No More Meat-paste
Taco Bell, Pizza Hut: Artificial ingredients getting booted
By CANDICE CHOI
NEW YORK (AP) — Taco Bell and Pizza Hut say they’re getting rid of artificial colors and flavors, making them the latest big food companies scrambling to distance themselves from ingredients people might find unappetizing.
Instead of “black pepper flavor,” for instance, Taco Bell will start using actual black pepper in its seasoned beef, says Liz Matthews, the chain’s chief food innovation officer.
The Mexican-style chain also says the artificial dye Yellow No. 6 will be removed from its nacho cheese, Blue No. 1 will be removed from its avocado ranch dressing and carmine, a bright pigment, will be removed from its red tortilla strips.
Matthews said some of the new recipes are being tested in select markets and should be in stores nationally by the end of the year.
The country’s biggest food makers are facing pressure from smaller rivals that position themselves as more wholesome alternatives. Chipotle in particular has found success in marketing itself as an antidote to traditional fast food. In April, Chipotle announced it had removed genetically modified organisms from its food, even though the Food and Drug Administration says GMOs are safe.
Critics say the purging of chemicals is a response to unfounded fears over ingredients, but companies are nevertheless rushing to ensure their recipes don’t become disadvantages. In recent months, restaurant chains including Panera, McDonald’s and Subway have said they’re switching recipes for one or more products to use ingredients people can more easily recognize.
ENDGAME Ancient Societies Who’s Who
Endgame Ancient Societies: Who’s Who and What Are They Up to – May 25, 2015
by JoJo Stratton
Overview: Stella V is searching for something called The Truth (The Ancient Truth). She spent most of her life kept in seclusion by Wayland Vyctory. Recently she ran away from Wayland as she began to learn that Wayland had been hiding things from her. As she tries to find who she is, she is learning about something called Endgame.
San Francisco Police Searching for Residents’ Eyeball
San Francisco police keep eye out for missing ‘Eyeball’ mask
The “Eyeball with Hat,” worth $100,000, was one of four original masks worn by the group The Residents, police said.
The mask was also worn in a photo of the band taken in front of the Golden Gate Bridge and used on the back cover of the 1979 “Subterranean Modern” album. The original photo, worth $20,000, was also reported stolen, police said.
Saturn Incomparably Opposed
See a Rare View of Saturn’s Rings
by Dan Kedmey
It’s the best time of year to view Saturn’s rings
Saturn will come closer to earth this weekend than at any other time of the year, giving us earthbound creatures an incomparable view of its rings. For a closer look, “community observatory” Slooh trained Internet-connected telescopes on the planet during peak viewing hours. The images are shown in the video above, which includes expert commentary from Slooh astronomer Will Gater and Cornell University planetary scientist Dr. Jonathan Lunine.
Space Rocks For Sale
from The Washington Post
The House just passed a bill about space mining. The future is here.
Artist concept of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) 70-metric-ton configuration launching to space. (NASA/MSFC)
For as long as we’ve existed, humans have looked up at the stars — and wondered. What is up there? Who is out there?
Now, to that list of questions we can add: And CAN I HAVE IT?
The United States has already shown its penchant for claiming ownership of space-based things. There are not one, not two, but six U.S. flags on the moon, in case any of you other nations start getting ideas. (Never mind that the flags have all faded to a stateless white by now.)
So it only makes sense that American lawmakers would seek to guarantee property rights for U.S. space corporations. Under the SPACE Act, which just passed the House, businesses that do asteroid mining will be able to keep whatever they dig up:
Any asteroid resources obtained in outer space are the property of the entity that obtained such resources, which shall be entitled to all property rights thereto, consistent with applicable provisions of Federal law.
This is how we know commercial space exploration is serious. The opportunity here is so vast that businesses are demanding federal protections for huge, floating objects they haven’t even surveyed yet.
Some People Should Be Mauled And Have Their Faces Torn Off
Pit Bull Found Hanged From Metal Chain On Bridge
DEKALB COUNTY, Georgia (CBS Atlanta) — DeKalb County police come across a disturbing scene after finding a pit bull hanged from a bridge.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports the dog was found Wednesday morning tied to a metal chain and hanging from a bridge on Kelly Lake Road.
“Detective are looking to identify a possible owner of the dog and any information about who may be responsible,” DeKalb County police spokeswoman Mekka Parish told the Journal-Constitution. “They believe this was an intentional act.”
Go New Canaan Go
from New Canaan News
New Canaan grads team up on film project
Martin B. Cassidy
Nicola Scandiffio, left, is the producer, and Abigail Schwarz, the writer and director of “Those Who Wander” a dark comedy about a college spring break road trip. Scandiffio and Schwarz, both graduates of New Canaan High School, are seen here at a recent screening of the film in Ridgefield. Photo: Contributed Photo
Sometime in 2011, at the suggestion of mutual acquaintances, New Canaan High School graduate Abigail Schwarz met up after her first year at New York Film Academy with another New Canaan grad, Nicola Scandiffio. Both, it seemed, shared a passion for movies and the film industry.
The two hit it off and ended up working together on a project, and the result was “Those Who Wander,” a coming-of-age film involving a spring break road trip. It was written and directed by Schwarz and produced by Scandiffio.
The duo recently premiered the film, which was shot mostly in New Canaan and other Fairfield County towns, at the Ridgefield Playhouse. The house was packed heavily with local financial backers, both small and large, including best selling novelist James Frey, Schwarz said. Altogether, more than 400 people backed the film with online contributions, with another $130,000 being kicked in by others, including Frey, Schwarz said.
“Almost all of our investors were local within the Fairfield County area, so that was something that was really important to us,” Schwarz said of the screening. “It was a night to show the film and say thank you for making it a reality.”
Frey got behind the project in 2013, after reading about the fledgling filmmaker’s efforts in a local news story publicizing their fundraising efforts, Schwarz said.
“Most of the people who came aboard this project actually found us,” Schwarz said. “James found us through local press, and he’s from New Canaan. He called and ask me for the script, read it, and decided he liked it and gave us a substantial investment. We’re very fortunate.”
Spotibucks
Starbucks and Spotify Link Up to Bring Digital Music Into Stores
Starbucks picks Spotify to power in-store music.
After ditching CDs earlier this year, Starbucks is not giving up on providing music to its customers thanks to a new partnership with Spotify.
This fall, the two companies are teaming up to equip all employees in Starbucks’ 7,000 domestic stores with free Spotify Premium subscriptions that normally cost $10 a month—the subscriptions will ultimately power the in-store music. The coffee chain’s 10 million My Starbucks Rewards loyalty members will be able to stream the playlists baristas concoct and vote for what kind of music they would like to listen to, location by location. What’s more, the listening and voting features can be done on either the Spotify or Starbucks app.
Spotify users will also receive points—or stars, in this loyalty program’s vernacular—they can put toward earning free coffee and food.
It’s the first time Starbucks is extending its loyalty program to reward its members for doing more than just buying coffee, but it’s also the latest step in building the chain’s app into the go-to app for other brands.
For the past year, rumors have swirled that Starbucks is building a mobile platform that it will sell to brands looking to break into mobile payments. In September, the brand inked a deal with Uber to include a button on its app that lets users book rides. In March, mobile accounted for 18 percent of Starbucks’ U.S. revenue.
Eighteen-quintillion Full-featured Planets
World Without End – Creating a full-scale digital cosmos.
By Raffi Khatchadourian
No Man’s Sky will let virtual travellers explore eighteen quintillion full-featured planets.
The universe is being built in an old two-story building, in the town of Guildford, half an hour by train from London. About a dozen people are working on it. They sit at computer terminals in three rows on the building’s first floor and, primarily by manipulating lines of code, they make mathematical rules that will determine the age and arrangement of virtual stars, the clustering of asteroid belts and moons and planets, the physics of gravity, the arc of orbits, the density and composition of atmospheres—rain, clear skies, overcast. Planets in the universe will be the size of real planets, and they will be separated from one another by light-years of digital space. A small fraction of them will support complex life. Because the designers are building their universe by establishing its laws of nature, rather than by hand-crafting its details, much about it remains unknown, even to them. They are scheduled to finish at the end of this year; at that time, they will invite millions of people to explore their creation, as a video game, packaged under the title No Man’s Sky.
The game’s chief architect is a thirty-four-year-old computer programmer named Sean Murray. He is tall and thin, with a beard and hair that he allows to wander beyond the boundaries of a trim; his uniform is a pair of bluejeans and a plaid shirt. In 2006, frustrated by the impersonal quality of corporate game development, Murray left a successful career with Electronic Arts, one of the largest manufacturers of video games in the world. He believes in small teams and in the idea that creativity emerges from constraint, and so, in 2008, he and three friends founded a tiny company called Hello Games, using money he raised by selling his home. Since then, its sole product has been a game called Joe Danger, about a down-and-out stuntman whose primary skill is jumping over stuff with a motorcycle. Joe Danger, released in several iterations, earned a reputation for playability and humor. (In one version, it is possible to perform stunts as a cupcake riding a bike.) But it was hardly the obvious predecessor to a fully formed digital cosmos. No Man’s Sky will, for all practical purposes, be infinite. Players will begin at the outer edges of a galaxy containing 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 unique planets. By comparison, the game space of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas appears to be about fourteen square miles.
From the moment Murray unveiled a hastily built trailer for No Man’s Sky, in late 2013, on the Spike TV network, anticipation for the game has taken on an aspect of delirium.
Amazon Picks Up Alex Morgan and Full Fathom Five’s Kid Series THE KICKS
Amazon Greenlights Six Kids Pilots
Amazon’s new live-action kids pilot, ‘The Kicks,’ is based on a book series by U.S. soccer star Alex Morgan.
Amazon Prime members will be able to watch and vote on the four animated episodes and two live-action episodes during the company’s next kids pilot season this summer.
Amazon Studios has greenlit six kids pilots, which will debut during its next kids pilot season this summer.
The order includes four animated pilots — The Adventures of Knickerbock Teetertop, Lost In Oz, Lily the Unicorn and Bear in Underwear — and two live-action pilots — A History of Radness and The Kicks.
Amazon Prime members will be able to watch and provide feedback on which pilots they want turned into Amazon original series.
“These new pilots will bring sophisticated stories and unique points of view that we hope will resonate well with kids and families,” Amazon Studios’ head of kids programming, Tara Sorensen, said in a statement. “We’re very excited to be working with such passionate creative teams and look forward to sharing these projects with our customers later this year.”
Amazon’s latest pilots feature an accomplished roster of creative talent.
The Kicks, about a star soccer player who switches schools and has to rally her new team, is based on a book series by U.S. women’s soccer player, and Olympic gold medalist, Alex Morgan. The series was adapted for the pilot by David Babcock, whose credits include Brothers & Sisters and Gilmore Girls. The project’s executive producers include novelist James Frey and his company Full Fathom Five. The pilot was directed by Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum, whose credits include Ramona & Beezus and Aquamarine.
[ click to continue reading at THR ]
VARIETY – Amazon Studios Greenlights 6 Pilots in Next Wave of Kids’ Programming
Bret Easton Ellis’ ORPHEUS
King James Buys The Bulls
LeBron James owns the Bulls, and the team’s Wikipedia page briefly proved it
LeBron James showed again that he owns the Bulls. Don’t believe it? Check the team’s Wikipedia page.
Okay, you won’t see that there now (and it’s yet another reminder to not to take anything you read on Wikipedia as gospel). But the short-lived edit, made after Game 6 of the Cavaliers-Bulls playoff series, reflected the fact that James is the Human Season-Ender for Chicago.
By helping his Cavs advance to the Eastern Conference finals — his fifth straight appearance in that round, after four in a row with the Heat — James improved his personal postseason record in series against the Bulls to 4-0, including a 16-5 mark in all games played. Some people look at LeBron James and see an unprecedented blend of size, strength and talent. The Bulls look at him and see tee times next week.
Age Of The Technosexual
The Secret World of Tinder: are we really all technosexuals?
By Gerard O’Donovan
Pete is one of the many dating app-users featured in Channel 4’s The Secret World of Tinder Photo: Rory Mulvey
“We’re living in a technosexual world now,” said one contributor to The Secret World of Tinder (Channel 4). Which, on the evidence presented by this entertaining documentary, was definitely overstating the case.
But as an introduction to how the advent of dating apps has “revolutionised” the way in which people in Britain can meet potential partners – for one drink, one night or something more long term – this was interesting. Especially for someone who remembers antediluvian times when it was considered daring to answer an ad in the personal columns.
No doubt about it, the endless number of dating apps – Tinder, PlentyofFish, Lovoo, Grindr et al – increases opportunity, if not necessarily satisfaction or even take-up. The more recherché your sexual tastes, it seems, the more useful apps are likely to be, as evidenced by a man whose penchant for “puppy play” (leashes, collars and lots of sniffing, with men rather than actual dogs) went largely unfulfilled until he discovered the gay “kink and fetish” app Recon.
• 30 great opening lines in literature
For those with more mainstream preferences, the gap between opportunity and fulfilment seemed wider. Recent reports that upwards of 40 per cent of Tinder users are already married weren’t specifically addressed here.
But the high sleaze factor was; with all the usual warnings and didactic anecdotes about the perils of meeting people you’ve only previously communicated with online. The high “fakery” factor was emphasised too – especially regarding the many men who seem to see dating apps as opportunities to pretend to be someone they very much are not in real life.
Or to send photos of their genitals to people who don’t want them.
Naked Mole Rats Are Cool
SCIENTISTS AMAZED BY THE MOLE RAT’S BIZARRE BEHAVIOR
By BAYARD WEBSTER
AGROUP of scientists studying the naked mole rat, a rare hairless rodent that lives in East Africa, have recently found that the seldom-seen creature has one of the most bizarre social behavior patterns of any mammal in the animal kingdom.
Little had been known about the three-inch-long rodents, which spend their entire lives in underground colonies. The researchers, however, found to their amazement that communities of up to 80 or more of the rodents lead an existence in a closed-in underground complex like that of an insect colony and, in many ways, behave exactly like insects.
Their findings included these unusual behavior patterns never before known to exist in rodents:
- One female, selected by methods still unknown, becomes the ”queen” of the colony and, like the queen in a wasp colony, is the only breeding female in the community. The mole rat queen becomes much larger than other females in the colony.
- If the queen is removed from the colony, a few of the remaining females grow larger and seek to take her place. One will prevail and become the new queen.
- Although simpler than the social hierarchy of honeybees or ants, the organization of a naked mole rat colony requires both males and females to perform many specialized chores. These categories include food carriers, nest builders, garbage collectors, tunnel diggers and nursemaids to the queen.
[ click to continue marvelling at the Naked Mole Rat @ NYT ]
Chris Burden Gone
Chris Burden dies at 69: Artist’s light sculpture at LACMA is symbol of L.A.
Artist Chris Burden created Urban Lights, a sculpture in front of the entryway to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, that consists of guniune street lamps from Los Angeles historic past. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
Chris Burden, the protean Conceptual artist who rose from doing controversial performances in the 1970s to become one of the most widely admired sculptors of his generation, died early Sunday at his home in Topanga Canyon. He was 69.
“Urban Light,” Burden’s 2008 sculpture at the entrance to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, has become a symbol of the city. It takes the form of a Classical temple composed from 202 restored cast-iron antique street lamps.
Emasculating Porn
Porn and video game addiction are leading to ‘masculinity crisis’, says Stanford prison experiment psychologist
by DOUG BOLTON
A leading psychologist has warned that young men’s brains are being ‘digitally rewired’ by unprecedented use of video games and pornography
A leading psychologist has warned that young men are facing a crisis of masculinity due to excessive use of video games and pornography.
Psychologist and professor emeritus at Stanford University Phillip Zimbardo has made the warnings, which form a major part of his latest book, Man (Dis)Connected.
In an interview on the BBC World Service’s Weekend programme, Zimbardo spoke about the results of his study, an in-depth look into the lives of 20,000 young men and their relationships with video games and pornography.
He said: “Our focus is on young men who play video games to excess, and do it in social isolation – they are alone in their room.”
“Now, with freely available pornography, which is unique in history, they are combining playing video games, and as a break, watching on average, two hours of pornography a week.”
The Industrial Fish Complex
When Humans Declared War on Fish
Credit Josh Cochra
ON Friday we humans observed V-E Day, the end to one part of a global catastrophe that cost the planet at least 60 million lives. But if we were fish, we would have marked the day differently — as the beginning of a campaign of violence against our taxonomic classes, one that has resulted in trillions of casualties.
Oddly, the war itself was a great reprieve for many marine species. Just as Axis and Allied submarines and mines made the transportation of war matériel a highly perilous endeavor, they similarly interfered with fishing. The ability to catch staple seafoods, like cod, declined markedly. Freed from human pursuit, overexploited species multiplied in abundance.
But World War II also brought a leap in human ingenuity, power and technical ability that led to an unprecedented assault on our oceans. Not only did ships themselves become larger, faster and more numerous, but the war-derived technologies they carried exponentially increased their fishing power.
Take sonar. Before the 1930s, electronic echolocation was a barely functioning concept. It allowed operators to trace the vague contours of the seafloor topography and crudely track the pathway of a large moving object. But the war pushed forward dramatic advances in sonar technology; by its end, sophisticated devices, developed for hunting submarines, had grown infinitely more precise, and could now be repurposed to hunt fish.
Schools of fish could soon be pinpointed to within a few yards, and clearly differentiated from the sea’s bottom. Coupled with high-powered diesel engines that had been developed during the global conflict, the modern fishing vessel became a kind of war machine with a completely new arsenal: lightweight polymer-based nets, monofilament long lines that could extend for miles and onboard freezers capable of storing a day’s catch for months at a time.
Transgender Kraut-rock w/ Jazz Hands ’78
Dorothy Must 5 (NYT Bestseller List Woo-hoo!!)
Biggest Book Ever!
Author Aims to Set New Guinness World Record with World’s Largest Published Novel
Yahaya Baruwa, 27-year-old best-selling Canadian author, aims to do more than just release another commercial success, but also release the world’s largest published novel.
Struggles of a Dreamer: The Battle Between a Dreamer and Tradition will measure 8 ft. 5 in. high and 5 ft. 5 in. wide, resulting in an 11 ft. length when fully opened. The novel will be approximately 200 pages and bound in hardcover, rendered in full color. Due to its size, Struggles of a Dreamer will be crafted by hand, made from a combination of aluminum and tear-resistant paper, all sewn together with nylon stitching.
The novel seems to draw from the author’s own experiences of being a Nigerian immigrant, with characters Tunde, a beggar on the streets of New York City, and Toku’te, the son of a farmer in a faraway land, both testing the boundaries of tradition.
A Heartbreaking Read
My daughter, who lost her battle with mental illness, is still the bravest person I know
The author with daughter Natalie in 2004, soon after publication of their book “Promise You Won’t Freak Out.” (Courtesy of Doris Fuller )
I lost my darling daughter Natalie to mental illness last month. She killed herself a few weeks short of her 29th birthday by stepping in front of a train in Baltimore.
Natalie and I wrote a book together when she was 16: “Promise You Won’t Freak Out: A Teenager Tells Her Mother the Truth About Boys, Booze, Body Piercing, and Other Touchy Topics (and Mom Responds).” The idea of a teenager telling the truth about her secrets was such a startling concept that we were feature-page headliners in the Baltimore Sun and about two dozen other newspapers, went on TV coast to coast, including on one of the morning shows, and got paid to give speeches. “Oprah” called.
In the book, we used a device to signal whenever a wild turn was about to take place: And then . . . . In the introduction, I defined an And then . . . moment as “one of those critical junctures when my cheerful sense that all was right in the world collided with inescapable proof that it wasn’t.”
[Doctor: How I discovered the most important question I should ask every patient]
The book was published to great reviews the week before Natalie finished high school. Amazon named it the best parenting book of 2004. It was nominated for a national prize. It was translated into Lithuanian and Chinese.
And then . . . .
¡Muchas Gracias, Mundos de Papel!
Go Go, Amoeba, Go!
Still spinnin’: America’s classic record stores
(CNN)Like phone booths and typewriters, record stores are a vanishing breed — another victim of the digital age.
Camelot Music. Virgin Megastores. Wherehouse Music. Tower Records. All of them gone.
Corporate America has largely abandoned brick-and-mortar music retailing to a scattering of independent stores, many of them in scruffy urban neighborhoods. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Yes, it’s harder in the Spotify era to find a place to go buy physical music. But many of the remaining record stores are succeeding — even thriving — by catering to a passionate core of customers and collectors.
