​De deelnemers van Roland Garros worden deze week geteisterd door de Franse hitte. Jannik Sinner leek veel last te hebben van de hoge temperaturen, Tallon Griekspoor moest overgeven tijdens zijn wedstrijd en Jakub Mensik verliet het stadion na een zege in een rolstoel. De organisatie van het tennistoernooi heeft daarom wat slimme tips voor de deelnemers: “Draag een parasol in je vrije hand”, adviseert toernooidirecteur Amélie Mauresmo bijvoorbeeld.

Novak Djokovic was kritisch op de directie en vroeg zich af waarom de wedstrijden niet ’s avonds worden gespeeld. Mauresmo verklaart: “Daar kunnen we niet aan beginnen, zeker niet omdat de deelnemers zich heel makkelijk kunnen weren tegen de zon en de hitte. Zo adviseren we alle tennissers om ijsklontjes in hun broekzak te stoppen. Daarnaast zijn we van plan om een laag ijskoud water over het gravel te gieten, zodat de deelnemers lekker koele enkels hebben.”

Mauresmo heeft nog een laatste tip voor de tennissterren: “Als je een ijsbad naast de baan laat zetten en daar af en toe induikt tussen de punten door, is er niets aan de hand.”

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Ja dit zal wel weer hopeloos ouderwets zijn of misschien juist verontrustend woke maar wij hebben altijd geleerd dat je iemand niet moet verkrachten en/of aanranden, ook niet als je bijvoorbeeld in conflict bent met diegene. Dit omdat verkrachten en/of aanranden verkeerd en pervers is, ongeacht wie er aan de ontvangende kant staat van de verkrachting en/of aanranding. Mocht iemand toch overgaan tot verkrachting en/of aanranding, dan is zo iemand knettergek en mag-ie daar (publiekelijk) op afgerekend worden. 

Desondanks is het voor veel mensen die begaan zijn met het lot van de Palestijnen schijnbaar ontzettend ingewikkeld om te verkroppen dat Hamas op 7 oktober op grote schaal en op ongekend gestoorde wijze seksueel geweld inzette (huiveringwekkende pdf hier, lezen op eigen risico). Wat vaak volgt: ontkenning, bagatellisering, of, nog een stukje verder richting het gesticht, vergoelijking. 

Afijn, daar hakt VK-columnist Jolande Withuis eens stevig op in, en hoe. Ten eerste: de mythe dat seksueel geweld nou eenmaal hoort bij gewapend conflict ("Onwaar. De Duitsers bijvoorbeeld hebben zich tijdens de bezetting niet schuldig gemaakt aan massaverkrachting"). Ten tweede: het wegkijken en vergoelijken, dat Withuis - opgevoed door overtuigd communisten - nog kent van de verkrachtingen waarmee het Rode Leger zo'n twee miljoen Duitse vrouwen traumatiseerde. ("Een van de redenen dat communistische slachtoffers of getuigen deze misdaden zo’n vier decennia verzwegen of zelfs ontkenden, is dat zij hun ideologische vrienden niet in een kwaad daglicht wilden stellen (...) Communisten waren toch al de vijand. ‘Onderzoek liever verkrachtingen door Amerikanen’, voegde een ontkenster mij toe. En: ‘Besef je wel wat de Duitsers die Russen hadden aangedaan?’ Ja, dat besefte ik, maar toch…"). Om te concluderen: "We zouden ons moeten realiseren dat dit niet zomaar oorlogsgeweld is. De vijand doden voldeed niet. Hier werd collectief een intense, archaïsche haat uitgeleefd tegen vrouwen als sekse. Zo’n haatdaad is niet weg te strepen tegen bombardementen."

Wellicht ten overvloede: ook seksueel geweld van Israëlische zijde is volkomen gestoord.

In de schaduw van het geweld van Israël, zegt de Libanese theatermaker Ali Chahrour, voltrekt zich de agressie van Libanezen tegen arbeidsmigranten. In ‘When I Saw the Sea’ vertellen drie vrouwen over hun leven in het kafala-systeem, een vorm van moderne slavernij.

A senior CIA official, David Rush, was arrested after investigators found more than $40 million in gold bars and about $2 million in cash at his Virginia home. According to the New York Times, "The only charge lodged against David Rush is that he inflated his academic credentials and obtained military leave pay worth tens of thousands of dollars." From the report: The court papers describe Mr. Rush as a "former senior executive service-level employee at a United States government agency." People familiar with the investigation say he until very recently held a senior position at the C.I.A. In a joint statement, the C.I.A. and F.B.I. said the arrest occurred on May 19, after the agency alerted the bureau. "After a C.I.A. internal investigation identified potential violations of the law, C.I.A. Director John Ratcliffe referred the information to the F.B.I. for a law enforcement investigation," the statement said.

From last November to March, the court papers say, Mr. Rush asked for, and received, "a significant quantity of foreign currency and tens of millions of dollars in gold bars for work-related expenses." When the C.I.A. conducted a review of where the gold and currency were stashed, the agency was "unable to locate the gold bars or significant amounts of the foreign currency," according to court papers.

On May 18, F.B.I. agents searched Mr. Rush's home and found "approximately 303 gold bars, each of which weighed approximately one kilogram," according to an affidavit. Based on the price of gold, the affidavit said, the estimated value of the gold exceeded $40 million. Investigators also seized nearly three dozen luxury watches, many of them Rolexes. The court papers do not indicate why Mr. Rush appears to have kept so much gold, and $2 million in U.S. currency, in his home, or what work project would have required him to amass such wealth.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

banzainetsurfer has added a photo to the pool:

Toyama City, Toyama Prefecture, Japan.

Toyama Kirari is located at the heart of Toyama City. It is a building that integrates a glass art museum, city library, and a local bank.
A diagonal void at the center of the building distributes natural light from the south effectively, and helps to connect the three main programs. Panels of local solid cedar surrounding the void contribute to create a warm and friendly atmosphere, and is worthy of being called the core of the community.
The glass art museum and the library are naturally unified by way of this central space, which helps to remove the typically cold and formal image of conventional public buildings.
Source: kkaa.co.jp/en/project/toyama-kirari/

europeanspaceagency posted a photo:

This picture was published on social media as part of a set by ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot with the following caption:

Day 103, orbit 1598 — From orbit, volcanoes are some of the most beautiful natural sights… End of April, Etna caught me by surprise one morning as I opened the shutters. The whiteness of its slopes… and that elegant plume of smoke which is a gentle reminder that it’s only lightly, very lightly, asleep. I just had time to take a quick photo, but I kept an eye out for it the next day to capture a few more! A special thought for my fellow ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano, who is from Catania, at the foot of Etna.

Less than a minute later, and we’re flying over Vesuvius, instantly recognisable by the vast crater, the path winding up to the summit, and, most of all, Naples spread out all around it.

Follow Sophie’s mission on the εpsilon page and on her social media platforms, such as X, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn.

Credits: NASA/ESA – S. Adenot

europeanspaceagency posted a photo:

This picture was published on social media as part of a set by ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot with the following caption:

Day 103, orbit 1598 — From orbit, volcanoes are some of the most beautiful natural sights… End of April, Etna caught me by surprise one morning as I opened the shutters. The whiteness of its slopes… and that elegant plume of smoke which is a gentle reminder that it’s only lightly, very lightly, asleep. I just had time to take a quick photo, but I kept an eye out for it the next day to capture a few more! A special thought for my fellow ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano, who is from Catania, at the foot of Etna.

Less than a minute later, and we’re flying over Vesuvius, instantly recognisable by the vast crater, the path winding up to the summit, and, most of all, Naples spread out all around it.

Follow Sophie’s mission on the εpsilon page and on her social media platforms, such as X, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn.

Credits: NASA/ESA – S. Adenot

europeanspaceagency posted a photo:

The focus of today’s ESA/Hubble Picture of the Month is an active spiral galaxy on a journey lasting hundreds of millions of years. The galaxy Messier 88 (M88), which is also known as NGC 4501, is located about 63 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices (Berenice’s Hair).

M88 is an active galaxy, which means that its centre harbours a supermassive black hole that is snacking on gas and dust. This black hole is estimated to be around 100 million times as massive as the Sun, and it appears to be powering outflows of gas from the galaxy’s centre.

Around this black hole is a population of old, reddish stars that give M88 its warmly glowing heart. Spreading out from the centre are several tightly wound, symmetrical spiral arms, each outlined by sparkling pink and blue star clusters and knotted clouds of dust. We see M88 from an angle so that it appears elongated, and its spiral arms delicately fan out before it.

M88 is a member of the Virgo Cluster, a collection of more than a thousand galaxies held together by gravity — and therefore linked by fate. As this massive group of galaxies moves through space, the galaxies themselves are in constant motion as they orbit the cluster’s centre of gravity. M88 itself is on a long and somewhat perilous cosmic journey that will bring it to the innermost reaches of the cluster.

As is the case with any epic journey, M88 will be fundamentally changed by its trek to the centre of the Virgo Cluster, about 2 million light-years from where it is today. In 200–300 million years, M88 will make its closest approach to Messier 87, the massive elliptical galaxy that anchors the entire cluster. As it draws close to this gravitational behemoth, M88 will experience intense ram pressure stripping. Ram pressure stripping is a process through which a galaxy’s gas is swept away as it pushes through the ever-present gas between the galaxies in a cluster.

Researchers have already seen this process at work in M88. The galaxy’s swirling disc of gas is truncated, and it appears to have been compressed on the leading edge of the galaxy, piling up like snow before a plough. In fact, M88 appears to have considerably less cold gas — the raw fuel for star formation — than expected for a galaxy of its size, especially in its outer regions. This is a clear sign that M88 will be altered by its journey, which will affect its ability to form stars and alter the course of its evolution.

Astronomers observed M88 with Hubble as part of an observing programme (#18103; PI: D. Thilker) dedicated to understanding the lives of spiral galaxies in crowded environments. This programme uses Hubble’s highly capable Wide Field Camera 3, which can finely resolve individual star clusters and nebulae in galaxies tens of millions of light-years away. By studying galaxies on these scales, astronomers can understand how a journey through a cluster impacts galaxies’ evolution and ability to form new stars.

[Image Description: A large spiral galaxy. It is seen tilted at an angle, so that it is foreshortened and appears very wide. Its tightly-wound, blue spiral arms swirl out from its glowing centre, spreading apart at the tips. They are followed by strands and clumps of dark red dust, and spotted with pink dots where stars are forming in clouds of gas. The galaxy is surrounded by a slight glow and lies on a dark background.]

Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Thilker and the MAUVE-HST Team; CC BY 4.0

europeanspaceagency posted a photo:

This Copernicus Sentinel-2 image features the Batagaika Crater in Siberia. This is the biggest permafrost crater in the world, caused by melting permafrost and also known as a ‘mega-slump’.

From above, the collapsed terrain resembles a tadpole or a stingray, with near-symmetrical ‘fins’ and a ‘tail’ pointing northeast. The crater – seen in the lower-right hand side of this image – is roughly 100 m deep and 1 km long but is growing at a rate of around 30 m a year. According to scientists, this rapid expansion began a few decades ago and is the result of deforestation and warmer temperatures. These conditions cause the ice in the crater to melt then evaporate or drain away, leaving residual sediments that subside.

While the thawing permafrost is a symptom of a warming planet, it also releases methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, contributing further to an increase of greenhouse gas emissions. Batagaika’s permafrost has been frozen for many tens of thousands of years and occasionally Ice Age fossils and mummified wildlife are found there.

While the tundra landscape surrounding the crater is green with shrubs and larch trees, few plants grow on the steep slopes of Batagaika, so it appears brown in this image.

About a kilometre northwest of the crater, a small hill is visible. Further north, the small urban settlement of Batagay, home to just over 4000 people, can be seen near the banks of the Yana river. This river flows over more than 870 km across Russia and meanders northwards on the left side of this image.

The Yana’s course has changed a lot over time. This migration is driven by the process of sediment deposition and erosion, sometimes forming oxbow lakes, creating the beautiful natural shapes visible in this image.

Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2025), processed by ESA; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

europeanspaceagency posted a photo:

This picture was published by ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot on social media with the following caption:

Day 101, orbit 1567 — 100 days in space already… Living and working aboard the International Space Station is becoming second nature, but each morning, as I open the Cupola shutters, I’m reminded of how extraordinary it really is.

Over these past weeks, I’ve been constantly challenged, amazed, and inspired – by the work, by the views, and by the incredible teams on the ground who make all of this possible.

Looking forward to the next 100 days!

Follow Sophie’s mission on the εpsilon page and on her social media platforms, such as X, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn.

Credits: NASA/ESA – S. Adenot