Absinthe in France: Legalising the 'green fairy'

The traditional method of preparing absinthe: pour iced water over a sugar cube until it dissolves into a glass of absinthe underneath

Green, incredibly alcoholic and some say mind-altering - these are the qualities that led to absinthe being banned in France almost 100 years ago. But all that's about to change, after the government voted to allow sales of the drink nicknamed the "green fairy".

"I will not be seen as a drug addict anymore," says Clement Arnoux, an absinthe drinker and enthusiast.

"It changes everything from the point of view of my friends and family," he said.

The green, anise-flavoured spirit is associated with many of the country's most famous and esteemed artists and writers - like Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Henri de Toulouse Lautrec and Paul Verlaine - but it was banned in France in 1915 for its alleged harmful effect.

Absinthe is distilled with the leaves of the herb Artemisia absinthium, known as grande wormwood, which contains the drink's "special ingredient", thujone, which reputedly has mind-altering effects.

Later, the rule was relaxed, allowing the drink to be sold as long as it was not called absinthe, and instead labelled "a spirit made from extracts of the absinthe plant".

Now the ban is expected to be lifted entirely any day now, after the French Senate voted in favour of the move in mid-April.

While drinkers like Clement Arnoux are relieved that the stigma of illegality has gone, not everyone sees the change of law as cause for celebration.

Absinthe is usually around 60 or 70% alcohol, though it is not designed to be drunk neat, but mixed instead with water, much like pastis.

For some, the drink's high proof is part of its appeal. Young people are "always looking for something more", says Laurent Legay, who works with people with drink problems in the Pas de Calais region.

"I've had young people in secondary school who have told me that they are on the hunt for absinthe because it's a strong alcohol," he adds

'Redundant' law

Absinthe was made legal in the rest of the European Union in 1988, provided the amount of thujone falls within the agreed limit of 10mg/kg, or 35mg/kg for absinthe bitters.

In France, a decree was passed allowing absinthe to be sold but only if it was not actually called absinthe.


"It was a bizarre situation," says George Rowley, Managing Director of La Fee Absinthe, who - though British - was one of the key people behind the resumption of absinthe production in France.

"You could distil absinthe in France, bottle it, label it for the rest of the world as absinthe, but you couldn't do that for France.

"It was ridiculous; it was a redundant law that needed to be swept away," he said

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Recreating the era of 8-bit computers

Computer collector John Honniball shows Ellie Gibson how to recreate a computer from days gone by

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Chances are that you are reading this article on a computer screen. Most would agree that a modern 32 or 64 bit machine is a pretty complicated piece of equipment. 

While it is easy to buy the parts of a modern PC - motherboard, graphics card and processor - the sheer complexity would defeat any attempt to build one starting with electronic components such as resistors, capacitors and chips.

But what about earlier generations of computer? The technology that brought us the BBC Micro, Sinclair's ZX series and the Commodore 64 and Vic 20?

Is it still possible to construct an 8-bit machine from a pile of parts?

Bit parts
 

Programmer and "maker" Julian Skidmore has done just that with his creation of a novel 8-bit computer called the Fignition. Even better, his homebrew machine is designed to DIY. Anyone with a modicum of experience in electronics should be able to put it together.

His inspiration for the project was the work of the 8-bit pioneers, such as ZX80 hardware designer Jim Westwood, who created those much-loved machines almost entirely by themselves.

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Antarctic ozone hole affecting weather in tropics, new study says

London (CNN) -- The hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica is affecting weather patterns across the entire Southern Hemisphere, according to a new scientific study.

The findings published by researchers from Columbia University's School of Engineering and Applied Science is, they say, the first to demonstrate how ozone depletion in the polar region influences tropical circulation and increases rainfall at lower latitudes.
"It's really amazing that the ozone hole, located so high up in the atmosphere over Antarctica, can have an impact all the way to the tropics and affect rainfall there -- it's just like a domino effect," said lead author of the paper, Sarah Kang.

Using state-of-the-art climate models -- created by the Canadian Center for Climate Modeling and Analysis at the University of Victoria, British Columbia -- Kang and co-author Lorenzo Polvani (a research scientist at the LamontDoherty Earth Observatory) calculated atmospheric changes produced by creating an ozone hole and then compared these with observed changes over the last few decades.

The close correlation between the climate model and the observed changes led Kang and Polvani to conclude that the hole in the Antarctic ozone -- first discovered by scientists in the mid-1980s -- to be the likely cause of the atmospheric changes in the Southern Hemisphere.

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Mystery 'missile' likely a jet contrail, says expert

Update at 2147 GMT on Wednesday: The Pentagon says the contrail was caused by a plane. "We have no evidence to suggest that this was anything other than a contrail caused by an aircraft," Pentagon spokesman Colonel David Lapan said, according to ABC News.

Update at 1640 GMT on Wednesday: The Federal Aviation Administration says no fast-moving unidentified objects were seen in the area on radar and no commercial companies had applied to launch rockets from the region.

What appeared to be a rocket blasting into the skies off the southern California coast on Monday was probably just an approaching plane, a Harvard astronomer who tracks space launches says.

Around 5 pm local time on Monday, a KCBS news helicopter shot a video showing what appeared to be a missile launch above the Pacific Ocean. A Pentagon spokesman said that so far there is no explanation for the observation, according to the Associated Press. "Nobody within the Department of Defense that we've reached out to has been able to explain what this contrail is, where it came from," Pentagon spokesman Colonel Dave Lapan said. "So far, we've come up empty with any explanation."

So what was it? Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer who tracks space launches at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, says it was probably an optical illusion caused by a plane.

"If it's coming over the horizon, straight at you, then it rises quickly above the horizon," he told New Scientist. "You can't tell because it's so far away that it's getting closer to you – you'd think it was just going vertically up," he says.

The fact that it occurred at twilight would have emphasised the contrail, he adds. "It's critical that it's at sunset – it's a low sun angle. It really illuminates the contrail and makes it look very dense and bright." See other jet contrails that look like missiles.

Airborne Laser?

"I would say that's the 90 per cent guess," he says. "There's still a 10 per cent chance in my mind that it is a missile contrail, but if so, what isn't clear to me is whether anyone but this helicopter saw it." Since no one in LA apparently reported seeing the missile, he says, that suggests either that it looked like a jet contrail from their perspective or that a relatively small rocket was responsible.

McDowell points out that the US Navy runs a base on San Nicolas Island, which lies 120 kilometres west of Los Angeles. Small rockets are launched there every few weeks, he says.

He says some of the rockets are used as targets for tests with the Airborne Laser, a Boeing 747 jet with a nose-mounted laser designed to shoot missiles down. "They've been flying this 747 around and using it to fire at little rockets they've launched from San Nicolas," McDowell says. "So you can imagine if this helicopter is zooming off the California coast a bit away from LA, near the San Nicolas area, and this thing goes up right next to it, the crew would go, 'Oh my goodness, what is that?'"

But a spokesman at the Missile Defense Agency, which launches those rockets, told New Scientist it was not one of their tests

 source :  new scientist

source : .

World's first space tourist 10 years on: Dennis Tito

Ten years ago, US multi-millionaire Dennis Tito became the world's first-ever space tourist. 

He is said to have paid $20m for his eight days in space. 

Mr Tito blasted off on 28 April 2001, but only after a struggle to get anyone to take him - the US space agency Nasa refused on the grounds that he was not a trained astronaut, so it was the Russians who facilitated the trip.

To date, only six people have followed in his footsteps - paying for a ticket to orbit in space.

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“Start Quote

I am one of the happiest humans alive ”

End Quote

 

But 10 years on, the lure of making space tourism more accessible to the masses is just as strong. 

Virgin Galactic hopes to take fare-paying passengers into space in around two years time, and a Russian company has even announced plans for a hotel in space.

On the tenth anniversary of the flight, Dennis Tito reflected on his eight-day holiday in space for BBC World Service.

Dennis Tito

There was absolutely no fear. I was so excited and so were my crew mates.

We were going to be in space, and we thought of nothing else, but the success of that mission.

Dennis Tito's jubilant return to Earth: "I just came back from paradise!" 

  Watch: Dennis Tito arrives at the International Space Station

So there was absolutely no apprehen

sion - it was just a really good, euphoric feeling that finally the day had come. 

It was not a shuttle, it was a space capsule; we were literally elbow-to-elbow.

The countdown began, and it went on schedule to the second. 

It was a little surprising when lift-off occurred - I thought it would be much more rigorous; you could barely feel it, and you could not hear it. 

When I witnessed a launch from the outside, even a mile away, there was a huge sound.

But we heard nothing of that within the space craft. 

'Like flying'

 

As we lifted off and the fuel began to burn, the vehicle accelerated and it kept on accelerating, and then you felt just a gradual build up of G-forces. 

Eight minutes and 50 seconds later, you experience your last of the three-gs, and then zero-gs when the engine shuts down - that is the most spectacular moment of the entire flight.

At burn out you become weightless; there are pencils that are hung from strings in the cabin, and at orbit insertion, those pencils start to just float.

Continue reading the main story

 

“Start Quote

It was a sense of completeness - from then on, everything is a bonus”

End Quote

 

And then looking to my right, out of the window, I could see the blackness of space, I could see Earth, and the curvature of Earth, and the sight of Earth from space was just spectacular.

I cannot ever duplicate that euphoric feeling that I had at that moment.

For me it was a 40-year goal. Often achieving a major goal in life occurs

slowly, but this was instant - it was just at that precise moment.

It was once we got out of the space suit that we were able to float around and experience weightlessness. 

It is really extraordinary, because there is nowhere on earth that we - or any of our ancestors in the entire history of evolution - experience that. 

It was a wonderful experience; the feeling of floating is just unbelievable. Moving around is not difficult and you learn very quickly. 

When we were on the International Space Station we had more room - you would push off from one area, very gently, and you would fly to ano

ther area. 

It was like flying, and that was a lot of fun!

  Dennis Tito said he could not duplicate the feeling of seeing Earth from space for the first time 

Vivid Earth

 

It took two days of orbiting the Earth, 16 orbits a day, before we caught up with the station.

There were three crew members who were there for about two months as part of the long-term crew, so they don't see many human beings, and they welcomed us with open arms.

I think we have a much better view of the Earth from the International Space Station.

The port hole that we would actually look out at the earth was through the floor, so I was always looking at earth. 

Then we had some port holes that looked out to the side, and we could see the edges of the Earth - so we had two different kinds of views. 

We would go from one to the other, and I would spend most of the 45 minutes - which is half of one orbit - and be either videotaping the view, or just sitting for 45 minutes, peering out, listening to opera, and just enjoying the experience.

The images are vivid in my mind. I continue to enjoy it every day!

It went very quickly and probably the most disappointing thing for me was after a total of eight days in space, I had to return to Earth. 

I would have happily stayed up there for month

s!

For me, there was very little transition from the space flight to Earth.

Within 48 hours I was actually back to my running - I ran a couple of miles. 

With Nasa, there was a strong feeling that my flight shouldn't take place.

And I think it's somewhat understandable, it was the first truly private space flight. 

And I think that they were concerned, number one, about me being a private citizen; and number two, that my age may not have qualified me.

They had probably some reason to be concerned.

Space future

 

I hope that tens of thousands of people can experience what I experienced, for 5% of the cost. 

  "I continue to enjoy it every day": Dennis Tito 10 years on 

I believe there will be a time, it may take 10 or 20

years, where the cost for flying in orbit might be as low as a million dollars in today's money.

A million dollars is certainly a lot of money, but there are many millionaires in the world today, and I know people that would spend their last penny to have this experience. 

I often thought that if I did spend my last penny, I could li

ve on social security for the rest of my life and still be happy, because I'd achieved what I wanted to achieve.

It was a sense of completeness - from then on, everything is a bonus. And the last 10 years, everything since then, has been just extra.

And I think I am one of the happiest humans alive because of that.

source : BBC