Month: September 2016

The European Space Agency has found its long-lost Philae lander. After making a rough, bouncing landing on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in November, 2014, the spacecraft was unable to deploy its solar panels in a proper configuration to capture enough energy. Its batteries ran out within a few days of landing.

Although scientists have made a few more fleeting contacts with the dying spacecraft since then, Philae's fate—was it stuck in a ditch, or nudged up against a cliff wall?—has remained largely a mystery.

Until now. The high resolution camera aboard the orbiting Rosetta spacecraft—which has remained near the comet since deploying Philae two years ago—flew within 2.7km of the comet's surface on September 2, and spied the missing lander. At such a distance from the comet, the resolution of the OSIRIS narrow-angle camera is about 5 cm/pixel, high enough to reveal Philae’s distinctive 1 m-sized body, and two of its three legs.

Enlarge / Japanese PM Shinzo Abe arrives in China for the G20 summit... just as his country's awkward Brexit memo lands. (credit: Etienne Oliveau/Getty Images)

Prime minister Theresa May said at the weekend that she wanted to take her time to secure the best trade deals for a post-Brexit Britain, and reiterated—in her trademark vague terms—that the so-called Article 50 won't be triggered this year. But political pressure from governments as far away as Japan continues to mount.

On Sunday, in a bold move, the Japanese government published a 15-page memo (PDF) setting out a number of demands it wants the UK to adhere to, once it leaves the European Union.

It underscored that Britain faces a torrid time of negotiations—not just with member states in the EU, but further afield, too.

When Bloom County appeared for the first time in the Rocky Mountain News in December 1980, 13-year-old me immediately took notice. The style and characters were reminiscent of Doonesbury (Bloom County author Berkeley Breathed has acknowledged the influence of Garry Trudeau’s comic), but it was fresh, goofy, and, most of the time, hilarious. Not only was Breathed’s artistic ability obvious even when compressed into a few square inches of newsprint, it also stood out from the likes of B.C., Wizard of ID, Blondie, and other comic-page stalwarts for its sharp and satirical humor. Every character Breathed introduced quickly found a home in Bloom County‘s twisted little world, especially Bill the Cat, who was introduced to satirize Jim Davis’ continuous attempts to pump out Garfield merchandise.

The strip had a great run until Breathed discontinued it in August 1989, much to the disappointment of his millions of fans. Breathed was the first artist to walk away from a popular comic strip while it was still fresh and funny, and perhaps he set an example for Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes) and Gary Larson (The Far Side) to follow, as they unexpectedly wrapped up their comics in 1995.

Breathed didn’t completely give up comics, moving on to the short-lived, Sunday-only Outland, which featured an all-new cast, aside from Bill the Cat and Opus the penguin. Outland ended in 1995, and we wouldn’t see any other comics from Breathed until the launch of Opus, which that ran every Sunday from 2003 to 2008. Breathed has been absent from the world of comics since then, but that unexpectedly and happily changed in July 2015 when the first all-new Bloom County comic in over two-and-a-half decades appeared on Facebook.