#National Space Development Agency

[thepastisalreadywritten]

On 5 April 2008, the Japanese spacecraft Kaguya captured this full Earth-rise over the Moon limb in high resolution.

📹: JAXA

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SELENE (Selenological and Engineering Explorer), better known in Japan by its nickname Kaguya, was the second Japanese lunar orbiter spacecraft following the Hiten probe.

Produced by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) and the National Space Development Agency (NASDA), the spacecraft was launched on 14 September 2007.

After successfully orbiting the Moon for a year and eight months, the main orbiter was instructed to impact on the lunar surface near the crater Gill on 10 June 2009.

[nasa]

LaRue Burbank, mathematician and computer, is just one of the many women who were instrumental to NASA missions.

4 Little Known Women Who Made Huge Contributions to NASA

Women have always played a significant role at NASA and its predecessor NACA, although for much of the agency’s history, they received neither the praise nor recognition that their contributions deserved. To celebrate Women’s History Month – and properly highlight some of the little-known women-led accomplishments of NASA’s early history – our archivists gathered the stories of four women whose work was critical to NASA’s success and paved the way for future generations.

LaRue Burbank: One of the Women Who Helped Land a Man on the Moon

LaRue Burbank was a trailblazing mathematician at NASA. Hired in 1954 at Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory (now NASA’s Langley Research Center), she, like many other young women at NACA, the predecessor to NASA, had a bachelor's degree in mathematics. But unlike most, she also had a physics degree. For the next four years, she worked as a "human computer," conducting complex data analyses for engineers using calculators, slide rules, and other instruments. After NASA's founding, she continued this vital work for Project Mercury.

In 1962, she transferred to the newly established Manned Spacecraft Center (now NASA’s Johnson Space Center) in Houston, becoming one of the few female professionals and managers there.  Her expertise in electronics engineering led her to develop critical display systems used by flight controllers in Mission Control to monitor spacecraft during missions. Her work on the Apollo missions was vital to achieving President Kennedy's goal of landing a man on the Moon.

Eilene Galloway: How NASA became… NASA

Eilene Galloway wasn't a NASA employee, but she played a huge role in its very creation. In 1957, after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, Senator Richard Russell Jr. called on Galloway, an expert on the Atomic Energy Act, to write a report on the U.S. response to the space race. Initially, legislators aimed to essentially re-write the Atomic Energy Act to handle the U.S. space goals. However, Galloway argued that the existing military framework wouldn't suffice – a new agency was needed to oversee both military and civilian aspects of space exploration. This included not just defense, but also meteorology, communications, and international cooperation.

Her work on the National Aeronautics and Space Act ensured NASA had the power to accomplish all these goals, without limitations from the Department of Defense or restrictions on international agreements. Galloway is even to thank for the name "National Aeronautics and Space Administration", as initially NASA was to be called “National Aeronautics and Space Agency” which was deemed to not carry enough weight and status for the wide-ranging role that NASA was to fill.

Barbara Scott: The “Star Trek Nerd” Who Led Our Understanding of the Stars

A self-described "Star Trek nerd," Barbara Scott's passion for space wasn't steered toward engineering by her guidance counselor. But that didn't stop her!  Fueled by her love of math and computer science, she landed at Goddard Spaceflight Center in 1977.  One of the first women working on flight software, Barbara's coding skills became instrumental on missions like the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) and the Thermal Canister Experiment on the Space Shuttle's STS-3.  For the final decade of her impressive career, Scott managed the flight software for the iconic Hubble Space Telescope, a testament to her dedication to space exploration.

Dr. Claire Parkinson: An Early Pioneer in Climate Science Whose Work is Still Saving Lives

Dr. Claire Parkinson's love of math blossomed into a passion for climate science. Inspired by the Moon landing, and the fight for civil rights, she pursued a graduate degree in climatology.  In 1978, her talents landed her at Goddard, where she continued her research on sea ice modeling. But Parkinson's impact goes beyond theory.  She began analyzing satellite data, leading to a groundbreaking discovery: a decline in Arctic sea ice coverage between 1973 and 1987. This critical finding caught the attention of Senator Al Gore, highlighting the urgency of climate change.

Parkinson's leadership extended beyond research.  As Project Scientist for the Aqua satellite, she championed making its data freely available. This real-time information has benefitted countless projects, from wildfire management to weather forecasting, even aiding in monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic. Parkinson's dedication to understanding sea ice patterns and the impact of climate change continues to be a valuable resource for our planet.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space! 

[afeelgoodblog]

The Best News of Last Week

1. Arizona governor Ok's over the counter birth control

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) has expanded access to over-the-counter birth control that will “soon be available to Arizonans,” according to a press release.

Arizonans 18 and older will soon be able to go to their local pharmacy and purchase oral contraceptives without a doctor’s prescription.

2. ‘Great news’: EU hails discovery of massive phosphate rock deposit in Norway

A massive underground deposit of high-grade phosphate rock in Norway, pitched as the world’s largest, is big enough to satisfy world demand for fertilisers, solar panels and electric car batteries over the next 50 years, according to the company exploiting the resource. About 90% of the world’s mined phosphate rock is used in agriculture for the production of phosphorous for the fertiliser industry, for which there is currently no substitute.

3. U.S. Is Destroying the Last of Its Once-Vast Chemical Weapons Arsenal

Decades behind its initial schedule, the dangerous job of eliminating the world’s only remaining declared stockpile of lethal chemical munitions will be completed as soon as Friday.

4. Chinese scientists create edible food packaging to replace plastic

By incorporating certain soy proteins into the structure, Chinese University of Hong Kong scientists successfully created edible food packaging.

5. World's 1st 'tooth regrowth' medicine moves toward clinical trials in Japan

A Japanese research team is making progress on the development of a groundbreaking medication that may allow people to grow new teeth, with clinical trials set to begin in July 2024. The tooth regrowth medicine is intended for people who lack a full set of adult teeth due to congenital factors.

6. No Longer Endangered: The Bald Eagle is an Icon of the ESA

When the Endangered Species Act (ESA) was enacted in 1973, bald eagle population numbers across the country showed that the species was close to disappearing. Before the ESA, in the 1950s and ‘60s, eagles were shot routinely despite the protection. The ESA listing helped bring public attention to the issue.

Through the early 1970s and into the early ‘80s, numbers increased gradually. Then, as you got into the ‘90s, there was still gradual growth. From the late ‘90s into the 2000s, the population really exploded. There was a doubling rate of every several years or so for a while.

7. Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon drops 34% in first half 2023

Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon fell 34% in the first half of 2023, preliminary government data showed on Thursday, hitting its lowest level in four years as President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva institutes tougher environmental policies.

Data produced by Brazil's national space research agency Inpe indicated that 2,649 square km (1,023 square miles) of rainforest were cleared in the region in the half year, the lowest for the period since 2019.

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That's it for this week :)

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[she-is-ovarit]

By EDITH M. LEDERER Updated 9:11 PM PST, March 8, 2024 UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Legal equality for women could take centuries as the fight for gender equality is becoming an uphill struggle against widespread discrimination and gross human human rights abuses, the United Nations chief said on International Women’s Day. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a packed U.N. commemoration Friday that “a global backlash against women’s rights is threatening, and in some cases reversing, progress in developing and developed countries alike.” The most egregious example is in Afghanistan, he said, where the ruling Taliban have barred girls from education beyond sixth grade, from employment outside the home, and from most public spaces, including parks and hair salons. At the current rate of change, legal equality for women could take 300 years to achieve and so could ending child marriage, he said. Guterres pointed to “a persistent epidemic of gender-based violence,” a gender pay gap of at least 20%, and the underrepresentation of women in politics. He cited September’s annual gathering of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly, where just 12% of the speakers were women. “And the global crises we face are hitting women and girls hardest — from poverty and hunger to climate disasters, war and terror,” the secretary-general said. In the past year, Guterres said, there have been testimonies of rape and trafficking in Sudan, and in Gaza women women and children account for a majority of the more than 30,000 Palestinians reported killed in the Israeli-Hamas conflict, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. He cited a report Monday by the U.N. envoy focusing on sexual violence in conflict that concluded there are “reasonable grounds” to believe Hamas committed rape, “sexualized torture” and other cruel and inhumane treatment of women during its surprise attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7. He also pointed to reports of sexual violence against Palestinians detained by Israel. International Women’s Day grew out of labor movements in North America and across Europe at the turn of the 20th century and was officially recognized by the United Nations in 1977. This year’s theme is investing in women and girls to accelerate progress toward equality. Roza Otunbayeva, the head of the U.N. political mission in Afghanistan, told the Security Council on Wednesday that what is happening in that country “is precisely the opposite” of investing in women and girls. There is “a deliberate disinvestment that is both harsh and unsustainable,” she said, saying the Taliban’s crackdown on women and girls has caused “immense harm to mental and physical health, and livelihoods.” Recent detentions of women and girls for alleged violations of the Islamic dress code “were a further violation of human rights, and carry enormous stigma for women and girls,” she said. It has had “a chilling effect among the wider female population, many of whom are now afraid to move in public,” she said. Otunbayeva again called on the Taliban to reverse the restrictions, warning that the longer they remain, “the more damage will be done.” Sima Bahous, the head of UN Women, the agency promoting gender equality and women’s rights, told the commemoration that International Women’s Day “sees a world hobbled by confrontation, fragmentation, fear and most of all inequality.” “Poverty has a female face,” she said. “One in every 10 women in the world lives in extreme poverty.” Men not only dominate the halls of power but they “own $105 trillion more wealth than women,” she said. Bahous said well-resourced and powerful opponents of gender equality are pushing back against progress. The opposition is being fueled by anti-gender movements, foes of democracy, restricted civic space and “a breakdown of trust between people and state, and regressive policies and legislation,” she said. [Click on the link to continue reading]

[fatehbaz]

Edit: I removed the screenshot so as not to share dm stuff, but I got a message from someone who couldn't send an ask, inquiring: "i was wondering what book it was that you mentioned about the philippines? i'd be interested in reading it"

Sorry to post; figured it would be a subject worth sharing with interested others. Good news: It's an article, so it's relatively easier to access and read.

Jolen Martinez. "Plantation Anticipation: Apprehension in Chicago from Reconstruction America to the Plantocratic Philippines" (2024). An essay from an Intervention Symposium titled Plantation Methodologies: Questioning Scale, Space, and Subjecthood. Hosted and published by Antipode Online. 4 January 2024.

Basically:

Explores connections between plantations in US-occupied Philippines and the policing institutions and technologies of Chicago. Martinez begins with racism and white anxiety in Chicago in the 1870s. Coinciding with Black movement from the South during Reconstruction and the Great Migration, Chicago was, in Martinez's telling, a center of white anxiety and apprehension. Chicago public, newspapers, and institutions wanted to obsessively record information about Black people and white labor dissidents, including details on their motivations and internal/inner life. Between 1880-ish and 1910-ish Chicago then became a center of surveillance, records-keeping, classification systems, and new innovations in monitoring dissent and collecting information. Within a year after the labor rebellions, the Adjutant General of the US Army who led Chicago's militarized crackdown on the 1877 Great Railroad Strike immediately moved to DC and proposed establishing "the Military Information Division" (MID); eventually founded in 1885, MID started collecting hundreds of thousands of Bertillon-system intelligence cards on dissidents and "criminals." Meanwhile, National Association of Chiefs of Police headquartered their central bureau of identification (NBCI) in Chicago in 1896. At play here is not just the collection of information, but the classification systems organizing that information. The MID and related agencies would then go on to collect mass amounts of information on domestic residents across the US. In Martinez's telling, these policing beliefs and practices - including intelligence cards, "management sciences," and policing unit organization - were then "exported" by MID to the Philippines and used to monitor labor and anticolonial dissent. Another Chicago guy developed "personality typing" and psychological examinations to classify criminality, and then trained Philippines police forces to collect as much information as possible about colonial subjects.

The information-gathering in the Philippines constituted what other scholars like Alfred McCoy have called one of the United States' first "information revolutions"; McCoy described these technologies and practices as "capillaries of empire." Martinez suggests that it's important to trace the lineage of these racialized anxieties and practices from Chicago to the Philippines, because "such feelings were fundamental to linking plantations which at first seem so spatially and temporally distant." And "[u]ltimately, the US colonial plantocracy in the Philippines built its authority around information infrastructures [...] and feelings emanating from Chicago [...] that extended from the image of the American South."

Side-note:

The Bertillon system was standardized at about this same time, 1879-ish, and in similar social and racial contexts, becoming popular in other Midwest/Great Lakes cities, especially to track Black people (though it was also rapidly and widely adopted famously as an essential approach across Europe). The system used body measurements to identify and classify people, especially "criminals," significantly involving photography, such that Bertillon is also sometimes credited as the originator of "the mugshot."

I'd add that the aforementioned police chiefs National Bureau of Criminal Identification (NBCI) stayed in Chicago from 1896 until 1902, when the killing of President McKinley frightened officials with potential of wider popular communist/labor movements; at that point, it was moved to DC, as William Pinkerton (co-director of the Pinkerton agency) donated the agency's photograph collection to build the new bureau, and NBCI strengthened itself by collecting Bertillon-style fingerprints and became the precursor to the FBI, founded 1908. (After 1895-ish especially, European authorities were transcending their petty rivalries to attempt forming international police agencies and share documents, tracking each others' domestic radicals/dissidents.)

You could compare the colonial use of Bertillon-style intelligence card systems in Chicago and US-occupied Philippines to the rise of fingerprinting as a weapon of Britain.

Edward Henry was the Inspector-General of Police in Bengal, appointed 1891, basically the top cop in British India. He exchanged letters with notorious eugenicist Francis Galton, wherein they specifically talked about the importance of developing a classification system for fingerprints that could be used alongside the Bertillon system of anthropometric identification. (Another British imperial administrator in India, Sir William Herschel, had previously been the first to pioneer fingerprinting by taking hand-prints.) By 1897, police forces in India had been adopting the so-called Henry Classification System, and the Governor-General of India personally decreed that fingerprinting be adopted across India. By 1900, Henry was sent to South Africa to train police in classification systems. By 1903, Henry was back in Britain and became head of the Metropolitan Police of London, now the top cop in Britain. (Compare dates with US developments: British police in India adopt fingerprint identification system the same year that Chicago police found their proto-FBI central identification bureau. Less than a year after the US head-of-state gets killed, Britain super-charges the London police.)

So, the guy who pioneered fingerprinting classification for use in maintaining order and imperial power in India and other colonies was eventually brought in to deploy those tactics on Britons in the metropole. The kind of colony-to-metropole violence thing described by many theorists. Britain also developed traditions of police photography in context of rebellions in Jamaica and India to collect personally identifiable information and track dissent. The Ottoman Empire cultivated a system of passports and related laws to monitor and direct movement; France did something similar in colonial Algeria.

And Great Lakes cities, after the Great Migration, were notorious for this kind of police violence. Consider how the Bertillon system was used early-on by Minneapolis police to track and target Black "alley workers." Or how Chicago was a focal point of antiblack violence in the Red Summer of 1919. Or how Milwaukee has some the most distinct Black-white segregation of any large urban area in the US. Or how, after Elliot Ness lionized law enforcement officials in Chicago during the Al Capone case, he then led policing operations in Cleveland culminating in the mass eviction and the burning of Kingsbury Run shantytown.

Anyway, the other story that I mentioned regarding Philippines was from:

Gregg Mitman. "Forgotten Paths of Empire: Ecology, Disease, and Commerce in the Making of Liberia's Plantation Economy." Environmental History, Volume 22, Number 1. January 2017.

For context, I'd note that this takes place in the midst of the US's "conquest of the mosquito" in its militarized occupation of Panama, where the canal was completed in 1914.

In Mitman's story, Richard P. Strong was appointed as director of the brand-new Department of Tropical Medicine at Harvard in 1913. Shortly thereafter in 1914, as he toured plantations in Panama, Cuba, Guatemala, etc., Strong simultaneously took a job as director of the Laboratories of the Hospitals and of Research Work of the United Fruit Company (infamous for its brutal labor conditions in plantations, its land-grabbing in Central America, and its relationship to US corporate power). Harvard hired Strong partially on the recommendation of General William Cameron Forbes, who was the military governor of US-occupied Philippines from 1909 to 1913. When Harvard hired Strong, he had been living in the Philippines, where he was the personal physician to Governor Forbes, and was also the director of the Philippine Bureau of Science's Biological Laboratory, where he had experimented on Filipino prisoners without their knowledge; Strong fatally infected these unknowing test-subjects with bubonic plague. Then, Governor Forbes, after leading the US occupation of the Philippines, himself became an overseer to Harvard AND a director of United Fruit Company (also Forbes was a banker and the son of the president of Bell Telephone Company). Meanwhile, Strong also became a shareholder in British rubber plantations; Strong approached Harvey Firestone to help encourage the massive rubber company to negotiate a deal to expand plantations in West Africa, where Firestone got a 99-year-long concession to lease a million acres of land in Liberia. So there's an intimate relationship between military, plantations, colonization, academic funding models, corporate profiteering, land dispossession, etc.

---

So, in each case, the plantation expands in time and space. There is imperial anxiety about the threat of potential subversion from recalcitrant laborers. Imperial authorities cooperate and learn from each other. The rubber plantation owner is friends with the military guy, who's friends with the laboratory technician, who's friends with the railroad developer, who's friends with the cop, who's friends with banana plantation owner. There are connections between the exercise of power in the Philippines and Panama and West Africa and Bengal and Chicago. Connections both material and imaginative.

Disturbing stuff.

[odinsblog]

Veterans’ health care


A 1996 law set eligibility requirements for military veterans to receive hospital, medical and nursing home care and authorized spending for those services and patient enrollment. That law has not been renewed, but Congress regularly allocates additional Department of Veterans Affairs funding and allows benefits to increase automatically based on inflation. VA provides medical care to more than 9.1 million enrolled veterans, according to the agency.
​

Drug development and opioid addiction treatment

Most of this spending relates to the bipartisan 21st Century Cures Act of 2016. That law provided money to the National Institutes of Health and Food and Drug Administration to modernize pharmaceutical research and medical trials. It funded research for cancer cures and state-level grants for opioid addiction and other substance abuse treatment.


​State Department

In 2003, Congress passed the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, which set policy priorities and created spending authority for the State Department. That law has not been renewed, but Congress every year since has passed annual funding bills for the department, which Trump has announced he’ll nominate Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) to run.


