DE BILT (ANP) - De komende dagen wordt het steeds warmer en daarom geldt donderdag en vrijdag code geel voor het hele land, behalve de Wadden. Het KNMI zegt dat er kans is op aanhoudend warm weer, met een hoge luchtvochtigheid en een hogere nachttemperatuur. Vanaf donderdag 10.00 uur is in het hele land ook het Nationaal Hitteplan van kracht.

De verwachting is dat het vrijdag het warmst wordt, met plaatselijk temperaturen die kunnen oplopen tot 35 graden. Er is dan ook kans op onweer. Ook donderdag wordt het warm. Dan liggen de maximumtemperaturen tussen de 27 en 32 graden. In het weekend blijft het vooral in het zuidoosten erg warm, maandag loopt het kwik in het hele land vermoedelijk weer op tot boven de 30 graden.

Het Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu (RIVM) kondigde woensdag na overleg met het KNMI het hitteplan aan. Het is bedoeld als signaal voor de zorg voor kwetsbare mensen.

Door hun veranderende functie moeten Nederlandse bibliotheken steeds meer balanceren tussen het voorkomen van overlast en het behouden van hun open karakter. Dat vraagt om creatieve oplossingen en een ander soort personeel.

De uiterst naakte dame in beeld bij een fragment uit een programma van wijlen Wim T. Schippers lokte op de WNL-redactie een flink debat tussen verschillende generaties uit: kon dat nog wel? Die annuleringsdrift bleef onze tv-recensent de hele avond achtervolgen.

Het kabinet was „laconiek” bij de bestrijding van het coronavirus toen de eerste golf voorbij was, zei microbioloog en veldepidemioloog Amrish Baidjoe tijdens zijn verhoor…

Net als aan andere nieuwe auto’s valt aan de Honda Prelude voor hobbyisten weinig meer te pimpen. Toch zou deze „waanzinnig rijdende sportwagen” bij voormalige ‘petjes’ in de smaak kunnen vallen, denkt Bas van Putten.

kiri-fuda has added a photo to the pool:

europeanspaceagency posted a photo:

A team of engineers is hands-on assembling Europe’s most complex robotic arm, preparing for future missions to the Moon and Mars.

The sophisticated robot, known as the Sample Transfer Arm (STA), can extend up to 2.4 metres and perform a large range of movements with seven degrees of freedom, assisted by two cameras and an array of sensors.

The arm’s configuration mimics a human arm, complete with a shoulder, elbow and wrist, along with its own built-in brain and eyes. Able to ‘see’, ‘feel’ and take autonomous decisions, the robotic arm also features a gripper – akin to a hand – capable of handling objects with millimetric precision.

A sophisticated force and torque sensor gives the robot a sense of touch, enabling it to pick up and transfer objects with high dexterity. This sensor ‘feels’ exactly how something is being pushed, pulled, and twisted in 3D space, all at once. Position sensors inside the joints help compute the exact location of the tip of the arm.

This precision will be key for complex space operations, from collecting geological samples to supporting astronaut activities.

The Sample Transfer Arm was originally developed in the context of the joint NASA-ESA Mars Sample Return campaign. For that mission, the task was to transfer precious martian soil samples from the Perseverance rover and help with the delivery back to Earth, but it can also serve a multitude of applications on the Moon and Mars.

The Sample Transfer Arm draws on decades of European expertise in space robotics. Teams at the Italian aerospace company Leonardo are currently busy completing the arm’s integration. Engineers will be testing its first moves in simulated space scenarios at Leonardo’s Nerviano plant, near Milan, in the coming weeks.

The key members of the STA industrial consortium led by Leonardo are GMV and AVS from Spain, Maxon from Switzerland, 3DPlus from France and COMOTI from the Czech Republic, together with suppliers from Denmark, Greece and Germany. This collaboration showcases Europe’s drive for autonomy in space.

Space robotic technologies are accelerating European autonomy and strategic independence for Moon and Mars exploration. Versatile by design, the Sample Transfer Arm could support future Moon missions.

Discover more images of the Sample Transfer Arm coming together on our Mars blog.

Credits: ESA/Leonardo/Human’s Point

The UK's Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will draw on 40 million UK LinkedIn accounts to get a better understanding of local job markets. DWP said it plans to use anonymized data to help it find trends such as mismatches between local job ads and the skills possessed by local people. The department won't scrape the Microsoft-owned social network, instead relying on Redmond to analyze data and pass its findings to Skills England, a DWP agency whose officials are already working on the project. "This partnership with LinkedIn will give us a clearer understanding of the jobs market – what employers need, where opportunities are, and how people are building their careers, in order to boost economic growth," DWP minister Pat McFadden said in a canned statement. He added that more detailed insights into local workforces could particularly help young people. Skills England intends to use LinkedIn data to investigate how people move between jobs to help them develop new career options and support businesses in widening their recruitment nets. LinkedIn has nearly four million more UK-registered accounts than the 36.2 million adults who were working or looking for work in the first quarter of this year, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). However, the service is open to students and retirees, so perhaps that accounts for the discrepancy. The Reg knows some users have more than one account on the site as well. The UK government increasingly draws on commercial data to supplement its official statistics. For example, the ONS publishes "real-time indicators" that include monthly data on new online job adverts, based on Textkernel scraping information from 90,000 job board and recruitment pages. The ONS has suffered from falling response rates for official data-gathering exercises such as its Labour Force Survey, making commercial sources more attractive. A recent report from Germany-based digital policy group Interface suggests that other arms of government are also taking advantage of commercial data, with Hungary's intelligence services using location data gathered for mobile advertising and equivalent organizations in other countries likely to be doing similar. ®

Er zijn warme dagen op komst, met vooral op vrijdag tropische temperaturen van dik boven de 30 graden. Het gaat dan waarschijnlijk ook stevig onweren, zoals regelmatig gebeurt na een bloedhete dag. Hoe komt dat? Weerman Ed Aldus legt uit.