ask sherloc (10. 878)

Whilst not definitive proof of past life in the form of preserved or residual biological matter, exploring the Martian Jezero crater the Perseverance rover has detected organic molecules, gaining insights about the Red Planet’s carbon cycles and the potential to host life as we know it—utilising its deep ultraviolet laser instrumentation with the title acronym for Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals. The non-uniformity of these deposits—which will be sampled and hopefully returned to Earth for further study in 2030, suggests that different catalysts were in action to synthesise or metabolise these chemicals over time, preserving them under distinct conditions, possibly consistent with biological processes.  Learn more at the links above.

synchronoptica 

one year ago: a Brian Adams power ballad (1991) plus a summer research project on artificial intelligence from 1956

two years ago:  your daily demon: Aim, plus more adventures in Sweden as we drive to the Glass Realm

three years ago: assorted links to revisit plus a review of audio recording and playback formats

four years ago: remixed Gregorian chants, assorted links worth revisiting, Manhattanhenge plus artist Judith Jans Leyster

five years ago: White House recording device revealed (1973), Karlheinz Stockhausen’s musical zodiac, Trump Baby, the book cover art of Manuja Waldia plus reimagined propaganda for the current state of civil discourse

7x7 (10. 877)

stand and deliver: the internecine factions of the US Democratic Party and the legacy of political triangulation  

divide-and-conquer: Hollywood studios plan to drag out the Writers’ Strike until they’re destitute ground into submission—via Kottke 

rho ophiuchi: for its first year of observations, the JWST team releases an incredible image of the nearest stellar nursery—check out the comments section for an explanation about the telescope’s signature diffraction spikes  

ma’am, this is a wendy’s: chatbots—rather than outsourcing to call-centres—being trialled in fast food drive-thrus and are skilled in the upsell  

xai: Elon Musk launches artificial intelligence platform with aims to understand the true nature of the Universe 

pay-for-play: Albrecht Dürer inserted himself at the centre of a commissioned altarpiece in a dispute over his fee—via Damn Interesting  

by the dawn’s early light: plans to build a billion dollar, half-a-kilometre high flagpole in Western Maine—where the Sun’s first light hits the country—has its detractors

crowd pirated (10. 876)

Via Waxy, we are directed towards the latest project from the MSCHF collective in The FREE Movie, an invitation to create a frame-by-frame, non-infringing (possibly) recreation of Pixar’s 2007 The Bee Movie—as good a candidate as any I suppose and memetic like Shrek—for reasons it’s been posted in full serially online before bringing taken down due to copyright issues and inspired a video (with many variants) the entire bee movie but every time they say bee it gets faster. Check out their manifesto and contribute an animation cell yourself.

international commission on stratigraphy (10. 875)

Putting the hubris and destructive nature of humanity on the same level as the meteor impact that wiped out the dinosaurs—after a fashion—which began the Cenozoic Era some sixty-six million years ago, a working group of scientists have chosen a representative Gold Spike (see previously) as a marker to symbolise the start of the Anthropocene Epoch in the sinkhole Lake Crawford in Ontario. Though overwhelming evidence abounds of humans’ negative impact on the environment from ocean plastics, the supersaturated, warming atmosphere, mass-extinctions, in particular this body of water that ought to be pristine and far removed (see above) shows exponential increases in impurities the early 1950s on, documenting nuclear tests and fertilisers and mining-runoff polluting waterways. Researchers are gauging Plutonium fallout in the silt and sediment (a faithful though frightening annual record) the lakebed as a sign of the start of the epoch and is expected to mark the beginning of a new, dread and disruptive geological time period.

synchronoptica 

one year ago: Saint Veronica plus assorted links to revisit

two years ago:  In the Year 2525

three years ago:  the end of a politically independent judiciary in the US plus a double-duty face mask

four years ago: a creative video for Kate Bush’s Running Up that Hill, protests in Hong Kong plus the pitfalls of self-assessments

five years ago: predictive policing,  The Americans and Operation Ghost Stories, generative Tarot cards plus Trump’s plan for stacking judges

7x7 (10. 874)

fit for a king: a selection of ersatz castles for sale in the US 

caliology: corvids using anti-bird spikes for nesting material
100º in the shade: mapping tree shadows 

free agent: labour force of the outsourced talk about the effects of the AI revolution—via Waxy  

ravensbourne: finding the lost rivers of London—see previously  

involuntary memory: the aetiology of earworms 

cheese royal: Burger King in Thailand introduces a menu item composed of twenty slices of American cheese

bands won’t play no more (10. 873)

On this day in 1981, the Coventry ska, tone-two group The Specials had their second and final top charting hit with the non-album single “Ghost Town,” addressing urban blight, unemployment and austerity. The song coincided with the England Riots and unrest of that summer over police powers, inner-city deprivation and racial tension and with the band’s own internal strife which saw their split up almost immediately afterwards.

operation sober popeye (10. 872)

Also known under the codenames Motorpool and Intermediary-Compatriot and repudiated as an unacceptable tactic in warfare after leaks in the Pentagon Papers and unwelcome press coverage with a US Senate resolution passed on this day in 1973, the military cloud-seeding program carried out from 1967 to 1972 attempted chemical modification of the weather with the aim of extending monsoon seasons and disrupting the North Vietnamese supply-chain along the Ho Chi Minh Trail by soften road surfaces and causing landslides. Operations in secret extended over Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. Despite its highly classified nature, the 54th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, the unit chiefly responsible for the tests, publicly and prominently used the slogan “make mud, not war.” The American people deciding that such measures had no place on the battlefield, weather disruption falls presently under the auspices of the Environmental Modification Convention.  

synchronoptica 

one year ago: the Hollywood Bowl (1922), Avogadro’s Number (1811) plus Fischer v Spassky (1972)

two years ago: Fleetwood Mac by Fleetwood Mac (1975) plus a megalithic stone ship in Sweden

three years ago: a visit to the Ehrenburg on the Ehrbach

four years ago: a delayed release of “Space Oddity” (1969), the uncontrolled deorbit of Skylab (1979) plus France approves a digital services tax scheme

five years ago: a collection of samurai clan banners, a disclaimer on social media that comes too late, America’s garbage politicians sit for a family photos plus Trump attends a NATO summit

7x7 (10. 871)

terracotta army: new excavations in Shaanxi reveal the site contains more than the familiar infantry unit—see previously  

mizhuvkhamy: a group of Ukrainians documenting the graffiti left by Russian occupiers for future research on the invasion 

jazz kissas: the ambient sounds of Japan’s listening cafés—see also 

i never thought i’d be cheering for zuckerberg: in response to the runaway success of Instagram’s Twitter mode, Elon Musk threatens to sue, resorts to name-calling  

adequacy decision: EU rules that Big Data has sufficient controls in place, with the US to monitor compliance, to allow transfer to US servers  

vilnius: developments to watch during this week’s NATO summit in the Lithuanian capital  

dromolaxia vizatzia: Bronze Age tombs of unknown rulers discovered in Cyprus