On Saturday, hundreds of music retailers will hold events to commemorate Record Store Day, an annual celebration of, well, your neighborhood record store. Many stores will host live performances, drawings, book signings, special sales of rare or autographed vinyl and other happenings. Some will even serve beer.
Freedom From SIZZLER
“It wasn’t me, Officer, I’m tellin’ ya! Like I said, I shot the armadillo – and then it was the armadillo what shot that bitch mother-in-law of mine.”
Georgia man shoots armadillo, bullet bounces off critter’s shell, hits shooter’s mother-in-law inside mobile home 100 yards away: Police (VIDEO)
JCRADER/GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO
Armored and dangerous!
A Georgia man shot his mother-in-law in a freak accident after a bullet he fired at an armadillo ricocheted off the creature’s back.
Larry McElroy, 54, was outside 74-year-old Carol Johnson’s mobile home in Lee County on Sunday night when he took aim with his 9-mm pistol at the animal, WALB reported.
The critter was killed by the round.
But the projectile bounced back off its armor, hit a fence and traveled 100 yards to fly through the back door of the property, police said.
The Lee County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the bizarre incident.
He recommended McElroy use a shotgun next time.
ENDGAME: “As intriguing as it is ambitious”
from The San Jose Mercury News
With Endgame: Proving Ground, Google’s Niantic Labs aims to improve on Ingress formula
by
Google’s Niantic Labs specializes in video games that revolve around the real world. It’s a heady space that mixes elements of massively multiplayer online experiences and augmented reality games. Ingress was the first example. It was a science fiction title that pits two factions — The Enlightened and The Resistance — against each other as they vied for real-life landmarks that contain portals.
The core gameplay concept was fine. It lured gamers outside, where they used the GPS on their mobile phones to locate important touchstones and battle rival factions for them. The only issue I had with it is that the systems were too complex and the fiction too complicated. There was a lot to digest and learn.
With Niantic’s upcoming project, Endgame: Proving Ground, the developers aim to fix at least one of those problems. They are teaming up with authors James Frey and Nils Johnson-Shelton whose novel Endgame: The Calling was released in October. The book, the first of three in the works, has been optioned to be a film. This sets up the franchise to be a transmedia project with different hooks into the universe and the mobile game is going to be one doorway into that.
Günter Grass Gone
The Greatness of Günter Grass
BY SALMAN RUSHDIE
CREDITPHOTOGRAPH BY RENE BURRI / MAGNUM
In 1982, when I was in Hamburg for the publication of the German translation of “Midnight’s Children,” I was asked by my publishers if I would like to meet Günter Grass. Well, obviously I wanted to, and so I was driven out to the village of Wewelsfleth, outside Hamburg, where Grass then lived. He had two houses in the village; he wrote and lived in one and used the other as an art studio. After a certain amount of early fencing—I was expected, as the younger writer, to make my genuflections, which, as it happened, I was happy to perform—he decided, all of a sudden, that I was acceptable, led me to a cabinet in which he stored his collection of antique glasses, and asked me to choose one. Then he got out a bottle of schnapps, and by the bottom of the bottle we were friends. At some later point, we lurched over to the art studio, and I was enchanted by the objects I saw there, all of which I recognized from the novels: bronze eels, terracotta flounders, dry-point etchings of a boy beating a tin drum. I envied him his artistic gift almost more than I admired him for his literary genius. How wonderful, at the end of a day’s writing, to walk down the street and become a different sort of artist! He designed his own book covers, too: dogs, rats, toads moved from his pen onto his dust jackets.
After that meeting, every German journalist I met wanted to ask me what I thought of him, and when I said that I believed him to be one of the two or three greatest living writers in the world some of these journalists looked disappointed, and said, “Well, ‘The Tin Drum,’ yes, but wasn’t that a long time ago?” To which I tried to reply that if Grass had never written that novel, his other books were enough to earn him the accolades I was giving him, and the fact that he had written “The Tin Drum” as well placed him among the immortals. The skeptical journalists looked disappointed. They would have preferred something cattier, but I had nothing catty to say.
Honey, those spots are getting bigger.
