion atoms in them. Together they produce enough light to illuminate a baseball field for three hours with one million watts of floodlight brilliance.

While the nine planets began with the same elements, all geological activity came to halt on four of them within one billion years, and on the other four hardly anything evolved at all. Only Earth was the proper size so that a balance between gravity and electromagnetic energy happened and with it complex molecules for life.

Thanks to the moon, the entire North American continent rises six inches during the new and full moons.

Some of the dust we breathe daily is as old as our solar system - 4.6 billion years old.

One million earths can fit inside the sun.

The sun emits more energy in one second than humankind has consumed in the whole of its history.

Topsoil is 50 percent air. The soil actually inhales oxygen and exhales carbon dioxide down to a depth of several feet.

In summer, an average-sized tree gives off a ton of water every day.

There are prairie grasses in the Midwest whose roots are 10,000 miles long.

A single rye plant's roots grow over three miles per day in search of food.

The human heart weighs only half a pound, but it does the daily work-equivalent of lifting a ton from the ground to the top of a five-story building.

Stomach acid is so powerful it can dissolve razor blades in less than a week. The stomach produces a new lining every three days to protect itself from its own acid.

Fat is 88 percent carbon and hydrogen, which makes it chemically very close to gasoline and other hydrocarbon fuels.

Our bones are one of the strongest building materials known to man. They can withstand stresses of 24,000 pounds per square inch, or about four times that of steel or reinforced concrete. Yet they live and grow back when they are broken.

The sky is actually the air we breathe and walk in every day.

One square inch of human skin contains 19 million cells, 625 sweat glands, 90 oil glands, 65 hairs, 19 blood vessels, 19,000 sensory cells and more than 20 million microscopic animals.

African bushmen can see four moons of Jupiter with the naked eye and can hear the sound of an airplane approaching them from as far as 70 miles away.

Humans hear frequencies as high as 20,000 hertz (vibration per second) but dolphins hear frequencies as high as 280,000 hertz.

Our mammalians brain is the fastest developing organ in evolutionary history.

Each second over 100,000 chemical reactions occur in the brain. The brain produces more than 50 psychoactive drugs, which affect memory, intelligence, sedation, and aggression.

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About the Author

Matthew Fox is author of 28 books including Original Blessing,The Reinvention of Work, Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet, One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths, A Spirituality Named Compassion and his most recent A New Reformation!. He was a member of the Dominican Order for 34 years. He holds a doctorate (received summa cum laude) in the History and Theology of Spirituality from the Institut Catholique de Paris.

Fox is a well received lecturer who has spoken at many professional and community gatherings on many continents and in many countries around the world. Fox's books have received numerous awards and he is recipient of the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award of which other recipients have included the Dalai Lama, Mother Theresa and Rosa Parks. He has led a renewal of liturgical forms with "The Cosmic Mass" that mixes dance, techno and live music, dj, vj, rap and contemporary art forms with the western liturgical tradition.

Fox believes that by "reinventing work, education and worship we can bring about a non-violent revolution on our planet" and has committed himself to this vision for many years. He resides in Oakland, California.

See www.thecosmicmass.com; www.historicsweetsballroom.com.
For inquiries about lectures contact: 33dennis@sbcglobal.net or call: 510.835.0655