A Game That Captures The Majesty of Space
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Celebrating Art’s 1,000,051st Birthday. The Moon Bounce Serenade
In 1963, Robert Filiou declared that art was born on January 17, 1 million years ago. Filiou explained that, inexplicably, on that day, someone dropped a dry sponge into bucket of water. Before then, there was no art. Then, there was.
Unexpectedly, Filiou’s declaration has lived on, and today we celebrate art’s 1,000,051st birthday.
The European Broadcasting Union is commemorating this event with a massive radio project in which twenty-one national radio stations are airing live shows from their studios.
In Estonia, they’re teaming up with world leading Moon-Earth-Moon amateur-radio enthusiasts, no less than the largest music delay block is created out of the … Moon itself.
Celebrating Art’s 1,000,051st Birthday. The Moon Bounce Serenade
Read more "Celebrating Art’s 1,000,051st Birthday. The Moon Bounce Serenade"In a future Serengeti, illegal poaching continues to deplete the wildlife population, but conservationists have extraordinary new tools to protect endangered animals: robots that take the forms of those animals to blend in with the wildlife and capture poachers.
Artist Robert Chews Big Five series of illustrations imagine a network of wildlife rangers and the animal inspired robots they use in an attempt to make poaching a thing of the past. (Although one illustration reveals that the poachers have fearsome robots of their own.) He frequently adds companion drawings showing off the features of his robots, and usually includes short blurbs about the roles of the robots, including this one about the White-Back Vulture robots:
Vultures patrol protection zones providing aerial recon and basic first aid capabilities. Their main job is to locate recently poached animals and mark them for investigation. If anti-poaching units are in the area the Vulture can land near the corpse of the animal and protect the body from consumption by other animals. Compartments in the wings and the chest area house basic first aid supplies to aid in field operations. These include bandages, tourniquets, antivenom, antiseptics, resuscitators, field rations, and water among other things. Another function is to transport DNA samples of poached animals quickly and efficiently for analysis to help keep records up to date about the remaining animal populations.Vultures also serve as locators for tagged ivory and rhino horn. By locating signals from planted GPS units Vultures can help anti-poaching units and law enforcement locate the contraband and hopefully the poachers as well.
Overall the Vulture units serve as aerial watchdogs as well as CSI. Though they are non-combatant’s their auxiliary functions aid greatly in field operations.
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Read moreThe experts behind Gaia’s arrival at nothingness
As seen from this Lagrange point (there are a total of five such points in the Sun–Earth system), the Sun, Earth and Moon will always be close together in the sky, so Gaia can use its sunshield to protect its instruments from the light and heat from these three celestial bodies simultaneously.
This also helps the satellite to stay cool and enjoy a clear view of the Universe from the other side.
L2 provides a moderate radiation environment, which helps extend the life of the instrument detectors in space.
However, orbits around L2 are fundamentally unstable.
“We’ll have to conduct stationkeeping burns every month to keep Gaia around L2, otherwise perturbations would cause it to ‘fall off’ the point,” says Gaia Operations Manager David Milligan.
For those used to seeing images of the International Space Station orbiting Earth, or Mars Express orbiting the Red Planet, it seems intuitive that spacecraft have to orbit something. How do you get a spacecraft to orbit around a point of nothingness?
The experts behind Gaia’s arrival at nothingness
Read more "The experts behind Gaia’s arrival at nothingness"Few asteroids are worth mining, suggests Harvard study
He assumed that mining operations would want to focus on iron-nickel asteroids (known as M-type), considered the most promising targets for finding so-called platinum-group metals. These include platinum, along with iridium, palladium and others.
These are rare in the Earth’s crust because they dissolve in molten iron, instead being mainly concentrated in the planet’s core. Platinum and palladium are the most economically important, having a wide range of uses in industry. But according to the analysis, just 1% of near-Earth asteroids are rich in these elements.
Suitable asteroids also need to be relatively easy to reach, further narrowing the pool by ruling out all but the nearest objects to Earth. The operative parameter here is delta-v – the change in velocity needed to send mining equipment to the target and return with a larger mass of ore.
The size of the target is also a factor; the paper suggests it wouldn’t be worth mining asteroids smaller than about 100m because the total value of the ore they would produce wouldn’t be enough to cover the costs of a space mission.
However, Dr Elvis points out that the ore values in his analysis range from a low of $800m to a high of $8.8bn.
Few asteroids are worth mining, suggests Harvard study
Read more "Few asteroids are worth mining, suggests Harvard study"Republic of the Moon – London
It’s four decades since humans walked on the Moon, but it now seems likely that we will return there this century – whether to mine for its minerals, as a ‘stepping stone’ to Mars, or simply to do scientific research. In a provocative pre-emptive action, a group of artists are declaring a Republic of the Moon here on Earth, to re-examine our relationship with our planet’s only natural satellite.
After two decades working with space dreamers from the European Space Agency to anarchist autonomous astronauts, The Arts Catalyst will transform Bargehouse into an Earth-based embassy for a Republic of the Moon, filled with artists’ fantastical imaginings. Presenting international artists including Liliane Lijn, Leonid Tishkov, Katie Paterson, Agnes Meyer Brandis, and WE COLONISED THE MOON, the exhibition combines personal encounters, DIY space plans, imaginary expeditions and new myths for the next space age.
Read more "Republic of the Moon – London"Mexico tells vigilantes to abandon fight against cartel in Michoacan
Like many struggles in contemporary Mexico, the turmoil in Michoacan does not lend itself to a simple narrative of good guys versus bad guys. There is widespread suspicion that at least some of the vigilantes are fronts for rival drug cartels who may be engaging in a turf battle by proxy. And the Knights Templar, firebrand evangelical Christians who portray themselves as the saviors of their state, have a dedicated following in Michoacan, particularly in Apatzingan. Masked groups of apparent Knights Templar followers have been setting fire to buildings and cars in the city in recent days to protest the vigilante presence nearby.
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For now, Michoacan is merely one of numerous swaths of Mexico that remain terrorized, and in some cases controlled, by drug cartels. The latest U.S. State Department travel warning for Mexico, issued last week, noted significant criminal activity in 19 of the country’s 31 states, much of it committed by organized crime groups. The violence in Mexico has continued even though Peña Nieto’s predecessor, Felipe Calderon, spent most of his six-year term confronting the drug gangs with a militarized approach. During that time, tens of thousands of people died in the country from drug-related violence.
Mexico tells vigilantes to abandon fight against cartel in Michoacan
Read more "Mexico tells vigilantes to abandon fight against cartel in Michoacan"Prairie dogs and their ‘contagious’ Mexican wave explained
Prof Hare said: “This fits beautifully with work on primates, including humans, which suggests that contagious displays – like yawning – provide a window into the mind of others, suggesting of course, that species probing the minds of others are aware that they are distinct from those individuals. That is to say, they are consciously aware.”
The team concluded that the jump-yip is used to gather social information about others to judge the risk of reducing their own vigilance. If prairie dogs were convinced their neighbours were paying attention, they felt comfortable devoting more time to foraging for food.
Prairie dogs and their ‘contagious’ Mexican wave explained
Read more "Prairie dogs and their ‘contagious’ Mexican wave explained"Neolithic mural may depict ancient eruption
Volcanic rock textures and ages support the interpretation that residents of Çatalhöyük may have recorded an explosive eruption of Hasan Dagi volcano. The dating of the volcanic rock indicated an eruption around 6900 BC, which closely overlaps with the time the mural was estimated to have been painted in Çatalhöyük. The overlapping timeframes indicate humans in the region may have witnessed this eruption.
Neolithic mural may depict ancient eruption
Read more "Neolithic mural may depict ancient eruption"Afrofuturism: where space, pyramids and politics collide | Chardine Taylor-Stone
If there was ever a figure who was the embodiment of Afrofuturism it would be Jazz musician, Sun Ra, although to place him within the borders of a musical genre does not do him justice as an artist. With no legal birth certificate, it is believed he was born in the Jim Crow state of Alabama.
Sun Ra created a mythical, ethereal persona that merged science fiction with Egyptian mysticism, producing an otherworldliness that matched the music he made from the 50s to his death in 1993. Adding to his legend, he also claimed to not be of this Earth, explaining:
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I never wanted to be a part of planet Earth, but I am compelled to be here, so anything I do for this planet is because the Master-Creator of the Universe is making me do it. I am of another dimension. I am on this planet because people need me.
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Afrofuturism: where space, pyramids and politics collide | Chardine Taylor-Stone
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The Committee to Nuke Elysium 