Mystery of Ceres’ bright spots grows
Data from NASA mission suggest varied origins for tantalizing gleams on dwarf planet’s surface.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
The surface of the dwarf planet Ceres (shown here) has fewer large craters than researchers expected.
Not all of the puzzling bright spots on the dwarf planet Ceres are alike. The closest-yet images of the gleams, taken from 45,000 kilometres away, show that at least two of the spots look different from one another when seen in infrared wavelengths.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope spied many of the bright spots years ago, but the observations from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft — which began looping around Ceres on 6 March — are the first taken at close range. The images were released on 13 April in Vienna at a meeting of the European Geosciences Union.
Scientists say that the bright spots might be related to ice exposed at the bottom of impact craters or some type of active geological features. The areas glimmer tantalizingly in a new full-colour map of Ceres that was obtained in February, but not released until the conference. The map uses false colours to tease out subtle differences on the otherwise dark surface of Ceres.
“This is the first idea of what the surface looks like,” said Martin Hoffmann, a Dawn scientist from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Göttingen, Germany.
The Dawn spacecraft’s view of the bright regions is sharpening as it gets closer to Ceres. The new infrared images reveal differences between spot 1, near Ceres’s equator, and a pair of bright spots collectively known as spot 5. Some scientists have speculated that the latter could be an icy plume.
Is it pulsars? A spy satellite? Or an alien message?
Is this ET? Mystery of strange radio bursts from space
by Sarah Scoles
Mysterious radio wave flashes from far outside the galaxy are proving tough for astronomers to explain. Is it pulsars? A spy satellite? Or an alien message?
BURSTS of radio waves flashing across the sky seem to follow a mathematical pattern. If the pattern is real, either some strange celestial physics is going on, or the bursts are artificial, produced by human – or alien – technology.
Telescopes have been picking up so-called fast radio bursts (FRBs) since 2001. They last just a few milliseconds and erupt with about as much energy as the sun releases in a month. Ten have been detected so far, most recently in 2014, when the Parkes Telescope in New South Wales, Australia, caught a burst in action for the first time. The others were found by sifting through data after the bursts had arrived at Earth. No one knows what causes them, but the brevity of the bursts means their source has to be small – hundreds of kilometres across at most – so they can’t be from ordinary stars. And they seem to come from far outside the galaxy.
The weird part is that they all fit a pattern that doesn’t match what we know about cosmic physics.
“Endgame is one of the first truly 360 degree content propositions to really excite me.”
Lessons From SXSW
by Caroline Norbury / CEO of Creative England
Beau Willimon’s first thought when he wakes up every day is that he is going to die. This is apparently what “concentrates the mind” for the lead writer and creator of House of Cards. It’s a great axiom and one which I think I might adopt. It’s certainly better than Roman Polanski’s start to the day, which is with a cold shower on the basis that the day can’t get any worse…
I have been to many film festivals but this is my first outing to SXSW. I’m here because there are two films supported by Creative England in the festival. The first is Julien Temple’s amazing documentary on the living legend that is Wilko Johnson, of Dr Feelgood fame. The second is The Goob, Creative England’s first completed iFeature, which premiered at Venice Film Festival last year. SXSW is the film’s first US outing.
Both films have been very well received – particularly The Ecstasy of Wilko Johnson. You should check out the reviews on Indiewire and AintitCool – there definitely seems to be a competition going on for the most thoughtful and insightful critique. And as an avid cultural consumer it’s not often I can say that!
As well as watching some amazing indie films, I’ve also been to a few sessions in the interactive and film workshops, where two in particular stood out. The first was a session with writer and author James Frey – whose novel Endgame is one of the first truly 360 degree content propositions to really excite me.
Endgame is the story of 12 teenagers dispersed around the world playing a competition to survive the forthcoming apocalypse. All come from a particular tribe and woven into their journey is a rich tapestry of mythologies and stories of ancient civilisations. These are then translated into to a much larger alternative-reality game.
Frey has teamed up with Google’s Niantic Labs to create both a virtual and a real-life gaming experience that has the potential to work anywhere in the world. Think Second Life but playing in Real Life, connecting with people to collect treasure and weapons, defeat enemies and helping your dispersed team to win. To complete the IP circle Frey has also just signed a deal to transfer the stories into a theatrical franchise.