The Biden administration’s <a href="https://www.economist.com/china/2021/03/20/a-hostile-meeting-sets-the-tone-for-us-china-relations?utm_campaign=the-intelligence&amp;utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_source=third-party-host&amp;utm_content=show-notes" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">early moves</a> suggest no “reset” in relations; we recall a time when the game of ping-pong brought the countries back to the table. Although economics has transformed in the past quarter-century, the way it is taught has not; we examine <a href="https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2021/03/20/efforts-to-modernise-economics-teaching-are-gathering-steam?utm_campaign=the-intelligence&amp;utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_source=third-party-host&amp;utm_content=show-notes" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">efforts</a> to rewrite the textbooks. And a forgotten <a href="https://www.economist.com/prospero/2021/02/26/disco-se-aagay-fused-synth-pop-and-the-sounds-of-the-subcontinent?utm_campaign=the-intelligence&amp;utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_source=third-party-host&amp;utm_content=show-notes" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">album</a> by British-Pakistani teenagers gets another lease of life. For full access to print, digital and audio editions of The Economist, subscribe here <a href="http://www.economist.com/intelligenceoffer" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">www.economist.com/intelligenceoffer</a> &#10;&nbsp; <hr>See <a style='color: grey; ' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for privacy and opt-out information.

He said, Xi said: America-China ructions

Made with my Fall Norns script: https://github.com/ambalek/fall

Fall4

Half Of My Life

"Endless" live jam video here: https://youtu.be/fkjKPKbRLvs

A track from "Haunted Houses" album. Released by Laverna label. Digital copy is available for free download here: http://www.laverna.net/releases/Lav85.html

Composed, recorded and mixed by Alessandro Barbanera (march - july 2020)
Mastered by Francis M. Gri

"Haunted Houses" is a collection of seven tracks in slow, melancholy, dreamlike, nocturnal mood. It's a work made of waiting, of grainy sounds and silences full of rustles. It's a work talking about isolation, either in a physical and mental space; which talks about full spaces and empty or restricted spaces, of presences and absences, of memory and hope, of distances, of houses and rooms. Rooms innervated with restlessness and waiting (the opening track "Sleepless"). Houses where memories crowd, layered memories that coexist with the present (the title-track "Haunted Houses" is a short electroacoustic study on perception: indistinct, evanescent sounds, old pianos in the distance, confused and ectoplasmic voices, furniture that moves from the floor above, sighs...). And then there are presences such as those of literary characters, which can come to life in the mind while reading ("The death of Joe Christmas" is inspired by the restless and controversial character narrated by William Faulkner in "Light in August"). 
Even absences find space in the album, manifesting themselves in their impalpable distance (the piece "In Absence"), as memories of a past that has no place in the present. Then the rooms can become places overloaded with pain (the track "Torture Room"), where this suffering and effort can take an expiatory, spiritual, meditative form. And after all this inner torment, even isolation can turn into an opportunity for reflection, "redemption" and sincere change: the final tracks "Pure" and "Endless" try to capture this renewed spirit, following a strongly emotional path. “Endless” closes the circle, but it can also reopen it. 

"Haunted Houses" was made with guitars, contact microphones, an old cassette recorder, field recordings, dusty and grainy lo-fi sounds, found objects, recordings of streets at night, sounds of a carpentry workshop, slowed sounds, manipulation of loops of classical music taken from the radio. Every detail, every sound has been carved and polished day after day, chiseled and positioned with care and devotion, in a work of "sound craftsmanship".

Haunted Houses

Endless

NASA's Michelle Munk, Ashley Korzun and Eric Nielsen discuss the impact of state-of-the-art computing on future NASA missions.

Small Steps, Giant Leaps Podcast

Small Steps, Giant Leaps: Mars Landing Retropropulsion Simulation

Between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter is a mysterious dwarf planet called Ceres. Its surface is dark and muddy, but has hundreds of patches of bright material. The salt-covered dome and other bright features in Occator Crater are so reflective that they looked like flashlights in distant images. NASA’s Dawn spacecraft got a close look, and pointed scientists to the idea that liquid brine has come up from the interior of Ceres, forming the Occator dome and other bright features. Ceres’ crust also contains a significant amount of ice. Astrobiologist Britney Schmidt discusses the implications, as well as her fieldwork in Antarctica.

Gravity Assist: The Bright Spot of the Asteroid Belt, with Britney Schmidt

The Voyager 1 spacecraft has traveled farther away from Earth than any human-made object. Candy Hansen and David Grinspoon talk about the Voyager mission, and its humbling perspective of our planet as a tiny blue dot in the blackness of space.

Season 3, Episode 10 - Voyager's View Of Earth

Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Deputy Project Scientist Katie Stack Morgan discusses science objectives of NASA’s first astrobiology-focused mission to the Red Planet.

Small Steps, Giant Leaps - Mars Perseverance Rover Science

A 10-minute binaural soundscape featuring the gurgling of Aravaipa Creek at dawn, with an abundance of bird song. Recorded 15 May 2017 near the east entrance to Aravaipa Canyon Wilderness Area not far from Klondyke, Arizona. © Lang Elliott, Music of Nature.

Aravaipa Creek at Dawn

Satellites in orbit share near-Earth space with millions of fast-moving and dangerous debris objects. Tim Flohrer, Head of ESA's Space Debris Office, and Nathalie Ricard, Scientific Officer at the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), discuss the scale of the debris problem, asking what are our satellites are up against?

While you listen, check out the corresponding ESA-UN infographic that illustrates this topic: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2021/02/Satellites_vs_Debris

ESA & UNOOSA on: Satellites vs space debris

On Episode 182, Chloe Sackier, entry, descent, and landing communications systems engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, illustrates the shortest and most intense phase of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission.

Houston We Have a Podcast: Mars Perseverance Landing

Hello, we’re NASA. You may have seen our astronauts, rocket launches, or Mars rovers — but have you heard our sounds? From interviews with astronauts and engineers to stories that take you on a tour of the galaxy, NASA’s audio offerings let you experience the thrill of space exploration without ever leaving Earth.