Hello there Reader! I hope you're having a great week.

Writing continues apace, despite the weather still being unable to make up its mind. One day it feels like November, with fog rolling down the street, and the next it's so hot even the cat has melted.

This comic sums it up well... foxtrot.com

Fortunately typing isn't especially strenuous, so I've managed to avoid breaking into a sweat too often while working on the book. My brain has occasionally felt like it's oozing out of my ears, though - but that's a normal part of the process, I think. The garden seems to be thriving with the alternate bursts of rain and then intense sunshine. Ivy's threatening to engulf the windows, the postman has taken to wearing a pith helmet to come down the path, and there are some strange bustlings in the hedgerow which I hope is just the local wildlife, and not an aging rock band. In any case, I hope you enjoy this newsletter. I'm off to look for scythes on Amazon...

Space News

Czxl849j77ko

Last time I brought you a suggestion of life having existed on Mars in the past (https://www.nasa.gov/missions/mars-2020-perseverance/perseverance-rover/nasas-perseverance-rover-scientists-find-intriguing-mars-rock/), however unlikely. This time, I have news of liquid water on the red planet. We've long known that there is water ice at the poles, tied up with frozen CO2, and recent surveys have determined that water must have flowed over the Martian surface at one time. Roughly three billion years ago, however, Mars lost its atmosphere and with it the surface water that had remained liquid. Now only traces of vapour remain in the atmosphere. A recent re-analysis of the Insight Lander's seismograph data has now suggested that there may still be liquid water under the surface. The researchers used the same methods that geologists on Earth do when seeking oil or gas deposits, examining the propagation of seismic waves. By calculating the speed of the vibrations as they pass through the rock, you can get a good idea of the density, and thus the composition of the material. In the words of the abstract to their paper:

A mid-crust composed of fractured igneous rocks saturated with liquid water best explains the existing data.

In other words, there's water down there. Now, as with all scientific discoveries, there's a need to be cautious. There might be errors in the analysis, or problems with the data. There could even be strange geologic (areologic?) phenomena that might have confused the results. But given that this is a technique that is well understood here on Earth, there's reason to be optimistic. Unfortunately we can't just drill a hole and see if there are microbes still down there... if the water exists, it's at least 10km deep, and could be as much as 20km down.

Source: BBC News

Other Books To Check Out

Strange News

The Viking Version of Hell

I'm sure we are all familiar with Valhalla, the fabled Norse afterlife. If you fell gloriously in battle, you could head to Odin's Hall and feast with the Gods for eternity. But what if you didn't? Bear in mind that pretty much everything we know about the Viking's belief systems have been compiled over the years by Christian monks, who were presumably less than enthusiastic about a polytheistic tradition that started during the Bronze Age. Not to mention that the Vikings at one point controlled a vast swathe of Europe, and beliefs probably varied quite a bit across such a large region. All that being said, there was not a happy ending for those who died of disease or malnutrition - common causes at the time. According to the Poetic Edda, after a journey through pitch blackness for nine days the lost soul would reach the River Gjll and cross a bridge guarded by the troll Mgur. She would prevent anyone returning to the world of the living, something they would no doubt wish to try when they saw Helheim before them. In the words of the Younger Edda: "Her hall is called Sleet-cold. Her dish, Hunger; Famine is her Knife." Hel herself slept in a bed called Disease, which would have been darkly ironic for those who had succumbed. And this was just the first level, for those who had had the misfortune not to die in battle. If you were a sinner, and particularly a rapist, murderer or a breaker of oaths, you would be covered in an endless river of burning poison spat from the mouths of the serpents that made up the hall of Nstrnd. Oh, and your body would be gnawed on by a dragon Nhggr. With a fate like that awaiting you, I think it's clear why the Vikings were feared as mighty warriors...

Source: Atlas Obscura

Other Books To Check Out

Miscellany

The Webb Space Telescope keeps pushing back the boundaries of the universe.

Source: webbtelescope.org

There's a curious signal from space that can't be explained by our current science. (It's not aliens.)

Source: newatlas.com

Weird folklore-inspired linocuts.

Source: instagram.com

And Finally

I've been playing 'Fallout 4: London' this past week or so. If you're familiar with the Fallout series of games, or the recent Amazon TV show, then you'll know it's an alternate reality version of our world that had a devastating nuclear war in 2077. Since their timeline diverged from ours in the 1940s, when we invented the transistor and they didn't, it has a wonderfully retro-futuristic feel where the cars have 1950s style fins but fusion engines, and household robots take care of cooking for you. Now a team of dedicated volunteers have created a modification that allows you to play in the post-apocalyptic London of their world. It's beautifully done - lots of recognisable landmarks, clever touches like the rubbish bins looking like London ones, Ion Brew instead of Nuka-Cola, not to mention lashings of red phone boxes and double-decker buses. I'm not far though it yet, but I love the world-building. There are factions based on remnants of Parliament or the Army, football hooligans and Beefeaters. There's even a group who call themselves the Knights of the Round Table. New organisations have sprung up to battle for control, and all of them set against radiation mutated badgers, foxes and even a near-mythical creature called a Womble... Since it's free if you already own the base game, it's definitely worth checking out. And Mind the Gap.

Source: fallout4london.com