NASA’s Perseverance rover is ready to make its debut on the Red Planet. The intrepid spacecraft is designed to search for signs of ancient microbial life on Mars, collect geologic samples for return to Earth and send the first helicopter into the skies of another world. That’s just the beginning. For the first time ever, two microphones aboard the spacecraft—the Entry Descent and Landing Cam microphone and the SuperCam Microphone—will sample Mars’ sonic landscape. It could reshape our understanding of the Red Planet. It’s a project that has been decades in the making. One that traces its origins back to the mid-90s and the Mars Polar Lander Mission.
In the mid-1990s, a group of scientists from the Planetary Society and the Space Sciences Lab at UC Berkeley hatched a daring plan to send a microphone to record the sounds of Mars. At first, NASA wasn’t really interested.
As the agency planned its Mars Polar Lander mission, the Planetary Society asked the Russian space program to attach a dime-sized microphone to a Russian instrument already scheduled to go on the spacecraft.
“It was, in essence, a free ride because they agreed to do it and NASA agreed to look the other way, so to speak. Once the Russian instrument was installed on the Lander, so were we.”
97 years to the day from the time that news outlets called Pennsylvania, and the presidential race, for Joe Biden, a 34-year-old Adolf Hitler bursts through the doors at the Bürgerbräukeller in Munich, Germany, one of the biggest beer halls in the city. He fires one shot from his pistol into the air as he announces that a revolution against the Bavarian government is taking hold. His men hold the beer hall overnight and try to claim the rest of Munich’s government buildings. The police approach. Gunfire rings out.
When all is said and done, Hitler’s sloppy attempt at a coup d’état using military force is stymied in under 24 hours. After two days on the run, he is caught, convicted of treason, and sentenced to Landsberg Prison. He had failed his first attempt at seizing power.
However, though the execution was disastrous, the plan was not altogether unsuccessful. Many were inspired by what he had preached at his increasingly popular speeches. Feeling that their hero had been denied his rightful position of power, they turned Hitler into a martyr and anxiously awaited his return.
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Pushing fake conspiracy theories about the election, the GOP flirted with fascism in 2020. Will they do it in the future?
Loch Leven is a sea loch located on the west coast of Scotland. It is spelled Loch Lyon in Timothy Pont’s map of the area and is pronounced Li’ un. The local Gaelic pronunciation is Lee’ oon
Loch Leven extends 8+3⁄4 miles (14.1 km), varying in width between 220 yards (200 m) and just over 1 mile (1.6 km). It opens onto Camus a’ Chois at North Balachulish, part of Loch Linnhe at its western end. There are nine small islands, some rocky and covered with heather and some just smooth green grass, near the western end of the loch. Wikipedia
“The butterflies have already started,” said Rod Scurry on April 18, 1981, in anticipation of his first major league start the following day in Houston. The season was almost two weeks old, and Scurry had yet to make an appearance on the mound. In fact, he hadn’t pitched more than four innings in a single outing in two years. He was only getting the break now because Pirates ace Jim Bibby was injured; still, Scurry was excited and was hoping not just to start but also to finish his own game. “I’ll be trying to go nine,” he said.
Growing up, Rod Scurry never doubted he would play in the majors, if not as a pitcher then as a hitter. In high school, he once hit a five-hundred-foot home run. But despite his batting prowess, he had always been a pitcher at heart. In the 1960s, when he was just a child, he stacked mattresses against the wooden fence in the backyard of his Nevada home and hurled fastballs at them. He had always had power. But then there was the hook. He could sweep his curveball in at such an angle the ball would bend between a batter’s legs. Frequently compared to the preeminent lefty of all time, Sandy Koufax, Scurry drove himself to live up to the compliment. This desire propelled him out of bed at 5:30 a.m. to jog to school through high mountain air and sometimes freezing temperatures just so he could get extra pitching practice in at the Hug High gym before the opening bell rang. On game days, when his teachers believed him to be studiously tending to his work in the classroom he would in fact be poring over index cards he had made that listed the tendencies of the opposing team’s big hitters.
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Pittsburgh, where baseball was changed forever. Photo by Andrea Evangelo-Giamou/EyeEm/Getty Images
Here on Earth, as we continue to obsess over cleanliness and eradicating microscopic viruses, perhaps we should be turning to NASA for advice.
Despite being in the midst of a global pandemic, the space agency launched the $2.4 billion Mars Perseverance Rover to the Red Planet on July 30, 2020. Later this week, the rover finally lands on Mars. On the Red Planet, the rover will look for microscopic life and collect rock and soil samples that will one day (eventually) be sent back to Earth for future study.
What the rover won’t be doing is introducing Earth’s microscope life to Mars.
Cleaning practices, sanitary procedures, and sterilization methods instituted by NASA decades ago all but guarantee the rover will be clean of nearly everything that could potentially compromise the mission to our planetary neighbor.
“Viruses, e. coli, all the things we find on our skin, they are all puny wimps,” says Moogega Stricker, NASA Planetary Protection Engineer at Pasadena’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Everything they’ve done since the mission began seven years ago, she says, has made the spacecraft resilient against any and all contamination.
