Max von Sydow and the beast of the apocalypse in Hatra.
(The Exorcist, 1973)

Stellar map with the position of all the stars with potentially habitable exoplanets. (Planetary Habitability Laboratory, University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo)

Artistic representations of all the planets around other stars (exoplanets) with any potential to support surface life as we know it. (Planetary Habitability Laboratory, University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo)

Et in Elysium ego.

Landing-site for InSight mission to Mars selected. Arrival scheduled for Sept. 28, 2016. "This is wondrous terrain, exactly what we want to land on because it is smooth, flat, with very few rocks in the highest-resolution images," said InSight's site-selection leader, Matt Golombek of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.

Nimrud lens, c.710 BCE: first magnifying glass in history.
(Rock crystal, diameter: 38 mm, focal length: c.110 mm, discovered by John Layard 1850, now in the British Museum, London) The ancient Assyrians saw the planet Saturn as a god surrounded by a ring of serpents - did the astronomers of Nimrud invent the telescope?

Friday 6 March 2015: Isis bulldozes Nimrud: UNESCO condemns destruction of ancient Assyrian site as a 'war crime'.

March 6th 2015 marks the 350th anniversary of Philosophical Transactions , the world's first scientific journal. First published in 1665 by the Royal Society, Philosophical Transactions has published the works of some of the world's most famous scientists, including Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin.

Exhibition brochure: Philosophical Transactions: 350 years of publishing at the Royal Society (1665 – 2015) (free PDF download, 1.8 MB)

Dawn arrival at Ceres today, Friday March 6, 2015, c. 14:30 CET. (Image above from 46,000 km distance, Feb. 19, 2015)

https://twitter.com/NASA_Dawn

Runcible: welcome to the post-smartphone era.

Runcible is a new category of personal electronic which occupies a space between a traditional mobile phone and a wearable device. Featuring a first-of-its-kind fully round screen and a palm-sized form factor, Runcible is modeled on devices humans have carried around with them and loved for hundreds or thousands of years: the pocket watch, the compact, the compass, the magical stone in your hand.

Runcible is designed to help you create a more civilized relationship with your Digital Life. Runcible will never beep, alert, or otherwise interrupt you. The world-class connectivity we all came to expect in the smartphone era (LTE, WiFi, Bluetooth) is there on Runcible when you need it. For the rest of the time, you can keep your head up, your attention on the real world and real people around you, and maintain your sense of wonder about life. Read More »

"The first ever photograph of light as both a particle and wave"
("Simultaneous observation of the quantization and the interference pattern of a plasmonic near-field." Nature Communications, 02 March 2015. DOI: 10.1038/ncomms7407)

Villarrica eruption
(Chile, 3/3/2015)

Villarrica eruption
(Chile, 3/3/2015)

Declinations in the Almagest: accuracy, epoch, and observers
by John C. Brandt, Peter Zimmer, and Patricia B. Jones
JOURNAL OF ASTRONOMICAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE Vol. 17 No. 3
http://www.narit.or.th/en/files/2014JAHHvol17/    

Abstract:  Almagest declinations attributed to Timocharis, Aristyllos, Hipparchus, and Ptolemy are investigated through comparisons of the reported declinations with the declinations computed from modern positions translated to the earlier epochs. Consistent results indicate an observational accuracy of ≈ 0.1° and epochs of: Timocharis, c. 298 BC; Aristyllos, c. 256 BC, and Hipparchus, c. 128 BC.  The ≈ 42-year difference between Aristyllos and Timocharis is confirmed to be statistically significant. The declinations attributed to Ptolemy were likely two distinct groups—observations taken c. AD 57 and observations taken c. AD  128. Read More »

Moritz von Schwind: Die Katzensymphonie (Le Chat Noir), 1868. (Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Kupferstichkabinett)

"Ich bin Musiker geworden, und zwar Zukunftsmusiker im zweiten höheren Grade. Weg mit dem alten, steifen, trocknen Notensystem ! Veraltet, überwunden, abgetanes Zeug - es braucht ein neues, durchgeistigtes, lebensvolles Ausdrucksmittel für meine neuen ungeahnten Gedanken - ob es Töne, Bilder oder der Teufel weiß was sind, das ist auch ganz wurst - ich habe das Unglaubliche geleistet. Beiliegende, Hr. Joachim gewidmete Sonate sei ein redender Beweis." (Moritz von Schwind an Eduard Mörike, Januar 1869)

Augury

Der Rauten-Neunzigflächner
"Hier ein Körper für Genießer. Er sieht auf den ersten Blick eher unscheinbar aus; aber zu wissen, dass es die Projektion des zehndimensionalen Einheitswürfels in den dreidimensionalen Raum ist…"

(2.50€ by Christoph Pöppe)

a) A visualization of the learned value function on the game Breakout. At time points 1 and 2, the state value is predicted to be ~17 and the agent is clearing the bricks at the lowest level. Each of the peaks in the value function curve corresponds to a reward obtained by clearing a brick. At time point 3, the agent is about to break through to the top level of bricks and the value increases to ~21 in anticipation of breaking out and clearing a large set of bricks. At point 4, the value is above 23 and the agent has broken through. After this point, the ball will bounce at the upper part of the bricks clearing many of them by itself.
b) A visualization of the learned action-value function on the game Pong. At time point 1, the ball is moving towards the paddle controlled by the agent on the right side of the screen and the values of all actions are around 0.7, reflecting the expected value of this state based on previous experience. At time point 2, the agent starts moving the paddle towards the ball and the value of the ‘up’ action stays high while the value of the ‘down’ action falls to −0.9. This reflects the fact that pressing ‘down’ would lead to the agent losing the ball and incurring a reward of −1. At time point 3, the agent hits the ball by pressing ‘up’ and the expected reward keeps increasing until time point 4, when the ball reaches the left edge of the screen and the value of all actions reflects that the agent is about to receive a reward of 1. Note, the dashed line shows the past trajectory of the ball purely for illustrative purposes (that is, not shown during the game). Read More »

Planetary Defense Conference
by The International Academy of Astronautics
from 13-17 April, 2015 in Frascati, Italy.
(Conference Registration)

The conference will include an exercise where participants will simulate the decision-making process for developing deflection and civil defense responses to a hypothetical asteroid threat.

The threat scenario will begin with the information on a hypothetical object presented at http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/pdc15/.  Conference participants are invited to use the information presented there for analyses of the possible nature of the threatening object, for examining the decision-making process for actions related to possible evolution of the threat, for assessing possible deflection options should the probability of impact increase, and for estimating the consequences of impact should that be the eventual outcome.  That page will be updated with a NEO Deflection App shortly to aid in these analyses.  Updates to information on the threat and the threatening object will be provided each day of the conference.  The last day of the conference will be dedicated to the final response to threat, potential consequences of impact, and possible disaster recovery issues and options. Read More »

Pioneering Women of Physics
(by Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics)