2013

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The novella “Magic of the Angels” by Jacqueline Rayner was published for the first time in 2012.

The Eleventh Doctor, Amy and Rory are having a tour around London that is a bit special because they’re having it as tourists. The Doctor never fails to comment on details derived from his adventures in the visited places and that cause their expulsion from all groups.

While on the roads they find several posters of missing girls, the three of them find a theater where a magic show is scheduled and decide to go watch it. The tickets have already been booked weeks earlier by the Doctor himself so they can go in and enjoy the tricks performed by Sammy Star. The magician makes his assistant disappear but the thing that worries the Doctor and his friends is that in the show he used a Weeping Angel.

Astronaut Mike Hopkins near the Canadarm2 robotic arm during the spacewalk performed together with Rick Mastracchio (Image NASA TV)

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Yesterday, Expedition 38 astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins completed the second spacewalk, in technical terms extravehicular activity (EVA), that was needed to repair the cooling system of the International Space Station. It followed the spacewalk performed on Saturday. Yesterday, in about 7 and a half hours the two astronauts installed a new pump that seems to work regularly.

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Queen Elizabeth II granted a posthumous pardon to the great mathematician Alan Turing, at least in part erasing the shame of having tried him for his homosexuality in 1952. This act represents a victory of the campaign that requested such an act, which began a few years ago and was supported by several members of the last British governments, many scientists and many other people. In the end, Justice Secretary Chris Grayling submitted a formal request to the Her Majesty, who issued the pardon.

The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling (Italian edition)

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The novel “The Difference Engine” by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling was published for the first time in 1990.

Edward Mallory is a paleontologist who’s having a break between his various trips and is in London. Following a chance meeting with Lady Ada Byron, the daughter of the British Prime Minister, he gets involved in an international plot that revolves around the Modus, a program on punched cards which, when used with one of the machines developed upon Charles Babbage’s projects, allows winning bets.

Astronaut Rick Mastracchio outside the International Space Station during the spacewalk performed with his colleague Mike Hopkins (Image NASA TV)

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Yesterday, Expedition 38 astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins completed the first spacewalk, in technical terms extravehicular activity (EVA), to repair the cooling system of the International Space Station. This first phase lasted “only” 5 hours and 28 minutes, which is a short time for an operation of that kind since the two have ended it an hour earlier than expected.