New worlds: Mars InSight Project Scientist to Join 2020 Mars Society Teleconvention for Update
Dr. Mark Panning, Project Scientist and Co-Investigator for NASA’s Mars InSight lander, currently operating on the Martian surface, will be joining us virtually to provide a mission update during the 23rd Annual International Mars Society Convention, scheduled for October 15-18.
After spending almost a decade at the University of Florida in the geological sciences division, Dr. Panning joined JPL in 2017 to focus on planetary interiors using seismology. He is also Co-Investigator on the Dragonfly mission to Titan, currently in development. He has also worked on modeling possible seismic signals on Europa, Titan, Enceladus and other icy ocean worlds.
After completing his Ph.D. in Geophysics from the University of California (Berkeley) with a focus on modeling 3D structure of the Earth’s mantle using seismic tomography, Dr. Panning stayed on at the school to do post-doctoral research extending seismic approaches to modeling how to use potential seismic data from Europa.
This year’s global Mars Society teleconvention will be free of charge (although donations are welcome). For full registration details, please click here. Regular updates, including a list of confirmed speakers, will be posted in the coming weeks on the Mars Society web site and its social media platforms.
New worlds : Asgardia (The Space Nation) to Fill Government Positions by October 31, 2020
Asgardia’s Head of Nation, Dr Igor Ashurbeyli, set a task to form a new Cabinet of Ministers of Asgardia by the end of the year. Applications from candidates will be accepted from July 1 to October 31, 2020.
Asgardia has 12 ministries working in the main areas of national interests of the Space Nation, and 12 parliamentary Committees that correspond to them. Currently, the positions of 12 Ministers and Prime Minister are vacant.
- Ministry of Science
- Ministry of Citizenship
- Ministry of Justice
- Ministry of Finance
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs
- Ministry of Safety and Security
- Ministry of Trade and Commerce
- Ministry of Manufacturing
- Ministry of Youth and Education
- Ministry of Equity and Resources
- Ministry of Culture
- Ministry of Information and Communication
Indian Duck Farming
Indian Runner duck farming is a very common and popular business. Because this breed is highly productive and is very common throughout the world. The breed is native to the Indian-sub-continent and was found on the Indonesian islands of Bali, Java and Lombok.
Although the name of this breed is ‘Indian Runner’, but there is no evidence that they came originally from India. And the breed was probably originated from the East Indies – Java, Lombok and Malaya.
The term ‘Indian’ may well be fanciful, denoting a loading port of the transport by ‘India-men’ sailing ships of the East India Company. And such misname happened with many other waterfowl breeds imported into the America and Europe. For example, the African goose (which is actually not from Africa), the Muscovy duck (which is actually not from Moscow) and the Black East Indian duck (which is actually not from India).
The Indian Runner duck is a very old breed and it has a long history as evidenced by ancient Javan Temple carvings. Which indicates that the Indian Runner type ducks existed in Indo China, 2000 years ago. And people in this area have been raising ducks for hundreds of years. And they trained their ducks to forage on the paddy fields and look for grain, weed seeds, insects, snails, small reptiles, larvae etc.
The Indian Runner duck became popular in America and Europe towards the end of the 19th Century, as a good egg laying duck breed. And today the breed is still a very good eggs layer.
Today, the Indian Runner ducks are mainly raised for their eggs production. And many other good modern duck breeds have been created from the Indian Runner ducks.
However, the Indian Runner ducks are excellent egg layers. They generally lay up to 250 eggs per year. So starting a commercial Indian Runner duck farming business for eggs production can be profitable. And you can also sell the ducks for meat after they have stopped laying eggs.
Transhumanism and the future of capitalism: The next meaning of life
Steve Fuller discusses what it would mean to be a person in a world of radical human transformation via technology.
Although there is no single definition of ‘transhumanism’, the term broadly relates to the idea that the human species should radically transform itself as it has the physical environment through the use of advanced technology. Steve Fuller writes on the link between transhumanism and capitalism and elaborates on what it would mean to be a person in such a world.
Capitalism is not normally seen as an especially ‘humanistic’ ideology. Yet central to the legal innovations that enabled the rise of capitalism in the early modern West was a doctrine of the person as a being who is free to exchange goods and services. In the eighteenth century, this freedom was characterized as an ‘inalienable right’, which is to say, not transferable to another either by choice or under duress.
Thus, a strong normative distinction between people and property was institutionalized, which had not existed in slave or feudal societies. The sting of the Marxist critique of capitalism comes from observing that this distinction is not upheld in practice. Instead, a supposedly inalienable right of the person becomes a site for exploitation, as asymmetrical power relations in the marketplace reduces human labour to inhuman capital inputs.
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