2015

Atlas Unplugged (Photo courtesy DARPA. All rights reserved)

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Boston Dynamics, the robot manufacturer acquired by Google at the end of 2013, introduced a new version of its Atlas model. It will participate in the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC), a robot competition which will take place on June 5-6 2015. The new version of Atlas is wireless and for this reason has been called Atlas Unplugged to meet the new demands of DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) for the final phase of its competition.

A section of the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko’s smaller lobes seen by the Rosetta space probe (Image ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA)

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A special edition of the journal “Science” shows the results of the research done so far on the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko using 7 of the 11 instruments of ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft. The various detections conducted between August and December 2014 have mostly confirmed the first impressions but reserved some surprises. Meanwhile, the comet is slowly approaching the Sun and its activity is increasing due to the higher heat that receives and causes more and more ice sublimation.

Daimones by Massimo Marino

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The novel “Daimones” by Massimo Marino was published for the first time in 2012. It’s the first volume of the Daimones trilogy.

Dan Amenta understands that it’s one of those days when he arrives to his work place and is immediately called to a meeting where various problems emerge and the result is him being fired. Because of the free time that he suddenly has, he pays some attention to the latest news, among which there are animal mass deaths. When he goes to take his daughter Annah to school, they comes across what at first glance looks like a car crash that involved several vehicles but there’s much more.

Very soon, Dan realizes that all people on the road are dead, even if it’s not the consequence of what looked like an accident. A check of the area shows that only he, his wife Mary and their daughter seem to be still alive. Their attempts to reach someone by telephone and via the Internet are vain. Dan and his family don’t know what may have killed almost everyone in the world and keep on trying to contact other survivors. At the same time they must try to survive in a completely new situation.

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SpaceX has officially confirmed that it has received an investment for a total of one billion dollars from Google and Fidelity Investments, a multinational financial services corporation. The rumors of Google’s involvement in the aerospace company begun a few days ago, after its founder Elon Musk announced a project to build and launch a constellation of satellites that will provide Internet services around the world and even in space.

The NGTS dome during the day. In the background the VLT and VISTA domes (Photo ESO/R. Wesson)

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In recent days the NGTS (Next-Generation Transit Survey) has been put into operation. It’s a new instrument to search for exoplanets built to find super-Earths with a size starting from twice the Earth up to Neptune-like planets eight times the size of the Earth. It’s composed of an array of 12 telescopes with an aperture of 20 cm each which is located at the ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile.