To find alien life in our universe, scientists have considered searches for optical lasers or even giant energy-harvesting structures known as Dyson spheres. Now they’re suggesting a more mundane sort of search, a hunt for air pollution in exoplanet atmospheres. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/can-pollution-help-us-find-alien-life…
Tag: Public Domain
How to see Sirius B
Sirius is a binary star, with a small white dwarf called the Pup orbiting the large primary star. It’s not easy to observe, but it is possible. Here’s how. Source: https://earthsky.org/brightest-stars/how-to-observe-sirius-b…
Facebook’s Secret Settlement On Cambridge Analytica Gags UK Data Watchdog
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Remember the app audit Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg promised to carry out a little under three years ago at the height of the Cambridge Analytica scandal? Actually the tech giant is very keen that you don’t. The UK’s information commissioner just told a parliamentary subcommittee on online harms and disinformation that a secret…
Party Like It’s 1925 On Public Domain Day
Neda Ulaby, writing for NPR: What a year it was for Anglo-American literature and the arts! 1925 was the year of heralded novels by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Virginia Woolf, seminal works by Sinclair Lewis, Franz Kafka, Gertrude Stein, Agatha Christie, Theodore Dreiser, Edith Wharton, Aldous Huxley … and a banner year for musicians, too. Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, the Gershwins,…
2019 LD2: A very interesting orbit-hopping comet
Prior to Comet 2019 LD2, discovered last year, astronomers had never witnessed a comet in the process of orbiting from being between Jupiter and Neptune to orbiting inside Jupiter’s orbit. Now … witness the power of gravity! Source: https://earthsky.org/space/comet-2019-ld2-transitioning-orbit-hopping-jupiter-family…
92-Year-Old Songwriter Tom Lehrer Releases All His Lyrics Into the Public Domain
Marketplace reports: Songwriter Tom Lehrer became a star in the 1950s and ’60s writing and performing satirical songs that skewered just about everything… Lehrer, 92, announced Tuesday via his website that he’s effectively putting everything he ever wrote into the public domain. That means his lyrics and sheet music are available for anyone to use or perform, without having to pay…
Georgia Loses Legal Code Copyright Clash At Supreme Court
schwit1 writes: Georgia lost a close U.S. Supreme Court case over the state’s ability to copyright its annotated legal code, in a ruling that dissenting justices said would shock states with similar arrangements. Copyright protection doesn’t extend to the annotations in the state’s official annotated code, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for a 5-4 majority on Monday that crossed ideological lines….
North Korea Hacking Threatens US and Global Financial System: US Officials
U.S. government officials warned on Wednesday about the threat of North Korean hackers, calling particular attention to banking and other finance. From a report: The reason for the advisory — which was jointly issued by the U.S. Departments of State, Treasury, and Homeland Security, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation — was unclear. North Korean hackers have long been accused of…
What Are the Best Free Streaming Services?
An anonymous reader shares some free streaming media options: There’s over 10,000 public domain audiobooks at LibriVox.org, created by volunteers reading public domain works. (If you’ve got time, why not record yourself reading your own favorite public domain poem or novel?) And there’s also a lot of free audiobooks (and ebooks) available through Hoopla, a free “digital media” service that’s partnering…
Smithsonian Releases 2.8 Million Images Into Public Domain
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Smithsonian: For the first time in its 174-year history, the Smithsonian has released 2.8 million high-resolution two- and three-dimensional images from across its collections onto an open access online platform for patrons to peruse and download free of charge. Featuring data and material from all 19 Smithsonian museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives…