| Confrontation with Mars will not affect health Earthlings will be able to observe the great opposition of Mars at the end of August, said Lidia Rykhlova, head of the department of space astrometry of the Russian Academy of Sciences. “At this time, the Earth and Mars will be at a minimum distance from each other. During such periods, Mars is most accessible to observers,” said Ms. Rykhlova. At the end of July - beginning of August, Mars quickly approaches the Earth, moving through the constellation Aquarius. On August 28, Mars will approach the Earth to its closest distance - 0.373 astronomical units, which is equal to 55.8 million km, and the Great Confrontation of the Planets will begin. “The visibility of Mars will last all night, its brightness will reach its maximum glow. The red planet will be clearly visible on August 28, 29, 30,” she said. Mars will be second in brilliance only to the Moon, and Venus and Jupiter (also usually bright planets) will not be visible at all because of it. From August 30, Mars will begin to move away from the Earth. “This unique phenomenon will not affect the health of earthlings in any way,” the specialist assured. NEWSRU.COM
Estonian Rally: Railcar Racing Championship
In Estonia, an international railcar movement competition ended on Sunday, in which 165 railway workers took part. The main organizer of the rally, Neddy Kramer, told BNS that 11 teams from Estonia, Latvia and Finland are taking part in the competition. The rally participants covered a 230-kilometer route from the city of Viljandi in southern Estonia to Tallinn in two days. “At the stations where the handcars stopped, quizzes, games, and competitions were held for the local population,” Kramer noted. 15 new manual trolleys were built especially for the rally. The idea of railcar rallying was born in Finland, where world championships have already been held twice. On Sunday evening the rally will finish at Tallinn-Väike station, where prizes will be awarded and folk festivities will take place. INTERFAX
Curfew on Thai Internet
Thai authorities have imposed a curfew on some online computer games, hoping to limit the amount of time young people spend online. The curfew is a short-term experiment, the results of which will be analyzed in the fall. The main concern of the authorities is a new role-playing game called "Ragnarok", which has attracted a huge number of young gamers who are spending a lot of money on it. The success of Ragnarok hit Thailand like a storm. Introduced to the public just six months ago, the game already has 600 thousand registered fans in this country. The game, drawing ideas from the Scandinavian sagas, draws a complex virtual world in which the gamer chooses a hero for himself and can play almost endlessly - fighting for power, weapons and status.
There is also a monetary element in all this, albeit unofficial. Points collected in the game can be used to purchase weapons or improve the character's combat characteristics. But in Thailand, players buy and sell glasses not in the virtual world, but in the very real world and for very real money, sometimes quite large. As local newspapers write, even seven-year-old children play Ragnarok, who very quickly get into debt. And so the authorities decided to take the situation into their own hands. They intend to block Ragnarok and other similar games between ten o'clock in the evening and six in the morning. BBC
Courtly robot for single Japanese
Japanese scientists from Tohoku University have created a robot dancer. MS DanceR (Mobile Smart Dance Robot) was developed and built in the laboratory of Professor Kashihuro Kosuge. According to him, this version is preliminary, and soon a new machine will be assembled in the laboratory, which will be able to perfectly move in time with its partner. The robot “feels” its partner using touch sensors located on its “waist” and “arms”. It is equipped with a computer that not only predicts where the human dancer will go, but also remembers the repeated dance figures. MS DanceR moves on four wheels. Its upper anthropomorphic part is draped with fabric imitating a ball gown. ANANOVA
Baghdad zoo reopens
After months of chaos, the Baghdad zoo has reopened. Of course, there is no longer the variety of animals that distinguished the zoo, say, two decades ago. Once upon a time, the Baghdad Zoo was considered one of the best and largest in the Middle East - it contained about 450 species of animals, birds and reptiles. Now there are only 80 of them left. A pair of pigs appeared before zoo visitors in a pen where turkeys were kept. These birds were eaten by hungry townspeople. Eating pork is prohibited by Islam, which is why the pigs remained intact. Most of the animals during this time were stolen by marauders, and large predatory animals, which the robbers were never able to approach, either died of hunger or fell into a state of extreme exhaustion. The lions and bears have outwardly completely recovered from the shock they suffered. ITAR-TASS
Moscow and Utah will play sports together
On Saturday, the opening ceremony of the international youth sports games “Moscow-Utah” took place, the general sponsor of which was the Bank of Moscow. About 600 athletes from Russia and the American state of Utah will take part in the Games, held under the patronage of the International Olympic Committee. The Moscow part of the games, including competitions in ten sports, will last until July 26. In winter, young athletes will meet at the Olympic venues in Utah.
“The Bank of Moscow has always provided great financial support to sports. Suffice it to remember that we were the general sponsors of the World Youth Games, which were successfully held in the capital in 1998, and then the International Youth Sports Games of the CIS countries, the Baltics and the regions of Russia in 2002,” noted Vice President of the Bank of Moscow Elena Volkova. -- For many years in a row, our bank has financially supported the Kremlin Cup International Tennis Tournament, as well as the Mayor's Show Jumping Cup. And this time we considered it an honor to become the general sponsor of such a large-scale sporting event, which, I am sure, will go down in the history of world sports.” Pavel MATVEEV|
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