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Suborbital space tourism finally arrives | FCC prepares to run public C-band auction | The big four in the U.S. launch industry — United Launch Alliance, SpaceX, Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman — hope to be one of two providers that will receive five-year contracts later this year to launch national security payloads starting in 2022. | China’s launch rate stays high | The International Space Station is the largest ever crewed object in space.

‘It’s disappointing’: Goodwill of Greater Washington to...

toggle audio on and off change volume download audio Goodwill’s Brendan Hurley on the impact of coronavirus. Goodwill of Greater Washington, which closed retail outlets in March due to the coronavirus, is now shuttering all of its 18 regional donation locations because there is no additional room to house the items. The closure is effective Wednesday, May 6 at 5 p.m. Even after renting a 25,000-square-foot warehouse for more storage, the nonprofit said even that space filled up and…

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The Latest: Indy high school to hold...

The Latest on the effects of the coronavirus outbreak on sports around the world: ___ Speedway High School will hold this year’s graduation ceremony at the nearby Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Superintendent Kyle Trebley made the announcement on the town’s Facebook page after speedway officials agreed to host the event. The historic 2.5-mile oval just a short stroll from the high school has an estimated 235,000 permanent seats — and more than enough space to safely social distance. Trebley says…

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US infection rate rising outside New York...

Take the New York metropolitan area’s progress against the coronavirus out of the equation and the numbers show the rest of the U.S. is moving in the wrong direction, with the known infection rate rising even as states move to lift their lockdowns, an Associated Press analysis found Tuesday. New confirmed infections per day in the U.S. exceed 20,000, and deaths per day are well over 1,000, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University. And public health officials warn…

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The future of deep-reinforcement learning, our contemporary...

Rish Joshi Contributor Rish is an entrepreneur and investor. Previously, he was a VC at Gradient Ventures (Google’s AI fund), co-founded a fintech startup building an analytics platform for SEC filings and worked on deep-learning research as a graduate student in computer science at MIT. It was not long ago that the world watched World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov lose a decisive match against a supercomputer. IBM’s Deep Blue embodied the state of the art in the late 1990s,……

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USA TODAY 10Best: Vacation Planning Advice &...

Food & Drink · May 4, 2020 If you’re anything like me, preparation for Mother’s Day isn’t going to start until Saturday afternoon. By then, the card aisle at the drugstore will be bare and nothing of use will be available for Amazon same day-delivery. But there is always one plan to fall back on, one surefire way to show your appreciation for that special woman in your life: brunch. Here are a few of our favorite brunch recipes………

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The Teetotaling Couple Who Filled Their Home...

Charles Barrett can rattle off the more than 200 cars in his collection like a waiter might list salad dressings. “There’s a 1908 black Oldsmobile, a 1909 Thomas Flyer in both blue and ivory, a 1978 blue Corvette, a 1970 Dodge Challenger, a 1957 Thunderbird, a 1964 Mustang, a Jewel Tea truck, a covered wagon,” Barrett says. “If you can think it, I probably have it.” His armada has never transported a single person, though. Each of the 14-inch-long……

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Cartographic Puzzles Are Poised for a Comeback

As millions of people hunker down at home amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the humble jigsaw puzzle is enjoying a renaissance. Several puzzle-makers recently told NPR that in March and April, they saw U.S. sales leap by 300 percent or more compared to the same time last year. That means that kitchen tables and living-room floors are probably scattered with bits that add up to all kinds of scenes: litters of kittens, beers of the world, monuments and streets that……

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Temple of Artemis Brauronia in Markopoulo Mesogeas,...

Located on the coast of the Aegean Sea, Brauron was first settled around 3500 B.C. The settlement had varied populations and levels of commerce until the eighth century B.C., when Theseus unified the 12 settlements of Attica into the city of Athens. The former town came to be better known as a religious site, most strongly associated with a cult dedicated to the goddess Artemis. Artemis was associated with many things: the hunt, the moon, the wilderness, chastity. But at……

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Preserving Ukraine’s Soviet Past, One Mosaic At...

On a sunny spring day in Kyiv, Ukraine, two people stand before a massive mosaic on the side of the Institute for Nuclear Research, stepping back a few feet to take it all in. It’s rare for people to stop and take notice; most locals walk right past this artwork—wearing coronavirus masks, of course—oblivious to its dizzying array of textures, materials, and colors. Images of two working men span the width of the building, each several stories high, their……

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“If we cannot go out, we can...

Speaking at a virtual meeting on April 23, Venerable Miao Guang began her remarks by expressing her regret that she had been unable to travel from Taiwan to join the MIT community in person, but shared her joy that technology enabled us to “meet in heart and mind at such a special time.” She emphasized that this moment in history is not “just a difficult time, but it’s a rather special time for us to start thinking differently and……

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Ashalim Power Station in Ashalim, Israel

Thanks to drip irrigation, the roads to Be’er Sheva in Israel are fringed with fields that were once barren. A simple system of water-carrying pipes have transformed the Negev Desert into productive agricultural land. But a newer addition just south of Be’er Sheva, transforms the the desert into something more akin to a science fiction movie. The first sign of something unusual ahead appears just after you leave the city limits. If you look carefully, you’ll notice a pale orange……

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Abbazia di Valvisciolo (Valvisciolo Abbey) in Sermoneta,...

The beautiful abbey of Valvisciolo (from the Italian “Valle dell’Usignolo”, Valley of the Nightingale) can be found between the gardens of Ninfa and the medieval town of Sermoneta, set against a backdrop of central Italy‘s Lepini mountains.  Though we know very little about the earliest history of the abbey, it dates back to at least the 12th century, if not earlier. It was founded by Greek Basilian monks, and supposedly occupied by the Knights Templar in the 13th century. Legend……

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Treasury Prime raises $9M to bring its...

Treasury Prime, a startup that built software tooling to help banks automate and accelerate routine tasks, announced today that it has closed a $9 million Series A. The new capital was sourced from Amias Gerety of QED, Jason Lemkin of SaaStr, and Hans Morris of NYCA Partners. The capital event is yet another funding round for an API-focused startup. Earlier this week, Daily.co raised $4.6 million for its video-calling API business. Both Daily.co and Treasury Prime announced new venture……

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3 Questions: Kyle Filipe on moving MIT...

With the onset of Covid-19 pandemic, MIT Information Systems and Technology (IS&T) rapidly launched new services and enhanced others to meet the expanding needs of a community moving fully into online teaching, learning, and working. Three months ago, Zoom was known in some parts of the Institute as a helpful video conferencing tool, but was completely unknown in others. Since remote classes started on March 30, Zoom usage is up nearly 10,000 percent across the Institute, with an average……

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Glacier Research Is Particularly Treacherous at the...

At least twice a year, Dr Parmanand Sharma embarks on a multi-hour, potentially treacherous commute to work—by car, foot, and zip line. To reach his version of the office, he takes the Manali-Leh Highway; an expanse of road that winds through the Indian Himalayas, ascending from 6,000 feet to 17,000 feet. At that height, Sharma’s closing in on the Himalayan Cryosphere or “the Third Pole,” an epithet for the largest mass of ice outside the polar region. It’s this……

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