Specializing in archetypal, financial and geopolitical astrology, William Stickevers shared updates in the first half, on what the future has in store in economic and political arenas. President Trump continues to benefit from a strong personal astrological alignment this year that has helped to keep him in a protected state and avoid impeachment, he explained. Joe Biden showed good timing throwing his hat in the ring now, and offering a more centrist take than many of his Democratic rivals, said Stickevers. He predicted Biden would stay ahead in the polls between now and the fall while Jupiter is moving through Sagittarius, though Bernie Sanders would run close in numbers. Whether Biden can go toe-to-toe in a ferocious campaign against Trump is questionable, and we won't know who the Democratic nominee will be until just weeks before their convention, he remarked. Kamala Harris, he added, also has a robust astrological forecast going forward, and a demographic appeal.

Stickevers foresees the continuation of changes and closings in the retail sector, and the replacement of human cashiers, as the move toward a digital/crypto currency takes hold. The Jupiter-Saturn-Pluto Alignment in 2020 indicates radical change, he said, and the rise of grassroots populist movements both on the right and left. We'll see an uptick in earthquakes and volcanic activity, as well as increasingly erratic weather with extremes in temperatures, he suggested. On the media landscape, Stickevers sees the eventual collapse of the mainstream TV networks and movie theater attendance, as viewers choose to stay home with streaming options.

------------------------

In the latter half, writer Marcus Chown, a former radio astronomer, shared his latest work delving into remarkable scientific facts that elucidate the vast complexities of our existence. In a sense, "you could fit the entire human race in the body of a sugar cube," he said. The reason for this is that the atoms we are made of are astonishingly empty-- there is a great deal of space between the nucleus and electrons. "You've got so much empty space, you're pretty much a ghost," he quipped. "And if you could squeeze all the empty space out of all the atoms in all the seven billion people on Earth," that's how we'd all fit into a sugar cube.

We are 1/3 mushroom, Chown mused, as our inherited DNA is shared with fungi-- reinforcing Darwin's idea that we all evolved from a common ancestor through natural selection, and then diverged. In fact, there is the same piece of a DNA strand in every cell of the trillions that compose the human body, as well as every other living creature on Earth, and even some viruses, he cited. Chown also marveled at the vastness of the universe – there are some two trillion galaxies, and more stars than there are sand grains on all the beaches of our world. And a high proportion of these stars have planets, so it's likely other life forms exist, he believes-- though in terms of making contact, they may be too far away from us, or have evolved in different time scales.

News segment guests: Jeff Nelken, Dr. Gary Ridenour, Peter Davenport