John K. Young

Dr. John Young was (until 2014) a Professor in the Department of Anatomy at Howard University College of Medicine (Washington DC) and is now retired. He lives in Vienna, Virginia. He was born in 1951 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is married to Paula Jean Young and has two sons, Michael and Matthew. His professional interests involve teaching microscopic anatomy to first-year medical students and performing research on a portion of the brain called the hypothalamus. Dr. Young has published a number of textbooks (Elsevier's Integrated Histology, Wheater's Review of Histology and Basic Pathology, Introduction to Cell Biology, Hunger, Thirst, Sex and Sleep) and has authored 45 scientific papers. His non-scientific interests include gardening and Russian literature (he has translated two scientific books from the Russian), history, and archeology. Dr. Young's interests in history and archeology inspired him to write Sacred Sites of the Knights Templar, a book that explains the hidden meaning of sites at Stonehenge, Aachen, Carnac, Rennes-le-Chateau, and Santiago de Compostela. The thesis of that book is that spiritual aspects of astronomical events prompted the building and positioning of megalithic structures at these sites in ancient times, and the construction of churches and other structures at the same sites by the Knights Templar. Dr. Young has also explored the possible basis in astronomy and ancient astronomy-associated religions for some of the current-day rites of Freemasonry.