Oklahoma City, officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the capital and largest city in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, it ranks 25th among United States cities in population and is the 11th largest city in the South. The population grew following the 2010 census and is estimated to have reached 655,057 as of July 2019. The Oklahoma City metropolitan area had a population of 1,396,445, and the Oklahoma City–Shawnee Combined Statistical Area had a population of 1,469,124, making it Oklahoma’s largest municipality and metropolitan area by population.
Oklahoma City’s city limits extend somewhat into Canadian, Cleveland, and Pottawatomie counties, though much of those areas outside the core Oklahoma County area are suburban tracts or protected rural zones (watershed). The city is the eighth-largest in the United States by area including consolidated city-counties; it is the second-largest, after Houston, not including consolidated cities. Wikipedia
Elie Kligman is a switch-hitter with power. He has pitched no-hitters and immaculate innings, and he can snatch the ball with cool precision from any spot in the infield. He is a star in every way at Cimarron-Memorial High School in Las Vegas, with dreams of reaching even greater heights.
He is also shomer Shabbat, meaning he observes the strict rules of the Jewish sabbath and cannot — and will not — play ball on Friday nights or Saturday afternoons before the sun goes down.
Based on talent and desire, Kligman is good enough to realistically entertain his dream of playing Major League Baseball, or at least top-level college ball. But he knows his devotion to his faith could shatter that dream before it starts, and he is ready to accept that.
And even if a big-league team were to offer Kligman a $10 million signing bonus, with the promise that he would be playing in front of 40,000 people later this summer — provided he agrees to play on the sabbath — he insists he would stand firm in his conviction.
As I sit in a small cafe in the shadow of the ancient Roman gates in Trier, Germany, talking to a person whose credibility seems beyond reproach, but who will only agree to talk to me if provide absolute assurances of anonymity, I can’t help but feel like I’m trapped in a Dan Brown novel. The Da Vinci Code, however, never dealt with unidentified flying objects.
“Was it about UFOs? Of course,” this person whispers with a grin of melodrama.
After almost a year of investigating the U.S. government’s interest in UFOs, what they’ve just said should neither be shocking, nor revelatory. Unbeknownst to them, they’ve only further confirmed what over a dozen other people with backgrounds inside the government and the now-defunct Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS) have already admitted to me.
Just like the fictional Robert Langdon, the path to understanding these mysterious government programs has taken me through the catacombs of informal secret societies, whose surprising memberships include accomplished professionals from the military, aerospace, academic, medical, and intelligence communities.
In the world, human beings are facing various problems. People who are full of greed, anger, and ignorance are seen to be fighting with each other in words and deeds. As the fighting continues, various problems such as civil wars, wars of aggression, and wars of aggression are occurring. As world peace is being destroyed, humans are facing unbearable problems. Innocent children and women are not getting the rights they deserve and deserve. I can't think of one thing every time. What is it? The United Nations. If we look at the responsibilities and duties of the United Nations, I think it is not suitable for solving the problems that are happening in the world today. In fact, the United Nations and the World Security Council, such an organization must rule the world, must be able to give orders, and must have various ways to obey orders. There must be no organization that can influence more than that organization. There should be experts from each country. They can even dominate the superpowers like the US, China, and Britain. Only then will global peace be achieved quickly. Now, if a country with power develops more militarily, economically, or socially than its own country, then powerful countries will jealously seek out enemies and wage war. Or they will attack with fighter jets. In this, innocent people are losing their lives. No one understands the value of a life. You should think about how to achieve global peace by controlling these. If the US continues to be the permanent president of the UN, world peace will never be achieved. If you think carefully, no one sees that they are working for the common good, but for their own benefit, for the benefit of their own country. The permanent president of the UN and the Security Council has rejected this, As a young Rohingya, I have come to realize that only by electing the president and secretary from among the countries in the world through a secret ballot system and governing the world fairly can we achieve global peace. The United Nations and the Security Council are organizations in which any country must govern, give orders, and make them obey their orders. For example, only when a defendant is tried in court can we hold the leaders of the countries in check and control them, can we achieve global peace smoothly. Otherwise, it will not be easy for powerful countries to use various excuses to end this war every year, every year, for the benefit of themselves and their countries. No country's leaders pay any attention to the words of the United Nations and the Security Council. If we look at it in practice, look at the Rohingya issue. Myanmar is a small country. Even that country has been under siege for 8 years. What action can be taken? Why is the UN and the Security Council Powerless? Without such Power, how can the organization bring about global peace? Everyone should think about it. Whether there is a veto or a strong one, all countries in the world can only achieve global peace if they are subject to the UN and the Security Council. Seek peace in the quiet embrace of nature. Peace is an indispensable need of the human race. It is not as if one person can kill another person, and it is as if one country can attack another country, but instead of trying to build peace, we must try to destroy the peace now, and the world is getting hotter and is on the verge of collapse. I especially appeal to all the world experts to urgently try to bring about peace in all parts of the world. Mr, Noor Muhamed Arkhan Rohingya Youth Myanmar
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Pushing fake conspiracy theories about the election, the GOP flirted with fascism in 2020. Will they do it in the future?
Created by Kory Kennedy
