And now around the moon. Today Artemis II is circling the moon, taking its crew farther from Earth than any prior mission, before looping back towards home.

The itinerary today includes: 1:30 p.m.: The science officer in the Mission Control Center at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston will brief the crew on their science goals for the upcoming flyby.
1:56 p.m.: The Artemis II crew is expected to surpass the record previously set by the Apollo 13 crew in 1970 for the farthest humans have ever traveled from Earth. 
2:45 p.m.: Lunar observations begin.
6:44 p.m.: Mission control expects to temporarily lose communication with the crew as the Orion spacecraft passes behind the Moon. 
6:45 p.m.: During "Earthset," Earth will glide behind the Moon from Orion's perspective.
7:02 p.m.: Orion reaches its closest approach to the Moon at 4,070 miles above the surface.
7:07 p.m.: Crew reach their maximum distance from Earth during the mission (252,706 miles).
7:25 p.m.: "Earthrise" marks Earth coming back into view on the opposite edge of the Moon.
7:25 p.m.: Mission control will re-acquire communication with the astronauts.  
8:35-9:32 p.m.: During a solar eclipse, the Sun will pass behind the Moon from the crew's perspective.
9:20 p.m.: Lunar observations conclude. You can follow on the AROW visualization or by NASA's livestream. Another NASA YouTube broadcast. Artemis is transmitting video, low-res, alas. Space.com live coverage plus their timeline. Recent Artemis II previously.

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New interviews and closely guarded documents shed light on the persistent doubts about the head of OpenAI. (archive.org) The New Yorker profiles Sam Altman in an extensive article that once again proves Betteridge's Law.

Archaeologists have long known that the ancient peoples of North America—not unlike us—played a lot of games. Going back millennia, cultures around the world developed myriad ways to keep entertained, and for a long time, it was thought that the first dice ever used could be traced to the ancient Eastern European and Near East cultures of Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and the Caucasus. But according to a new paper by Robert Madden, published by Cambridge University Press, games of chance developed much, much earlier than originally thought—halfway around the world.

Researchers previously believed that the earliest dice originated about 5,500 years ago, but Madden shares that examples excavated in North America date back as far as the Late Pleistocene—the Ice Age. Among the oldest reported examples are a few found in modern-day Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico. The rich archaeological sites in these places are associated with the Folsom Culture, representing a dispersed hunter-gatherer lifeway that extended across the North American West, Southwest, and Great Plains around 12,000 years ago.

“The dice tend to show up in liminal spaces where you have a lot of high mobility,” Madden told Live Science. “It might have something to do with how separated these people are and the need to relate to people you don’t see very often.”

In the report, Madden also says that “the making and using of dice represent humans’ first known efforts to intentionally generate, observe, and record streams of controlled, random events…” He adds that, possibly for the first time, people were comprehending patterns or regularities in probability—a kind of precursor to understanding what we now call the law of large numbers. Anthropologists consider this to be “a crucial early step in humanity’s evolving discovery and understanding of randomness and the probabilistic nature of the universe.”

Madden compared hundreds of examples found across the American West with a comprehensive, several-hundred-page publication called Games of the North American Indians, published in 1907 as part of an annual report by the Bureau of American Ethnology. It’s currently available in a two-volume edition from Bison Books.

You might also enjoy seeing what may be the world’s oldest crayon.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article 12,000 Years Ago, Native Americans Were Playing Games of Chance with Handmade Dice appeared first on Colossal.

De ‘lei’ is hét symbool van Hawaï, maar de meeste komen inmiddels uit Thailand. Sommige native Hawaïaanse politici willen dat veranderen, maar ze lopen tegen dezelfde barrières aan als Trump bij zijn heffingen. „Wie gaat dit hier maken?”

Deels op basis van uiterlijke kenmerken en gedrag probeert Nederland de leeftijd van asielzoekers vast te stellen. Of ze vervolgens minder- dan wel meerjarig worden bevonden, heeft grote gevolgen. Maar hoe betrouwbaar is zo’n ‘schouw’?

BEIROET (ANP/DPA) - Bij de jongste aanvallen van Israël op het buurland Libanon zijn in maart en april al rond de 1500 doden en meer dan 4600 gewonden gevallen volgens het ministerie van Gezondheid. Onder de doden waren volgens het Libanese ministerie 57 mensen die medische hulp boden.

Het ministerie spreekt van 1497 doden tussen 2 maart en 6 april, maar maandag zijn er opnieuw slachtoffers gevallen bij de Israëlische aanvallen.

Israël zegt in de tegenaanval te zijn, nadat de sjiitische Libanese beweging Hezbollah 2 maart weer was begonnen met raketbeschietingen op Israël. Er zijn al 6000 projectielen afgeschoten volgens Israël en de helft vanuit het zuiden van Libanon onder de rivier de Litani. Israël wil het gebied tussen de rivier en de Israëlische noordgrens innemen. Een aantal Israëlische politici wil de rivier voortaan als noordgrens en de Libanese bevolking verdrijven.

WASHINGTON (ANP/RTR) - Met de twee bemanningsleden die boven Iran in een gevechtsvliegtuig vrijdag werden neergehaald gaat het volgens president Donald Trump goed. Ze zijn allebei gewond, maar herstellen goed, aldus de president.

Een bemanningslid werd volgens de VS kort na het neerschieten getraceerd en opgepikt door Amerikaanse eenheden in Iran en de ander later na een grote operatie door Amerikaanse strijdkrachten.

Iran weerspreekt 'de redding' in de zuidwestelijke provincie Kohgiluyeh en Boyer-Ahmad. Iraanse media maken melding van gevechten van milities met Amerikaanse militairen, waarbij vijf Iraniërs om het leven zouden zijn gekomen. Maar de vliegers zouden niet zijn gevonden.

Het Iraanse ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken suggereert dat de grote 'reddingsactie' mogelijk een ander doel had. Die was volgens Teheran honderden kilometers van de provincie Kohgiluyeh en Boyer-Ahmad verwijderd in het zuiden van de provincie Isfahan. Daar zou een Amerikaans transportvliegtuig van het type C-130 zijn neergehaald.

Livestream: Artemis II is about to fly around the Moon. At around 1:56pm ET, they’ll surpass the Apollo 13 distance record. And: “At their closest point, they’ll pass roughly 4,000 miles above the lunar surface.”

Valtteri Bottas said he was “really proud” of Kimi Antonelli in the wake of the teenager’s maiden F1 win in Shanghai, which he followed up a week later with another victory in Suzuka.