​Housing assistance

President Bill Clinton in 1998 signed the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act, which overhauled federal housing assistance policies, including voucher programs and other antipoverty assistance. The Department of Housing and Urban Development and other agencies continue using this law to implement federal housing programs.


​Justice Department

In 1994, Congress passed the landmark Violence Against Women Act and has renewed it multiple times since. In 2006, lawmakers packaged a VAWA renewal with authorizing legislation for the Justice Department. As with the State Department, Congress has not approved new authorizing legislation for the Justice Department since, but it has funded the agency — and even authorized hundreds of millions of dollars more for a new FBI headquarters — every year.


​Education spending

The 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act delegated power to state and local education officials to set primary and secondary education achievement standards. It gives billions of dollars in federal grant money to state and local education officials to fund schools and school districts. Those standards are still used by the Education Department, even though the legislation has not been reauthorized. Trump has suggested he’d like to eliminate the entire department.

NASA

Stripping funding for NASA, which was last reauthorized in 2017, could spell doom for Musk’s commercial spaceflight firm, SpaceX. The company has contracts worth more than $4 billion — including for return trips to the moon and retiring the International Space Station — linked to programs approved in the 2017 law.


​Health-care and student loan programs

What’s known as the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, was actually passed in two separate bills in 2010. The Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act represents the second bill, which included some tax revisions and technical changes to the ACA. The law has not been reauthorized since, but the Department of Health and Human Services reported in March that more than 45 million people have health insurance coverage backed by the Affordable Care Act.

The law that made those final tweaks to the ACA also overhauled the Education Department’s student loan program. Where some schools relied on private lenders to issue federally backed loans, with this law, the government itself became the lender. That change has since enabled President Joe Biden to offer student loan debt relief, though many of his most ambitious policies have been blocked by the courts. Student loans are generally funded through mandatory spending — similar to social safety net programs such as Medicare and Social Security — and not subject to annual spending laws.


​International security programs

The 1985 International Security and Development Cooperation Act bundled together authorizations for a number of international security programs, including funding and regulations for arms sales to allies, economic aid for developing countries, airport security, anti-narcotics-trafficking policies, the Peace Corps and more. This Reagan-era law continues to be foundational to congressional funding and federal policy.


​Head Start

Head Start provides preschool education for children from low-income families. In the 2023 fiscal year, more than 800,000 children enrolled in Head Start programs, according to the National Head Start Association. The program also helped place more than 530,000 parents in jobs, school or job-training programs. It was last authorized in 2007.

(continue reading)

[thiziri]

The Princess Royal visits South Africa 🇿🇦

Tuesday 21st January

Today, The Princess Royal conducted her first day of engagements in South Africa.

The Princess Royal’s first visit in South Africa was the South African Riding for the Disabled Association (SARDA), which has provided free equine therapy, sport and training to the most vulnerable in society for the last 52 years. Her Royal Highness previously visited the organisation 30 years ago, on 25 November 1994. 

SARDA is the only remaining riding for the disabled training facility of its kind - it has served over 9,500 previously and currently disadvantaged children and their families. 

SARDA scholars have won 6 Gold, 2 Silver and 4 Bronze Medals at the Paralympics.  Her Royal Highness is President of the Riding for the Disabled Association, becoming Patron of the RDA in November 1971, and President in March 1986. 

Later, The Princess Royal toured the British High Commission Residence Garden with Mr Leon Kluge, gold winner at the 2024 Chelsea Flower Show with Cape Floral Kingdom, and Mr Bulelani Bashe, Head Horticulturist at Grootbos Foundation.

The Foundation works to conserve the environment of the Cape Floral Kingdom and to develop sustainable livelihoods through ecotourism, education, enterprise and sports development.

Her Royal Highness planted a Princess Anne Rose in the Residence Garden to symbolise the visit.

Wednesday 22nd January

As President of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, The Princess Royal began the day at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), where she unveiled the Cape Town Labour Corps Memorial. 

The new memorial, which honours the contribution of South African military labourers in the First World War, is part of the CWGC’s commitment to ensuring all those who died in the two World Wars are commemorated equally.

Following this, Her Royal Highness visited the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation. Here, The Princess Royal heard about the life and work of Archbishop Tutu, his role in supporting healing from discrimination and injustice, and how his legacy is being continued through the current work of the Foundation’s programmes.

On a tour of the Museum, The Princess Royal met staff members at stations throughout the ‘Truth to Power: Desmond Tutu & The Churches - In the struggle against apartheid’ exhibition. Her Royal Highness finished the tour by meeting young people and staff who are taking forward Archbishop Tutu’s legacy through the Leaders for Humanity programme.

Later, The Princess visited the Royal Cape Yacht Club, where she learnt about the work of The Royal Cape Sailing Academy, an organisation that empowers young people to development their skills through sailing. 

The Academy teaches young people from some of the most under resourced communities how to sail, thereby developing self-confidence and leadership skills. Her Royal Highness met previous participants from the Cape 2 Rio Race including Jennifer Webb, who was sunk by a whale during the race in 1971.

The Princess Royal also visited the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO), where she toured the observatory and had an in-depth look at the McClean Telescope. The SAAO is the South African national centre for optical and infrared astronomy and is the foremost establishment for optical astronomy across the African continent. 

Her Royal Highness met and heard from those who work within the observatory and learnt a little about the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), the largest optical telescope in the southern hemisphere, which SAAO owns and bears operational responsibility for. 

Finally, The Princess Royal visited a Thuthuzela Care (TCC). TCCs are intended to be a safe space for survivors of sexual assault, providing one space where individuals can receive counselling, medical and legal support without having to recount their experience to multiple agencies, thereby avoiding secondary traumatisation. 

Her Royal Highness met the team delivering support in the centre, which is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. 

© Royal UK

[blasteffect]

Supernova 1987A!

SN 1987A was the closest observed supernova to Earth since the invention of the telescope and has become by far the best studied of all time, with observations of SN 1987A giving astronomers revolutionary insights into the deaths of massive stars.

This image was captured to mark the 30th anniversary of the supernova and check how its remnant is developing.

NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration , ESA - European Space Agency , and R. Kirshner (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation) and P. Challis (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)

[late-draft]

I had hoped that it was obvious enough that 5 minutes of talking with Zuko in the catacombs of Ba Sing Se and hearing him start going on a "speech of self-pity" about how his scar marked him as a banished prince, shouldn't have been nearly enough for Katara to not just apologize to him for yelling, comfort him, but to even go into his personal space and offer to use her super secret important healing water to try to help him, if she had no deeper feelings for him underneath the enemies role.

If everything Zuko did to her and her friends thus far truly bothered her that much, if she couldn't have separated everything of Fire Nation's actions from him as a person, she wouldn't have been written to do what she did.

There's also a difference between strong feelings based on friendship and regular attraction. The latter can exist on its own, it's enough to move a character (or a person, shrug) to reach out. And it's only strengthened by the former, if that develops. What I'm saying is that she didn't have to be written as having had a positive friendship with him up until that point for the possibility of attraction to even exist. And she did express interest even before, not to mention that she does know things about him such as his dogged determination, fair-play and implicit respect during their combat. Add to this the sudden reveal of his empathy and sensitivity in the catacombs.

Zuko threw out a bait unintentionally, completely unaware, and she took it because it naturally resonated with her. And it was clearly more than enough weighed against all her pain, frustration and hatred towards the Fire Nation and even him as their enemy.

And best of all, their interaction in the catacombs feels natural, even if surprising. There's nothing in their behaviour that hasn't been strongly founded in their previous characterization. Foundations have been set, viewers don't have to be completely conscious of them. And, it's also fine for Katara to be written as again making a "mistake" and deciding she'll easily go over everything Zuko did to them and griefing them, and then getting burned yet again (like with Jet). Narrative doesn't pretend she isn't doing a risky thing, there are consequences for everything. But it also allows her to make such a choice to go into Zuko's personal space and touch him. It also later allows her to be so furious with him for siding with Azula - it doesn't force her to suddenly be mellow with Zuko and immediately forgive him because she felt something for him. (And after everything, he proves he changed, switched to their side, regularly risks his life for them and listens to Katara. And she fully forgives him. This whole plotline feels believable, natural and characters have agency.)

[heliza24]

Devil's Minion Rec List (Part 1)

So I recently completed a little project I set myself-- to tag and organize all of my (iwtv) A03 bookmarks. I've never been motivated to this before, but there are SO many talented writers in the Devil's Minion tag and I had bookmarked so many things that it was becoming unruly. Devil's Minion is such a fun fandom space to be, because writers are taking inspiration from the book and the show, creating AUs, writing old Daniel/young Daniel/vampire Daniel, assuming the 1970s/80s Devil Minion era did or didn't happen... there are endless variations and it's such a creative space. So it was fun to go through and sort all of the fics I like into different categories. It was also great distraction during a personally stressful time when my disability was making it hard to type and work on my own fics. And now of course that personally stressful time has become a nationally stressful time. I was initially going to write a bunch of different rec lists, each with their own topic/themes, and I probably still will do that eventually. But I thought I would start with a list of some of my all time faves in case you need some sweet vampire escapism in the wake of the horrible election results this week.

cranefucker island circa ‘82

by katplanet/ @gatoplanet

Word count: 22,365

Rating: explicit

Summary/Why I'm recommending it: This is an interactive fic, where clicking through different highlighted words takes you to different parts of the story. I love stories that use interactive or found media, and the nonlinear structure of this one perfectly captures the way that older Daniel recovers his memory of the Devil's Minion era. The individual scenes are also so beautifully written. (The one where young Daniel realizes that Armand can fly is etched into my brain).

Eighty Proof and a Lifetime

by doztoevsky

Word count: 11,003

Rating: Mature

Summary/Why I'm Recommending it: There are so many great "what happened after Dubai/How was Daniel Turned" fics out there, and I have to say that my favorite subgenre is "Daniel goes home to New York as a human and Armand follows him." (I guess I'm biased since I am also writing one these!) This is one of my favorites, largely for it's mix of lighthearted scenes and heartfelt emotions and the perfect amount of simmering sexual tension, and for all it manages to accomplish in a relatively short word count/single chapter. The image of Armand breaking down Daniel's bathroom door and using it to create a temporary coffin lid over his bathtub is so endearing and memorable to me, and there's a scene in a vampire bar that I think is just *chefs kiss* in terms of creative world building, character development, and spice level.

Unmade

Words by Klimppisoppa, Illustrations by @verimuru

Word count: 22,483

Rating: Mature

Summary/Why I'm Recommending it: This is largely based on book canon, with some TV show character flavor thrown in. What if Armand made up his mind to win Daniel back after Daniel went to live with Marius? Armand and Daniel's reconciliation is so gentle and lovely in this fic, and it really lets both characters develop a sense of agency as they separate themselves from Marius. It also has some really beautiful illustrations.

i'll ask for more time (but mother forgive me)

by @ignorethepineapples

Word Count: 3,512

Rating: Mature

Summary/Why I'm Recommending it: I think this is my all time favorite Devil's Minion fic. It's a shorter fic that uses a nonlinear structure to tie together Armand and Daniel's turning and it is achingly beautiful. The author has decided that the illness that nearly killed Armand before Marius turned him was syphilis, which can have Parkinson's like tremors as a symptom. The author connects Amadeo's illness with the AIDS crisis that was ongoing during the first part of Armand and Daniel's relationship with older Daniel's Parkinson's. This fic is heavier than some others on this list, but it is so cathartic and wonderful. I felt like this author reached inside my brain and pulled out the exact reasons these characters are important to me. It made me cry but also felt like the most healing of hugs, if that makes any sense at all.

Backroads to Sonoma

by burntcrimson

Word Count: 16,409

Rating: Mature

Summary/Why I'm recommending it: It's the 1980s, and a closeted Daniel is road tripping across middle America, surviving on gas station food and interviewing run aways and truckers to try to scrape together enough stories for a book. He picks up the hitchhiking Armand, who has a dangerous secret, and offers to drive him to California.

This fic is technically incomplete (one chapter remaining!) but the first four are SO GOOD it absolutely doesn't matter and you need to read it. This is a human AU, which I am not always into, but this author does such a good job of capturing Daniel and Armand's characterization and still maintaining Armand's aura of otherness and danger that it totally works. I honestly think this author could file the serial numbers off of this and expand it into it's own novel. The world building is so evocative, and the pacing perfectly balances Daniel's developing feelings for Armand with dramatic plot developments.

Ok, that's what I've got for you for now. If you want to check out my own Devil's Minion fics they're here. If you want to sort through my now gloriously organized bookmarks for yourself to find something to read you can do that here. Or send me an ask if there's something Devil's Minioned flavored you're craving-- maybe I'll have a personalized rec for you.

Feel free to reblog and add your own recs or reply in comments if you have a fic you think I should read. I am going to try to do more of these soon!

Also if you are one of these authors or know their tumblrs, let me know and I'll tag them.

[wild-west-wind]

Hi 👋As a Park Ranger (interpretative, like me?), I assume you know all about how the NPS was formed- most of the land was brutally, illegally taken from the local tribes. I've been having a moral dilemma about my role in the national park system. I love educating the public and being a positive influence, but am I upholding an oppressive system? I know that if I were to switch to education or to museums, it'd be the same question. What I'm asking is: how do you reconcile with that?

I mean, this is true of all the land in the US, so it's bigger than the park service.

Before I dig into this as a white person, here's what Deb Haaland has to say:

I think that the Park Service has a lot to reckon with historically, and I think parks lately are showing some interest in trying to do that. From big parks like Yellowstone bringing diverse Indigenous stakeholders to to table on management decisions while also supplying buffalo to regrow and strengthen herds thousands of miles away, to Canyon de Chelly's requirement that tourists travel into the canyon only with a Navajo guide in recognition of the location's sacred nature, to Pipestone National Monument celebrating ongoing traditional pipestone quarrying, to advocacy for protection by the Department of the Interior at Bears Ears.

As a (pretty much entirely) white interp ranger, I understand that I'm living in someone else's home, but I was living in someone else's home when I lived in LA too, and none of that is unique to the US. And honestly I think, for the tremendous flaws of the National Park idea, at least we try to preserve things. In a lot of colonial nations that hasn't been the case.

I think more National Park Sites should form better relationships with local tribal governments, and see what they want. Different people have different relationships with different places, and will want different things. I think the Park Service should open the door to co management more, and encourage more opportunities for Indigenous people to tell their own stories and not leave it all in the hands of randos like us. I think we're moving the right direction in that regard.

The fact of the matter, in the end, is that none of this begins or ends with the Park Service. It's a puzzle piece, a tool used to enact, enforce, repair, undo, and uphold the ideals of a nation that has never effectively dealt with its past, present, or future. I think protecting land from development and preserving natural spaces is a valuable, albeit naive, goal. It can't be done in a vacuum though. As I look toward a future of the National Parks, I see a lot more Native involvement in their management. That will look different in each site, in reflection of the different cultures there. I can't speak to what that will look like for anywhere in particular, but it is happening already, and as educators it's part of our job to explain the whys and hows of that to people who don't get it, and who think sharing will mean losing something they love. At the end of the day, that thing they loved was broken, and there is good momentum behind fixing it, and most people can understand that given time.

I think it's good that you feel guilty. It means you're paying attention. I think the important thing now is to turn that into momentum and passion. Figure out what you can do and do it.

[spacenutspod]

The China National Space Administration (CNSA) has put out a call for international and industry partners to contribute science payloads to its Chang’e-8 lunar lander, set for launch to the Moon in 2028. The mission, which will involve a lander, a rover, and a utility robot, will be China’s first attempt at in-situ resource utilization on the Moon, using lunar regolith to produce brick-like building materials. Just like NASA’s Artemis plans, the CNSA’s plans for the Moon are targeted at the Lunar south pole, which is expected to be rich in useable resources, especially water. The presence of these resources will be vital for long-term human activity on the lunar surface. Possible landing sites for Chang’e-8 include Leibnitz Beta, Amundsen crater, Cabeus crater, and the ridge connecting the Shackleton and de Gerlache craters, according to a presentation by Chang’e-8 chief deputy designer in October 2023. Chang’e-8 will be the last CNSA robotic mission to be launched before construction begins on the International Lunar Research Station, China’s crewed moonbase being planned in collaboration with Russia’s Roscosmos. That makes Chang’e-8’s attempt to create building materials out of regolith a vital proof-of-concept for their lunar aspirations. In order to make moon-bricks, the lander will carry an instrument that uses solar energy to melt lunar soil and turn it into useable parts at a speed of 40 cubic cm per hour. Alongside the regolith processing equipment, the lander will be equipped with an array of science instruments, including cameras, a seismometer to detect moonquakes, and an x-ray telescope. Part of the mission will focus on moon-based Earth observation, with several instruments designed to monitor Earth’s atmosphere and magnetosphere. The rover, meanwhile, will carry ground penetrating radar, cameras, a mineral analyzer, and tools for collecting and storing samples (leaving open the possibility of future missions to retrieve the samples). The utility robot is a key piece of the mission, but CNSA isn’t developing it in-house. Instead, the space agency is seeking proposals from partners interested in developing it as a piggyback payload to ride alongside the rest of Chang’e-8. According to the call for proposals, the 100kg, battery-powered robot will need to be able to “capture, carry and place items, shovel, and transfer lunar soil.” It will also need to be able to travel at 400m per hour. There is room for an additional 100kg of piggyback payloads besides the robot, for which full proposals are expected to be submitted later this year. While planning for Chang’e 8 is ongoing, the CNSA has two additional robotic moon missions in the works for the near future. The first, Chang’e-6, will launch this spring, and aims to return a regolith sample from the lunar far side (a never before accomplished feat). The next mission is planned for 2026, when Chang’e-7 will carry out a geological examination of the permanently shadowed craters scattered around the Moon’s south pole. The post China's Chang'e-8 Mission Will Try to Make Bricks on the Moon appeared first on Universe Today.

[wishmaker-astra]

Out of curiosity, what is the space agency whose logo is on your shirt in the pinned post? Eager to learn about the space development of other timelines.

[@pkmnspacehistory]

That would be NESA. National Exploration And Space Agency. They were formed in the wake of various international rivalries and developing advances in rocketry back in the late 50s. Unfortunately funding's been kinda shit for it comparatively for the past couple decades now.

