Lynda Atkins

Pensar que no vamos “a la Luna”, sino a encontrarnos con ella en un punto exacto del espacio… es otra cosa. Todo se basa en la mecánica orbital: llegar al lugar preciso, en el momento preciso. Un pequeño error… y simplemente no pasa 🚀

@thazeltonhouse @AlexTaylorNews Mine does say grapefruit! But your point is made

@AlexTaylorNews @Wallrainbow Look at your nearest jar of marmalade and you will see it already says Orange Marmalade.

Another woeful Saturday in the awful EU which forces people to actually tell us the flavours of all our delicious jams and marmelades🤡

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known. - Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

Woman of the Day Philippa Garrett Fawcett, born OTD in 1868 in Cambridge, daughter of the suffragist Millicent Garrett Fawcett and niece of Britain’s first female doctor Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, who achieved a rare distinction in her own right. On 7 June 1890 at the age of 22, she took first place in the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos, the first time a woman had done so. It caused havoc. The Tripos was famously difficult: 12 papers and 192 progressively more difficult questions over eight days, and for those in contention for the title of Wrangler, a further three days of exams consisting of 63 still more testing problems. Preparation took months. To attain first prize as Senior Wrangler, Cambridge’s champion mathematician, was regarded as the greatest intellectual distinction of all. No fewer than nine Senior Wranglers including Sir Isaac Newton and Stephen Hawking became Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. Philippa rose at 8am and studied for an intense six hours a day, often not retiring until 11pm, but she didn’t go as far as her competitors who worked through the night with wet towels wrapped around their heads. She knew she was being watched. The scandalised Pall Mall Gazette reported that she dared to wear “her thick brown hair down to her shoulders, and has even been known (so I have heard) to ride on top of a bus” but she was determined - according to a contemporary news report - to deny ammunition to those who tried “to make out that the women’s colleges are peopled by eccentrics.” Women then were considered incapable of mastering maths. Fragile, dependent creatures prone to nerves and possessed of a mind several degrees inferior to a man’s, studying during puberty was tantamount to dicing with death because most Victorian scholars believed that “the brain and ovary could not develop at the same time.” To take first place was unthinkable. Yet Philippa did. She knocked spots off the second place candidate with a score a full 13% higher than his. Did this accord her the much prized title of Senior Wrangler, First among Cambridge mathematics Firsts? What do you think? As her cousin Marion reported: “It was a most exciting scene in the Senate…The gallery was crowded with girls and a few men, and the floor of the building was thronged with undergraduates as tightly packed as they could be. The lists were read out from the gallery and we heard splendidly. All the men’s names were read first, the Senior Wrangler [G.T. Bennett of St John’s College] was much cheered. At last the man who had been reading shouted “Women.” A fearfully agitating moment for Philippa it must have been. He signalled with his hand for the men to keep quiet, but had to wait some time. At last he read Philippa’s name, and announced that she was “Above the Senior Wrangler.” That’s right. Only a man could be named Senior Wrangler, so the bloke in the No. 2 spot got the title. Philippa was simply listed as “Above the Senior Wrangler” instead. Despite this grudging nod from the university, Philippa’s achievement attracted media attention internationally, and the Daily Telegraph made this its lead story stating, “Once again has woman demonstrated her superiority in the face of an incredulous and somewhat unsympathetic world... And now the last trench has been carried by Amazonian assault, and the whole citadel of learning lies open and defenceless before the victorious students of Newnham and Girton. There is no longer any field of learning in which the lady student does not excel.” You’d think that Cambridge would be proud to award a degree to someone of such exceptional ability, wouldn’t you? Nah. Women could attend lectures and take the same exams, but they were denied degrees on the basis of their sex. Instead, they were handed a Certificate of Proficiency, which makes it sound as though they’d mastered making sausage rolls in a Bake-off contest. Philippa promptly became a “Steamboat Lady”. Until I read about Phillippa, I’d never heard of “steamboat ladies” but it was the nickname given to women students from Oxbridge who travelled to Trinity College Dublin between 1904 and 1906 to be awarded an ad eundem degree - an academic degree awarded on the grounds of mutual recognition or equivalence. Trinity had long held the view that there was no reason to restrict women students from graduating on the same terms as men if they achieved the same grades, and its Board agreed to recognise eligible female Oxbridge students by awarding a Trinity degree. The Board anticipated that only small numbers of women would take up the offer to graduate: Irishwomen who had studied at Oxbridge. In fact by 1907, Trinity granted degrees to some 720 "steamboat ladies”, all of whom would have been awarded degrees if they had been men. How much talent and potential was lost? Philippa became a mathematics lecturer at Newnham College for ten years before going to South Africa to set up teacher training colleges. She died on in June 1948, two months after her 80th birthday, and one month after Cambridge finally conceded that yes, women could be awarded a degree.

Christina Koch was a firefighter at the South Pole at -111°F before she ever applied to be an astronaut. That was maybe the fourth most interesting line on her resume. She grew up in North Carolina, got three degrees from NC State, and her first real job was building deep-space instruments at NASA. Then she left for Antarctica. Spent three and a half years bouncing between the Arctic and Antarctic as a research scientist, including a full winter at the South Pole base. That means going months without sunlight or fresh food, with a crew of about 50 people and no way out until flights resume. While she was down there, she also joined the glacier search-and-rescue team. After coming back, she went to Johns Hopkins and built instruments for two NASA missions (one of them is still orbiting Jupiter right now). She figured out how to start a tiny vacuum pump that NASA designed for a future Mars rover. Johns Hopkins nominated it for their Invention of the Year in 2009. Then she went back to the field. More time in Antarctica and a stretch up in Greenland. A government research station in northern Alaska, near the top of the world. Then she ran another one in American Samoa, near the equator. In 2013, NASA selected her from 6,300 applicants. Eight people got in. Her first space mission was supposed to be a normal rotation on the International Space Station, but NASA extended it. She ended up staying 328 straight days and orbiting Earth 5,248 times, covering about 139 million miles (roughly 291 round trips to the Moon). Up there, she ran over 210 experiments, including tests of cancer drugs in zero gravity and 3D printers that can build structures close to human tissue. Six spacewalks, 42 hours floating outside the station. She learned Russian for the training. She flies supersonic jets. Right now, Koch is on Artemis II, heading for a flyby behind the far side of the Moon. The crew launched on April 1 and is on track to travel about 252,000 miles from Earth, which would break the all-time human distance record of 248,655 miles set by Apollo 13 in 1970. That record has stood for 56 years, and it was set during a disaster that nearly killed the crew. Fred Haise, one of the Apollo 13 astronauts, is 92 now. He told Koch: "I heard you're going to break our record." Nobody had left Earth's neighborhood since December 1972. Koch and her three crewmates are the first in 53 years, and they are coming home at about 25,000 mph. That is faster than any crewed spacecraft has ever come back through the atmosphere.

LOST, STOLEN & WANTED Medals 24262822 R. VINCENT General Service Medal **** STOLEN MEDAL **** Any information to the whereabouts of the medal please contact: Kent Police - crime ref: 01634 792209 or info@medal-locator.com

🚨 IMPORTANT REMINDER 🎗️ 🟨 If you see a referee wearing a yellow armband, this indicates they are an Under-18 match official. 🫡 They are therefore covered by safeguarding children legislation and just like the youth players on the pitch they are still learning and developing within the game and deserve our full support, encouragement and respect! 🙌 Help us to create a safe and positive environment on the football pitches across Sussex so these young referees stay passionate and dedicated to the game for years to come… #SussexFootball⚽

Did you know that the oldest recorded poem in English is about Good Friday? This is The Dream of the Rood - a poem where the cross of Christ talks to the poet about the crucifixion - read in Old English by Dr Alexandra Zhirnova, at @StPaulsLondon.

We’re recruiting a Temporary Finance Officer (maternity cover) at Wallingford Town Council. Full time (37 hrs), £31,537–£34,434. Role supports budgeting, payroll, VAT & accounts. Starts June 2026. Apply via our website: wallingfordtowncouncil.gov.uk/your-council/w… Closing date: Monday 20 April

I've deleted this. It appears to be from a crypto scammer. The governor of St Helena just told @horton_official he went outside to check on the tortoise, who was sleeping as it is past his bedtime, but he is very much alive. I'm really sorry.

@DontLetYourTea @Wallingfordtc So do I! I feel a team being constructed here …

@Wallingfordtc @Wallrainbow I have an ‘O’ level in needlework.

Be part of history. Help recreate the missing final panel of the Bayeux Tapestry, telling Wallingford’s role in 1066. We’re looking for around 10 volunteers. No experience needed, just interest and commitment. Contact us to get involved and leave your mark.

Undeniable evidence that Nessie the Loch Ness Monster is real has been unearthed. Haters will say it's AI. #LochNessMonster

New discovery at the Tower of London! 🤯 Curator Alden Gregory shows us today's astonishing find at the fortress. Although not all that glitters is gold... 👀

Ever heard the story about how, during the excavation of the Mary Rose, the divers combined ketchup and mayonnaise and created Marie Rose sauce, which became internationally famous?

Newly discovered Enigma machine… Bletchley Park today reveals the discovery of the first-known musical Enigma. Each press of a key doesn't only light up an enciphered letter, but also plays a different musical feature to help with further complexity in creating the secret message. This melodic Enigma machine was found after the sound of a glockenspiel, followed by a forlorn trumpet, was heard emanating from a recently donated large box of items. 🔊 Sound on to experience it!

Photo of the Day: Canberra PR9 from 39Sqn taking off from RAF Marham (Norfolk) on the 21st May 2002 using a Nikon D1 and a 70-200 f2.8 lens (125th/sec at f8) Photographed by RAF Photographer

A hilarious April fools video made by the police