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.
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.
Whether Viswakarma Build the Man Made islands of Sri lanka or Dwaraka. These Man-made islands are no myth unless you are a one of those who thinking otherwise! The below are paints of Indrajit son of Ravana!
The gradual formation of the Earth has given us some impressive islands, which are home to some of humankind’s biggest cities and even countries. While humans can’t make islands as impressive as mother nature, we’ve certainly have made some very cool ones. These are 10 of the most amazing artificial islands from all around the globe.
10. Notre Dame Island (Canada)
In order to get ready for the 1967 International and Universal Exposition, the city of Montreal, Quebec, needed to build a metro system. In order to build one, they needed to dig out 15 million tons of rock, and they came up with an ingenious way to use it – they built Notre Dame Island in the Saint Lawrence River.Today, the island is home to several tourist attractions, including the Jacques Villeneuve Circuit, which is where the Canadian Grand Prix is held, and it’s also where the Montreal Casino is located.
IBM correcting Selectric IIi typewriter predominantly used by Eppie Lederer as Ann Landers in her home office, 1950. (Photo by Chicago History Museum/Getty Images)
It’s well known that JRR Tolkien wrote the Lord of the Rings cycle to create people to speak the languages he had invented. But, in the television age, artificially created or invented languages – we call them “conlangs” – have been gaining increasing attention with the popularity of television series such as Star Trek and Game of Thrones, and films such as Avatar.
Fantasy and science fiction are the ideal vehicles for conlangs. Marc Okrand, an American linguist whose core research area is Native American languages, invented Klingon for Star Trek, while Paul Frommer of the University of Southern California created the Na’vi language for Avatar.
The fantasy series Game of Thrones involved several languages, including Dothraki and Valyrian, which were created by David J Peterson, a “conlanger” who has invented languages for several other shows. Most recently, fantasy thriller The City and The City featured the language Illitan, created by Alison Long of Keele University in the UK.
I teach how to construct languages and one question my students usually ask is: “How do I make a perfect language?” I need to warn that it’s impossible to make a language “perfect” – or even “complete”. Rather, an invented language is more likely to be appropriate for the context – convincing and developed just enough to work in the desired environment. But here are a few things to bear in mind.
With the current Big Data and Map reduce there are several online projects that constantly try to play with words Don’t forget the Natural Language processing (NLP) that is intended for even robots or AI to understand Language.
A perfect language can actually be a simple software filter that would scan large quantities of all the linguistic texts and identify the recurring patterns in different languages and use this with a new symbolism that can be both read by both human and machine would actually make the whole thing more Perfect and worth while. And don’t forget the amount of jobs and the literature that might get generated albeit be it only digital unless fully accepted by the larger sections of people after all it is something both human and machine can work with together. Instead of being forced onto or Influenced and oppressed upon? Maybe the Next Einstein could use this to influence the next generation for much larger good, peace and prosperity both locally and globally. This could provide a different angle or perspective into the thought process of creating a language even for machine only!
Oceans, Ices, Vapors: Turns out the Solar System isn’t so parched. We survey the moons and planets where scientists are finding water in all its forms.
Underwater water worlds are no place for vegetarians Sorry folks stay at home no place for vegetarian astronauts because outside planet earth most habitable worlds are Underwater planets without Sunlight so… See ya… (fishetarianism because it is universal and cosmic)
Last week brought the news that Enceladus likely has a warm salty ocean, and that liquid water lurks beneath the surface of Ganymede. These findings are continuing to chip away at the once-held belief that the solar system was dry and barren, bereft of water.
THE HUNT FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE HAS TURNED TO OUR OWN COSMIC BACKYARD
It seems there are few places in the solar systems without some amount of water, whether liquid or solid. There’s even a small amount of water vapor on Venus, something like 20 parts-per-million. And every time a source of liquid water is found or suggested, it brings up the chances of life on that world because of the way water acts as a solvent – facilitating the metabolic processes at the most basic level of life. That’s why the hunt for extraterrestrial life (quite doubtfully of an intelligent sort, though we’ve found some quite remarkable octopuses on Earth) has turned from distant solar systems to our own cosmic backyard.
Here’s the breakdown of all the water we know about in the solar system, and what form it comes in.