[spacefrontier]

Launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis during STS-46. July 31, 1992.

The primary mission of STS-46 was the deployment of the European Space Agency's European Retrievable Carrier (EURECA), and the joint NASA/Italian Space Agency (ASI) Tethered Satellite System (TSS-1).

EURECA was a satellite that contained 15 different experiments submitted by various European nations, investigating microgravity studies, solar observations, and material technology. EURECA was later retrieved by the Space Shuttle Endeavour during STS-57, nearly a year later.

EURECA after deployment. Moon in background.

TSS-1 consisted of a satellite, a conducting tether, and a tether deployment/retrieval system that was attached to Atlantis. The objectives of TSS-1 were to determine and understand the electro-magnetic interaction between the tether, satellite, and Shuttle and space plasma, and develop capabilities for future tether applications on the Shuttle and International Space Station.

TSS-1 during deployment.

Official STS-46 crew portrait. Back row, from left: Mission Specialist Marsha Ivins, Mission Specialist Claude Nicollier (ESA), Payload Commander Jeffrey Hoffman, Mission Specialist Franklin Chang-Diaz, Payload Specialist Franco Malerba (ASI). Front row: Pilot Andrew Allen, Mission Commander Loren Shriver.

STS-46 spent eight days in orbit before returning to the Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility on August 8, 1992.

Atlantis touches down at the Shuttle Landing Facility. The Kennedy Space Center Vehicle Assembly building can be seen in the background.

NASA 1, 3, 4, 5 Internet Archive 2 Goddard Space Flight Center NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive

[epivanosilon]

reading demon slayer: chapter 45 name breakdown

hey guys. just fyi, the name breakdown for this post is gonna be a doozy. we've got seven (7) names to go through!! i'm excited but also a little worried about how long this will take to write up. putting it off will only make it take longer in the end, though, so let's get to it!

in this chapter we are introduced to the rest of the demon slayer hashira (lit. pillars). first up is

炎柱・煉獄　杏寿郎

or in english, flame hashira, rengoku kyoujurou. read as えんばしら・れんごく　きょうじゅろう. 炎柱 is, of course, flame pillar. the family name 煉獄 is actually a regular word in japanese, meaning purgatory. from what i remember about the rengoku family, this seems fitting for the condition of kyoujurou's father when we meet him. trapped between the glory of his past hashira days and the despair of his wife's passing, plus his disillusionment with flame breathing, kyoujurou's father is most certainly in a purgatory of his own making.

on the flip side, kyoujurou's given name is quite sweet--literally. 杏寿郎 consists of the kanji 杏 (きょう), apricot; 寿 (じゅ), age, longevity; and 郎 (ろう), son. 杏 is also used in words referring to plums, ginkgo trees, and a few other living things (including two species of crabs). apricot trees can allegedly live for over 100 years, and ginkgo trees are very resilient so-called living fossils that coexisted with dinosaurs, so kyoujurou's name is a blessing for him to live a long life.

:(

second on our docket is the flamboyant

音柱・宇髄　天元

read as おとばしら・うずい　てんげん. in english, the sound hashira, uzui tengen. 音柱 is sound pillar. 宇 (う) is the same character as in the word 宇宙 (うちゅう), universe, cosmos, space. it is almost exclusively used in space-related words, e.g. 宇宙開発事業団 (うちゅうかいはつじぎょうだん), national space development agency. 髄 (ずい) came up in chapter 5, and it means marrow or pith. so 宇髄 would literally be space marrow, or more figuratively perhaps essence of the universe.

in keeping with the celestial theme, 天 (てん) means sky, heaven, god. 元 (げん) can mean origin, foundation, cause. it can also mean former, past, previous. mathematically, 元 is an unknown in an equation, or an element of a set. 天元 might then be foundation of the heavens or even former god. a flashy name for a flashy man.

third in appearance is

恋柱・甘露寺　蜜璃

read as こいばしら・かんろじ　みつり, or the love hashira, kanroji mitsuri. 恋柱 is love pillar. 甘露 (かんろ) means nectar or sweetness, and 寺 (じ) means temple. 蜜 (みつ) can mean nectar as well, but it is also used to mean honey, honeydew, treacle, and molasses. 璃 (り) isn't typically used on its own. it shows up most commonly in the word 瑠璃 (るり), lapis lazuli, and also in the word 玻璃 (はり), quartz, glass.

all together, her names could be interpreted as something like temple of sweetness and sparkling nectar, if i can be a little liberal with my translation. mitsuri's names are very cute and sweet (badum tss), which is fitting for the type of love that 恋 implies.

in fourth place is the solemn

岩柱・悲鳴嶼　行冥

read as いわばしら・ひめじま　ぎょうめい, a.k.a. the stone hashira, himejima gyoumei. 岩柱 is stone pillar. you might be familiar with the character 悲 (ひ) from words like 悲しい (かなしい), sad, unhappy, sorrowful; or 悲しむ (かなしむ), to be sad, to mourn for, to regret. when pronounced as ひ, however, 悲 can stand for the buddhist term karuna, meaning compassion.

鳴 (め) is more commonly read as な, like in 鳴る, to sound, to resound, to echo; and 鳴く, (of an animal) to call, to cry, to chirp. some words that use the め(い) reading are 雷鳴 (らいめい), thunder, and 共鳴 (きょうめい), resonance (scientific term), sympathy. in general, 鳴 refers to a loud sound or echo.

interestingly, 悲鳴 (ひめい) is a word already, meaning shriek or scream. 嶼 (じま) is island. gyoumei's family name could thus be taken as meaning something like island of screams, but it could also be island of resounding sorrow or isle of the call of compassion or any variation thereof.

行 (ぎょう) is, of course, used in the word 行く, to go, but when read as ぎょう it means line (of text), row, verse. it can also be the buddhist term sankhara/samskara, meaning formations. 冥 (めい) carries feelings of darkness and gloominess, particularly as a metaphorical reference to the dead. for example, the word 冥福 (めいふく) roughly means happiness in the next world, and is used in the common phrase ご冥福をお祈りします, which is equivalent to the english phrase "may their soul rest in peace".

i really don't know enough about buddhism to explain what formations and darkness mean when put together, but all the kanji used in gyoumei's names suit his sorrowful demeanor.

the fifth slot today goes to

霞柱・時透　無一郎

read as かすみばしら・ときとう　むいちろう, the mist hashira, tokitou muichirou. 霞柱 is mist pillar (or haze pillar). 時 (とき) is time, and also occasion, opportunity, season, the times. 透 (とう) isn't typically used on its own, but carries meanings of transparency and permeation, e.g. 透明 (とうめい), transparent, clear; and 浸透 (しんとう), permeation, infiltration, spread, penetration, pervasion.

i would read 時透 as meaning seeing through time in a roundabout way. or maybe penetration of time? muichirou and his brother's names parallel kokushibo and his brother's names, and muichirou and kokushibo are related, so there's a penetration of time there. but muichirou's initial amnesia has him seeing through time, so to speak, back to when his brother was still living, and that allows him to emulate his twin.

無一郎 is fairly simple to break down. 無 (む) is nothing, 一 (いち) is one, and 郎 (ろう) is son. however, 無 can be part of many other words, like 無限 (むげん), infinity (literally without limit), as muichirou's brother points out.

the sixth to join the fray is

蛇柱・伊黒　小芭内

read as へびばしら・いぐろ　おばない--snake hashira, iguro obanai. 蛇柱 is snake pillar. 伊黒 uses the same 伊 as in inosuke's name (伊之助), which i covered in chapter 27's name breakdown. 伊 has no real meaning and is mainly used for the sound it represents. 黒 (ぐろ) is, of course, black. metaphorically 黒 can also mean guilt, or refer to a guilty person, or describe someone or something as being suspicious, evil, or unlucky.

obanai's color scheme is black and white, so 黒 fits him quite well. he also carries much guilt for being born to a demon-worshipping family, so that sense of 黒 suits him too.

小 (お) means small, 芭 (ば) means banana, and 内 (ない) means within. i have no idea what this name is supposed to mean. but i do have fun facts!

芭 is part of the word 芭蕉 (ばしょう), which specifically refers to the japanese banana tree Musa basjoo. there is another plant name, the 水芭蕉 (みずばしょう) or japanese swamp lantern, that uses the kanji 芭. supposedly this is due to some similarity between 芭蕉 and 水芭蕉, but i'm no botanist. 芭蕉 are cultivated in japan as ornamental plants and also for their fibers, which can be made into fabric or paper. oh, and the famous poet matsuo basho named himself after the 芭蕉.

(i first learned of basho from the magic tree house book dragon of the red dawn. i think i remember the basho in that book doing something with banana leaves, so there must have been some decent research that went into it. apparently basho is also a character in poptropica, on the island modeled after dragon of the red dawn. ah, memories.)

and last but not least, the seventh hashira we are introduced to is

風柱・不死川　実弥

or the wind hashira, shinazugawa sanemi. read as かぜばしら・しなずがわ　さねみ. 風柱 is wind pillar. 不死川 is an interesting sequence of characters; 不死 (しなず), typically read as ふし, means immortality or eternal life, and 川 (がわ) means river. together, we get something like river of immortality. the unique reading of 不死 here comes from a bit of word play--不死 is literally undying or not dying, and 死なず (しなず), a more literary form of 死なない, means not dying.

実弥 consists of the kanji 実 (さね), which with the reading given means seed (of a fruit), pit, stone, and 弥 (み), meaning more, increasingly, extremely, very. when read as み, 弥 is typically used in words relating to buddhist figures or concepts. i think sanemi's name is supposed to emphasize his harsh personality, as it can be tough to swallow, much like the seeds of some fruits.

okay that's all the names. finally. this post took like 6 hours over 3 days to make. i'm never gonna look at it again. thanks for reading, and please look forward to the next posts! 読んでくれてありがとう！次の投稿を楽しみにしてください！

[metamatar]

Literature produced in the ex-colonial countries but produced directly in languages which had been imported initially from Europe provides one kind of archive for the metropolitan university to construe the textual formation of ‘Third World Literature’; but this is not the only archive available, for the period after decolonization has also witnessed great expansion and consolidation of literary traditions in a number of indigenous languages as well [...] Not much of this kind of literature is directly available to the metropolitan literary theorists because, erudite as they usually are in metropolitan languages, hardly any of them has ever bothered with an Asian or African language. But parts and shades of these literatures also become available in the West, essentially in the following three ways. By far the greater part of the archive through which knowledge about the so-called Third World is generated in the metropolises has traditionally been, and continues to be, assembled within the metropolitan institutions of research and explication, which are characteristically administered and occupied by overwhelmingly Western personnel. Non-Western individuals have also been employed in these same institutions – more and more so during the more recent, post-colonial period, although still almost always in subordinate positions. The archive itself is dispersed through myriad academic disciplines and genres of writing – from philological reconstruction of the classics to lowbrow reports by missionaries and administrators; from Area Study Programmes and even the central fields of the Humanities to translation projects sponsored by Foundations and private publishing houses alike – generating all kinds of classificatory practices. A particularly large mechanism in the assembly of this archive has been the institutionalized symbiosis between the Western scholar and the local informant, which is frequently re-enacted now – no doubt in far more subtle ways –between the contemporary literary theorist of the West, who typically does not know a non-Western language, and the indigenous translator or essayist, who typically knows one or two. This older, multidisciplinary and somewhat chaotic archive is greatly expanded in our own time, especially in the area of literary studies, by a developing machinery of specifically literary translations – a machinery not nearly as highly developed as the one that exists for the circulation of texts among the metropolitan countries themselves, but not inconsiderable on its own terms. Apart from the private publishing houses and the university presses which may publish such translations of their own volition or under sponsorship programmes, there are state institutions such as the Sahitya Akademi in India, as well as international agencies such as UNESCO, not to speak of the American ‘philanthropic’foundations such as the Rockefeller-funded Asia Society, which have extensive programmes for such publications. Supplementing these translations are the critical essay and its associated genres, usually produced by an indigenous intellectual who reads the indigenous language but writes in one of the metropolitan ones. Some of this kind of writing becomes available in the metropolises, creating versions and shadows of texts produced in other spaces of the globe, but texts which frequently come with the authority of the indigenous informant.

Aijaz Ahmed, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures