[Science fiction is] out in the mainstream now. You can tell by the way mainstream literary authors pillage SF while denying they're writing it!
Terry Pratchett
I was only in second grade when the Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. The night of his launch—April 12, 1961—I went out onto the front porch and stared up at the stars, trying to see his capsule passing overhead. Like millions of others, I was enthralled by the idea of space exploration and have been ever since.
Paul Allen
Now winter nights enlarge
This number of their hours;
And clouds their storms discharge
Upon the airy towers.
Let now the chimneys blaze
And cups o’erflow with wine,
Let well-tuned words amaze
With harmony divine.
Thomas Campion
It was snowing. It was always snowing at Christmas. December, in my memory, is white as Lapland, though there were no reindeers. But there were cats.
Dylan Thomas, A Child's Christmas in Wales
An Interview with Håvard Grip, Chief Pilot of Ingenuity, Nasa's Mars Helicopter | DER SPIEGEL "....helicopters can act as ideal reconnaissance platforms. They can scout terrain for future rovers or even future astronauts once you have humans on Mars. But we are also thinking about the possibility of building larger, more capable helicopters that can carry scientific instruments to places that can't be reached by land vehicles, steep cliffsides for example. There are even ideas to use helicopters to explore caves on Mars."
Some of Us Did Not Die | Yangyang Cheng | SupChina "On the last work day of 2019, a colleague asked if we had any New Year’s resolutions. “To survive,” I said. Everyone laughed; only I was not joking.... I did not know then that a mysterious pneumonia had appeared in Wuhan. In a few short weeks, survival would become painstakingly literal."
China successfully launches Tianzhou-2 cargo spacecraft | CGTN "The launch of the Tianzhou-2 cargo vessel is one of the 11 missions planned by China to complete the construction of its space station by the end of 2022. The 11 missions are comprised of the three launches of the core module and two lab capsules of the space station, four cargo vessel flights and four manned missions."
The Sudden Rise of the Coronavirus Lab-Leak Theory | The New Yorker "All that is known for sure is that a pathogen that likely originated in bats had transferred species and caused a global pandemic in human beings, perhaps in a way that had only happened a few times in modern medical history or in a way—through a lab—that may never have happened before...."
Lionel Shriver Warns Readers Not to Meet Their Favorite Authors | NY Times "Have you ever changed your opinion of a book based on information about the author, or anything else?"
"On principle, I keep books and the characters of their authors separate. So, no, I haven’t changed my opinion of a book because of something I found out about the writer after I read it. However, I’ve warned audiences at events to avoid meeting the authors of their favorite books. The warts-and-all version is almost always a disappointment, and they risk a retroactive taint."
A human community with a shared future: China's answer to Gauguin | CGTN "The dawn of a new era defined by AI and IoE makes the leap from cultural exchanges to innovation possible. This paves the way for a future where the theory of linear evolution is out of place, Western-centrism is rejected, and anthropocentrism no longer holds sway."
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir book review | The Washington Post "A friend of mine, who teaches scriptwriting, talks about 'refrigerator logic' — elements that don’t bother you until after a movie is over and you go to the refrigerator and say, "hey . . . wait a minute.'"
Amazon Publishing, DPLA Ink Deal to Lend E-books in Libraries | Publishers Weekly "The deal represents a major step forward for the digital library market. Not only is Amazon Publishing finally making its digital content available to libraries, the deal gives libraries a range of models through which it can license the content, offering libraries the kind of flexibility librarians have long asked for from the major publishers."
Neanderthals carb loaded, helping grow their big brains | Science | AAAS "Finding the streptococci on the teeth of both ancient humans and Neanderthals also suggests they inherited these microbes from their common ancestor, who lived more than 600,000 years ago."
Pushing cooking, and control of fire, back a considerable ways.
Sci-Fi About Overpopulation Was Way Off | Wired "Dystopian scenarios may make for exciting stories, but often their predictions are so dire that they inspire hopelessness rather than resolve. “I think that there is a view that if something is bad, if it’s a real problem, that the best thing to do is state the problem in the bleakest possible terms, because that will motivate people to go take action,” Yglesias says. “I don’t think that that’s right as a theory of human motivation..."
Elon Musk's Starship Could Land America Back on the Moon | The Atlantic "....Take this path all the way to Boca Chica, past the solar-panel farms and storage sheds, past the little street that used to be called Joanna Street until Musk renamed it Rocket Road, and you end up on the beach, with sky and sea stretching out before you. It’s a beautiful view on any day, and maybe, one day, it’ll be someone’s last look at Earth."
Elon Musk’s ‘SNL’ Trap | The Atlantic "Musk has become arguably one of the most successful trolls on Twitter today, a public figure without any stake in entertainment or politics capable of provoking a reaction, full stop. This hosting gig—unconventional for SNL, but entirely unnecessary for him—is a trap.... It doesn’t matter whether you react positively or negatively; you’ve already been caught reacting."
How the Pentagon Started Taking U.F.O.s Seriously | The New Yorker "The government may or may not care about the resolution of the U.F.O. enigma. But, in throwing up its hands and granting that there are things it simply cannot figure out, it has relaxed its grip on the taboo. For many, this has been a comfort."
New York Returns Its Police ‘Robodog’ After a Public Outcry | WIRED "In February, the NYPD used Spot to defuse a hostage situation in the Bronx. When video of the device went viral, its flexible legs and camera-for-a-head design spooked people. The robot is quadrupedal but doesn’t actually look like a dog. A more immediate comparison is the armed robots featured in a postapocalyptic episode of Black Mirror."
Writers Orgs Form #DisneyMustPay Joint Task Force | Publishers Weekly "Half a dozen professional writers’ organizations have joined with the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in forming a joint task to press the Walt Disney Company to ensure it pays all royalties owed to authors."
NASA’s bold bet on Starship for the Moon may change spaceflight forever | Ars Technica "With Starship, SpaceX has offered what appears to be the best technical solution to NASA's stated goal of a sustainable lunar exploration program. Starship would be able to take far more people and cargo to the Moon than any other solution for NASA—and it could do the job for far less money and far more often."
NASA's Ingenuity Helicopter Flies on Mars | The Atlantic "For the first time in history, humankind has taken flight on another planet. Millions of miles from Earth, on an alien world with a wisp-thin atmosphere, a tiny helicopter rose into the air, hovered for 39 seconds, and then gently touched back down on the surface of Mars."
Sneaky New Bacteria on the ISS Could Build a Future on Mars | WIRED "What’s more interesting, maybe, is figuring out which bacteria are zeroes on Earth but heroes in the rarified, closed-loop environment of a spaceship. That’s why studying the International Space Station’s microbiome—the bacteria, fungi, and viruses that thrive on board—might be critical to the safety of missions to Mars, or permanent bases on other worlds."
Authors Guild Asks Members to Support PRO Act | Publishers Weekly "The act would enable freelance writers and authors to bargain collectively with businesses that hire them, something currently restricted by antitrust law. The Guild is also asking that the Senate amend the language of the bill to specifically cover the work of freelancers and authors."
How Bellingcat Unmasked Putin’s Assassins | The New Yorker "We are not exactly journalists, nor human-rights activists, nor computer scientists, nor archivists, nor academic researchers, nor criminal investigators, but at the nexus of all those disciplines."