2014
The biggest virtual space battle ever fought caused real financial damage
In the last days, in the virtual universe of the game EVE Online the greatest space war in the history of the Internet was fought with over 7,500 people involved in what has been called the Bloodbath of B-R5RB. In the course of about 21 hours the level of destruction has reached levels never seen in an online game but the damages from this war are not all virtual. In fact, the cost in ISK, the virtual currency used in EVE Online, have a real equivalent whose official estimate is between $300,000 and $330,000.
Happy birthday Bill Mumy!
A map of the climate on a brown dwarf
ESO’s VLT (Very Large Telescope) allowed to create for the first time a map of the climate on the surface of a brown dwarf called Luhman 16B, formally known as WISE J104915.57-531906.1B. It’s part of a binary system together with another brown dwarf at a distance of about 6.5 light years from the Earth. That makes them the third closest star system to Earth after that of Alpha Centauri and Barnard’s Star. Despite their relative closeness, these brown dwarfs have been discovered only in early 2013 by astronomer Kevin Luhman, hence their informal name, because of their very faint light.
The Silurian Gift by Mike Tucker
The novella “The Silurian Gift” by Mike Tucker was published for the first time in 2013.
The energy crisis has become very serious and the global consequences get worse and worse. The proposal of a new energy source highly innovative and environmentally friendly could change everything. The Eleventh Doctor wants to check the origins of the new energy source and to do so he must go to an old refinery near the South Pole.
Strange things happen at the refinery and the Doctor realizes that there’s an external factor at work. The director of the refinery is in contact with a group of Silurian scientists of a colony buried in the area. The matter becomes even more complicated because he’s accompanied by Lizzie Davies, who has her own agenda.
