Reuters – “An eccentric group of citizen-scientists called Old Weather has transcribed millions of observations from long-forgotten logbooks of ships, many from the great era of Arctic exploration. As the polar regions grow ever warmer, the volunteers have amassed a rich repository of climate data in a 21st century rescue mission…

Meteorologists have long recorded the weather at land-based stations. But nearly three-quarters of the planet is covered by water, and that’s where most weather takes place. Thousands of ships have criss-crossed the oceans, noting the weather in handwritten logbooks that for decades sat forgotten in bookshelves and basements. In a sometimes-obsessive quest, thousands of Old Weather volunteers have extracted millions of observations about barometric pressure, wind speed, air temperature and ice from the old logbooks. These are fed into a huge dataset at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, creating what NOAA calls “a dauntingly complex, high-resolution, four-dimensional reconstruction of the global climate that estimates what the weather was for every day back to 1836.”

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Each of the United States' four presidential impeachment proceedings has highlighted increasingly sophisticated technologies, beginning with telegrams in the case against Andrew Johnson.

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The Google-owned company has faced scrutiny in the past for failing to protect its users from harassment. It announced new policies Wednesday in an attempt to address the criticism.

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The CEO tweeted that he's hiring a team to develop open source standards for decentralized social networks. His hope: It will spawn better ways to combat hate and harassment.

The order will extend a federal anti-discrimination law to include discrimination based on anti-Semitism. Some worry the policy will be used to stifle criticism of Israel on college campuses.

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A judicial panel says Kenton County Judge Dawn Gentry coerced colleagues to support her election campaign, made inappropriate advances toward an attorney and had sex in a courthouse office.

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The U.S. House of Representatives passed a landmark proposal that would give 2 million workers paid leave upon the birth or adoption of a child, in what worker advocates call a hard-won victory.

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In a cave in Indonesia, archaeologists have uncovered a stunning ancient painting of a hunting party that is thousands of years older than similar works found in Europe.

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The lawyers were apparently angered by a now viral incident at the hospital in which an attorney was beaten by doctors after he refused to wait in line at the cardiac facility.

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The plan calls for a shift from 42 distinct pension plans into one universal scheme. The new system will be based on the principle of giving each pensioner the same rights for each euro they pay in.

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Thanks to the nice people at Deep Magic Magazine for publishing my new novella Fire Wings in their Winter 2019 issue. This is a never-before-published 35,000-word tale set in the same world as my short story The Hall of the Diamond Queen. 

Buy Deep Magic Magazine here:  amazon.com –  amazon.co.uk – amazon.ca – amazon.aus

You don’t have to have The Hall of the Diamond Queen to follow the novella but if you want to check it out for completeness it’s available free to subscribers of my mailing list or as part of the Unbound anthology from Grim Oak Press. 

In addition to Fire Wings this issue has two short stories, a novelette and one other novella to enjoy. Here’s the full table of contents:

Forged in Iron and Blood by Jeanna Mason Stay

The Job Prospects of History Majors by Alyssa Eckles

Fairy Lights by Laurie Lucking

A Power Arcane Caitlyn McFarland

Fire Wings by Anthony Ryan

The issue also has extended sample chapters for the following novels:

The Killing Fog by Jeff Wheeler

The Will and the Wilds by Charlie N. Holmberg

Raven’s Knight by Steve R. Yeager 

Find out more about Deep Magic on their website.

Officials have ordered cadaver skin for injured tourists following Monday's deadly eruption on White Island. Health officials reported some patients received burns on at least 30% of their bodies.

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Lual Mayen grew up in a camp in Uganda. Now he's the award-winning CEO of a game development company in Washington, D.C., that has just released 'Salaam' — a game about refugees and peace.

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Pending further investigation, Mayor Steven Fulop refrained from assigning a specifically anti-Semitic motive in the shooting Tuesday that left six people dead, including one police officer.

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It will be the third general election since 2015. The stakes are high, voters are weary and the two main candidates for prime minister are polarizing.

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This image of North and South America at night is a composite assembled from data acquired by the Suomi NPP satellite in April and October 2012.

She burst onto the world stage after organizing school strikes and protests to call attention to the climate crisis. The Swedish activist, 16, is the youngest person to earn the title.

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The electronics retailer, once declared dead, thrives by offering richer in-store experiences and helping set up customers’ gadgets at home.

The modern game night is a sacred ritual, so pay it homage with these board games, dice, pencils, and accessories.