Monthly Archives: March 2022

A pair of daring Chinese missions launched in 2020 is sparking new and broader interest in planetary science in China.

The Tianwen 1 orbiter and rover mission, which launched for Mars in July 2020, and Chang'e 5, which gathered the youngest lunar samples ever collected and delivered them to Earth later that year, are now delivering exciting science results. The new data and results emerging from the missions sparked a call for a special session at this year's Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC), held in Texas and virtually beginning March 7.

For example, samples of the 3.81 pounds (1.73 kilograms) of lunar regolith and rocks collected by Chang'e 5 have been made available for applications for science institutes and universities, and new insights are already emerging.

Related: Watch China's Chang'e 5 spacecraft land on the moon in this amazing video

The Chang'e 5 mission has opened a new era of China's lunar and planetary sciences, Yuqi Qian, a doctoral candidate at the School of Earth Sciences at the China University of Geosciences in Wuhan and an author of papers presented at LPSC, told Space.com. "We have dozens of universities and institutes affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Sciences that have started to work on planetary sciences, with many new faces," Qian said.

Teams at LPSC presented papers on a range of topics, including lunar petrology, the study of rocks and the conditions under which they form; textual analysis of samples; and assessments of the geological context of the landing area.

A paper authored jointly by American, Chinese and European scientists notes how dating these relatively young Chang'e 5 samples, which are around 2 billion years old, allows for a refinement of the estimated ages of planetary surfaces in the solar system through counting the numbers of craters in particular areas. Areas with fewer craters are thought to be younger than those with more dense cratering, having had less time to be impacted by meteorites. Getting hold of samples and confirming the age of rocks through radioisotopic dating means scientists can verify and calibrate this technique.

The new, young Chang'e 5 samples fill gaps left from estimates built on the Apollo samples, which are older than 3 billion years.

The presence of material associated with the lunar highlands was found in the Chang'e 5 rocks, which were collected from Oceanus Procellarum, the largest lunar mare, or dark plain. Other presentations described unusually high water content at the landing site, suggesting the rocks in the area originated from the lunar interior.

In addition to having a new presence at LPSC, China held its first planetary science conference last year and will have the second one this year.

China's first interplanetary mission, Tianwen 1, which includes the Zhurong rover in the plain of Utopia Planitia, is also exciting the science community.

Scientists from universitiesHong Kong and institutes in Wuhan and Weihai on the mainland noted that, unlike Mars' cold and oxidized surface, the subsurface of the Red Planet could provide the energy and liquid for past or even present life, making it an environment to search for biosignatures and evidence of life. Their paper focuses on mud volcanoes, which on Earth can expel subsurface materials from several miles deep and contain significant organic materials. Similar features on Mars in the vicinity of Zhurong could provide unique access to deep sediments, the scientists said.

The rover with its terrain camera, multispectral cameras and surface composition detector can collect mineralogy and chemical data, while the ground-penetrating radar can peer up to around 330 feet (100 meters) below the surface. Zhurong could, therefore, provide fascinating new insight into what lies beneath the surface of Mars, the researchers said.

Zhurong landed in Utopia Planitia in May 2021, and as of early February, the rover had driven a total of 5,043 feet (1,537 m). Tianwen 1 had been focused on relaying data from the rover to Earth until changing its orbit in November 2021 to begin its own dedicated science objectives.

Currently, data from the Tianwen 1 mission are accessible only to Chinese scientists, but the data will soon be made available internationally via China's Lunar and Planetary Data Release System.

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China's missions to the moon and Mars are starting to deliver exciting science results - Space.com

America's gas stations aren't always pretty to look at. They can often be a grimey lens into people's most basic, and at times, unflattering needs. We rely on them when we're desperate for a bathroom, or when we need to buy junk food, cigarettes, questionable beer, and a lottery ticket to pin hopes and dreams on before filling our car with gas and speeding off like we were never there to begin with.

Developer Monkey Moon's new game, Flat Eye, looks at the gas station of the future--a very believable, even dystopian, future.

It takes place in a world on the brink of becoming a utopia, one where machines are sufficient replacements for human labor. Think self-checkouts, self-cleaning toilets, kiosks that take your order, and machines that make your breakfast sandwich before popping it out a little window. It's a world where you seldom have to come face-to-face with a working human being.

In this alternate future, gas stations (branded as Flat Eyes) are still the place where you get junk food, gas, and use the bathroom, but it's also where entirely new technology is used and showcased, so Flat Eyes are also referred to as "automobile fill-up stations and technological access points." So as well as filling up gas and buying bad hot dogs, you can buy new organs from an organ vending machine, receive medical treatment from an automated medical module, or even clone yourself.

The game is a management sim where you overlook the needs and expansion of a Flat Eye location, where you point-and-click from an overhead view (though the camera is fully moveable), clicking on modules, and dragging and dropping things in place on a grid-like layout. In my short hands-on demo, I ordered a human employee to restock the shelves, repair equipment, and install new amenities like toilets, self-checkouts, and medical modules, all while cashing out other customers in the process. The customers are depicted as colorful, albeit characterless, silhouettes that scurried in and out to use the bathroom or cash out.

Flat Eye takes a hard look at humanity's increasing dependency on technology. It depicts a scenario in which humans themselves become as automated and as mechanical as the very machines they rely on to exist through their day-to-day lives. Despite its bleak view of a possible future, developer Monkey Moon was clear in conveying it wanted to ultimately tell a positive story of humanity. Humans embody more of a machine-like presence in Flat Eye, operating on autopilot through a clean, perfect-looking world. But it's still not without its distinct characters and personalities.

As you manage Flat Eye, special customers will visit, giving you the opportunity to talk to them and navigate branching conversations that present glimpses into the lives of those who inhabit this pseudo-utopian world. When I had initially felt like a floating manager ordering around an employee, these branching conversations had suddenly felt intimate as I was choosing the employee's responses. It's also during these conversations where you interact with Flat Eye's AI, a character that I will not spoil, but one I anticipate will have a strong role in the game's somewhat mysterious narrative.

It's in the introduction to this AI and the conversation with it that I was left most eager to see where Flat Eye will go next. There's a dual narrative working alongside an already interesting management sim here.

At the end of each day, you are able to dive into the data of the Flat Eye's productivity and receive an overall score for how well you did. It's also during the transition between days that you'll have an opportunity to look through emails from Flat Eye's corporate executives and look at messages within the company sent between other gas stations--a humanizing element in a rather detached position as a lowly clerk.

Gallery

Developer Monkey Moon is building a knack for telling stories through the lens of working-class characters that rarely get the spotlight in games. In its previous title, Night Call, you played as a cab driver in Paris, hearing the stories of his passengers, engaging in conversation, and divulging in the intricacies of people's most intimate stories. But like Flat Eye, Night Call goes beyond its surface level, with layered narratives and themes at play throughout.

Despite my short time with the game, its concepts, themes, and mechanics clicked instantly. Furthermore, seeds were planted for a greater overarching story that seems to be heading towards a redemptive look at a dystopian future.

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Buy Junk Food, New Organs, And Clone Yourself At The Gas Station Of The Future In Flat Eye - GameSpot

Like World War III, this is a prediction that seemed dated following the Good Friday Agreement, but the chaos around Brexit has suddenly made it a lot more plausible. Brexit is only one of a number of frightening and dramatic events that have occurred over the last decade, and once again, Star Trek is responding to them.

Every ten years theres a new Bond, a new Batman, to a certain degree now a new Star Trek, and sometimes they resonate with their time and sometimes they dont and sometimes its in the middle, Volk-Weiss says. I feel like DS9 is a great example of that. I feel like the greatest example of that of all time is Battlestar Galactica. That whole thing was about 9/11 and the War on Terror. Sometimes it works, as with Battlestar Galactica, sometimes it doesnt work, as with Enterprise. The problem with what Enterprise did is there were already so many bad things going on you didnt need to create a brand-new character to cut Florida in half. There was already enough to talk about, while in Galactica it organically fit into the storyline. I think what Discovery and Picard are doing is more on the organic side.

Star Trek has shown us a potential utopia, and with Deep Space Nine and the use of the black ops Section 31 of Starfleet in Enterprise, Star Trek: Into Darkness and Discovery, it has shown us the potential dark side of that utopia. But new Star Trek seems to be doing something new that even Enterprise didnt showing us how we get there.

I think Discovery and Picard, in their own ways, are slowly but surely showing us, no it was a rough start, it took a lot to get to replicators, says Volk-Weiss. It took a lot to get to the Prime Directive. We didnt get here by accident, and we didnt get here easily. I think, as the onion peels more and more both shows are showing the underbelly of what would be the future of Star Trek.

Star Trek: Discovery was the first to remind us of the effects of World War III in the second series episode, New Eden. Here Star Trek returned to another of its favourite tropes humans transposed from Earth history and set up as an independent colony on another world. This time, the transposed humans were the congregation of a church rescued from a nuclear blast.

Later, Discovery would encounter its own apocalypse in the form of the the burn, which destroyed galactic civilisation as we know it and forced the Federation to rebuild from scratch, and rediscover its values along the way.

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Star Trek and the Shadow of World War III - Den of Geek

Courtesy Orem City

With city budget time in full swing, its no surprise that the Orem City Council held a work session Tuesday that took a hard look at the citys general fund coffers.

The council listened to budget outlooks from the operations of the general fund, fleet services and information technology. The discussion not only was directed to the new fiscal year 2023, but also some of the things that are still needed from the current year.

Brandon Nelson, the citys finance director, led the presentation.

General fund revenue changes show an increase of $6.2 million, with sales tax revenues accounting for about 22% of that. There is also a decrease of $185,200 in some funds.

Nelson noted that cemetery fees, court fees and fines are all up 12%, while property taxes were up only 1% due to growth.

The city will also receive a UTOPIA rebate of $67,107. Conversely, planning fees are down 50% and library fees are down 20%.

As for expenditures, by far the biggest part of the budget is personnel costs, which are anticipated to total $1.9 million and will cover a variety personnel issues, from increases in the police department to ladder career programs. Health insurance is expected to be up by 10% or $544,000.

The total general fund expenditure increase is $5.7 million, according to Nelson.

Operational expenses are about $1.7 million. The good news is that the new Orem Fitness Center is clearing its own way and will no longer need to be subsidized by the city.

General Fund expansion on expenses for the coming year, as presented, looks like this:

The afternoon was full of requests, including funds to help with cyber security for hacking safety measures to a geographic information system.

Residents interested in seeing the budget requests can visit orem.org and connect to the transparency link.

The council will continue to hear budget requests through April and will have May and most of June to discuss line items and adjust the draft budget if needed.

The budget must be approved by the second council meeting in June. The fiscal year begins July 1. It is not anticipated that there will need to be a truth-in-taxation hearing this year a mandatory step when considering raising taxes.

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Orem City Council gets another budget presentation for FY 2023 - Daily Herald

Its been a long (really long) wait but finally The Owl Househas returned! And they are wasting no time in reminding us something big is about to happen as all the action today is set around the Coven Day parade.

Follies At The Coven Day Parade

Just like at the beginning of the season, Luz makes a video for her mom kind of catching us up on everything that has happened so far. If you recall from the last episode, Yesterdays Lie, Luz was able to kind of get back to the human realm and talk to her mom where she promised that shell come home and leave the demon world behind despite the fact that she doesnt want that.

Conveniently, Kikimora is nearby talking on a crow (which is a phone in this world) with her mother where she has to choose between her job at the Emperors side and her family. Luz sees the parallels between their situations and discusses with Eda before offering a hand to one of their arch-enemies (complete with recap of everything Kiki has done) concocting a scheme to kidnap both Kikimora and Raine Whispers,Edas ex, during the celebration.

All the while, Amity, who is now Facebook official (or whatever we call it on this YA animated series) with Luz, can tell that something is amiss with her girlfriend and thinks she isnt telling her everything. Which, we know, is exactly the case because Luzs promise to her mother has been something she isnt sharing with anybody. As much as she tries to hide it though, the truth is bound to come out since she accidentally left her phone (where she was making those aforementioned videos to her mother) on the school steps for Amity to find.

Together, with the help of King and Hootie (in his Port-a-Hootie form) and Amitys brother and his fireworks, Luz and Eda concoct a scheme to distract the crowd during the parade and kidnap both Kikimora and Raine. This way, Kikimora can still keep her job but go visit her family for the reunion under the guise, and Eda can find out what happened to Raine since the last time we saw them, they were being petrified, yet saved for the upcoming Day of Unity.

While Kikimora is alone and doubts the plan will work, Raine is back (unpetrified) and is acting very oddly before the reveal of the head witch of the plant coven, Tara Snapdragon, who has been helping Raine heal since they had been sick with a special tea.

Kikimora is well aware of the plan and how Tara can interfere with it, but before she can alert the others, the parade is about to begin.

Hootie and King are disguised in a giant float paying tribute to Emperor Belos which begins launching fireworks and the plan is in motion. At first, the mission seems successful, and everything goes to plan. Eda gets a chance to speak with Raine who seems to not remember anything that has happened recently, including their battle that ended with them being put into that contained state, saying that they havent seen each other in years. Promising to get through to them in some way, Eda whips out her glyphs and spells ready to break them, but Raine has their trusty violin which is their instrument of defense as well. Luz is running away with Kikimora when they are cornered, even while invisible, by Tara who is mocking them wondering out loud where Kiki could be, she is very important to the Emperor and even has a promotion waiting for her.

Right as Tara makes her move, an abomination shows up and stops her growing vines, caused by Amity who knew the whole plan thanks to their shared knowledge of the Good Witch Azura Books, book #5 to be precise.

In the alley, Raine and Eda are still battling when Raine finally cracks and says Eda needs to leave, and for old times, theyll let her go, and even suspiciously says to travel for a bit. But why?

Luz and Amity set Kikimora on her way, but almost predictably, she turns on them but only because of this newfound promotion she is set to receive. She decides to try and attack Luz and Amity and bring them back to the Emperor as a thank you present, but Tara shows up and stops her. She wasnt there to look after Raine, she was sent by the Emperor to watch over Kiki and test her loyalty. While yes, the promotion was real, there are no added benefits and really only means that the Emperor will spare her life.

As Tara and Kiki leave, Tara tells Luz that the Emperor is looking forward to meeting her. Waitwhat? Luz has already met the Emperor in previous episodes. What does that mean?

Amity finally gets a moment with Luz to discuss what has happened with her portal door and she shares everything but back at the Coven Day parade, Raine sips their tea while Kikimora addresses the crowd under the watchful eye of Tara saying this year is particularly special since the Emperor wants to make an announcement.

He appears via broadcast, sharing that the Day of Unity is nearly at hand, and the Coven system is being perfected as the Titan has intended. A journey to the head of the isles will take place at that time, and a new utopia is set to be inherited by the worthy and will be free of wild magic.

During the broadcast, we catch a glimpse of Lilith at home with her and Edas mom watching the broadcast via crystal ball, its just a passing glance but definitely serves as a reminder that they are both still very much in play.

Before the broadcast ends, Belos also takes off his mask and reveals his face, claiming the strength of his supporters allows him to do so.

The speech serves up a lot more questions than answers, how do they plan on ensuring a society that will be free of wild magic? What does that mean for Eda and Luz, who practice wild magic? Was there a greater reason that we saw Lilith for that moment?

And now, a little bit of fun. If you take the first letter from the title of each episode, each season spells out a message. For season one, that message was A WITCH LOSES HER TRUE WAY. With the return of The Owl House after their extended hiatus, we are now well aware of the remaining episode titles of season two and can decode this seasons phrase:

This episode of The Owl House is now available on Disney Channeland the DisneyNOW App. You can also catch up with previous episodes and seasons on Disney+.

Originally from California where he studied a dying artform (hand-drawn animation), Tony has spent most of his adult life in the theme parks of Orlando. When hes not writing for LP, hes usually watching and studying something animated or arguing about the good ole days at the parks.

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Fans Get More Questions Than Answers With The Long-Awaited Return of The Owl House - Laughing Place