Bibliorgasping

The soil testing equipment on Curiosity makes a buzzing noise and the pitch of the noise changes depending on what part of an experiment Curiosity is performing, this is the way Curiosity sings to itself.

So some of the finest minds currently alive decided to take incredibly expensive important scientific equipment and mess with it until they worked out how to move in just the right way to sing Happy Birthday, then someone made a cake on Curiosity’s birthday and took it into Mission control so that a room full of brilliant scientists and engineers could throw a birthday party for a non-autonomous robot 225 million kilometres away and listen to it sing the first ever song sung on Mars*, which was Happy Birthday.

This isn’t a sad story, this a happy story about the ridiculousness of humans and the way we love things. We built a little robot and called it Curiosity and flung it into the star to go and explore places we can’t get to because it’s name is in our nature and then just because we could, we taught it how to sing.

That’s not sad, that’s awesome.

Marine Protected Areas (2)

Mangroves, kelp forests, remote seamounts - Marine Protected Areas (MPA's) protect vital ocean ecosystems. These ‘safe zones’ for the ocean help fish populations bounce back, support the people who rely on the sea, and even help fight climate change. And the benefits don't stop at their borders; they ripple out into the wider ocean too.

Illustrations by Kelsey Manners Dickson

With temperatures in the southern United States skyrocketing as high as 120 degrees Fahrenheit, safety experts on Monday advised Americans living in areas where excessive heat warnings had been issued to immediately seek privilege. “When the heat index is dangerously high, the most important thing you can do to stay healthy is to acquire enormous amounts of wealth, status, and power,” said Justin Gaines, a physician who studies heat stress and thermoregulation, adding that U.S. residents should at the bare minimum earn a six-figure salary, maintain a diverse portfolio of investments, and live in an air-conditioned mansion until the heat dome had ended.