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SCIENCE: Hidden Under the Ice

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Antarctica - pixabay

A huge, trillion-ton iceberg about the size of Delaware broke free from Antarctica’s Larsen C Ice Shelf in July 2017. As it moved away from its chilly birth mom and into the Weddell Sea, a vast expanse of water saw the light for the first time in up to 120,000 years. And this month, a team of scientists will venture to the long-ice-buried expanse to investigate the mysterious ecosystem that was hidden beneath the Antarctic ice shelf for so long. The newly exposed seabed stretches across an area of about 2,246 square miles (5,818 square kilometers), according to the British … Read more

ANNOUNCEMENT: Aerie, by Jon Keys

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Aerie

QSFer Jon Keys has a new MM fantasy book out: Askari, Dhala, and Gyam grew up as childhood friends during happier days for the Chinjoka, an Iron Age people with the ability to shapeshift, but now they must learn their place among the tribe while dealing with both a devastating plague and war with the Misiq. Ena is a young warrior for the more savage Misiq, a tribe whose cruelty exemplifies their deity-the Angry God. The Misiq, also shifters, have declared a genocidal war against the Chinjoka, blaming them for the disease devastating both tribes. As a result, they are … Read more

Me Me Monday!

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Me Me Monday

Welcome to M3: ME ME MONDAY at our FB discussion group – your chance to pop in and tell us about your latest success. Have a new book or short story coming out? Let us know. Just sell something? Let us know so we can cheer you on. HOW IT WORKS: I’ll pin this topic to the top of our FB discussion page for the day. –Please post your announcement as a separate post so we can comment on yours specifically –Check out the other posts and congratulate and share them too! And congratulations!!!

SPACE: New Horizons Spacecraft Reaches New Record

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Kuiper Belt Objects

The New Horizons spacecraft’s imager (called the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager) captured these false-color images in December 2017 of Kuiper Belt Objects 2012 HZ84 (left) and 2012 HE85. These are, for now, the farthest images from Earth ever captured by a spacecraft. The photos don’t look like much: blurry green splotches against pixelated blue. But they’re arguably among the most amazing photographic images ever. That’s because they were taken from the farthest point from planet Earth of any images ever captured, snapped by a spacecraft just over 3.79 billion miles (6.12 billion kilometers) from its home planet. That spacecraft is … Read more

U=(N/T)M*G: Found

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Sometimes, in the course of innocuous browsing for a topic, one comes across a cool bit of science and an unexpected tidbit pops up that really gets the muse going. This happened to me today. Almost two decades ago, NASA launched a little satellite whose mission was to study our magnetosphere. The neat little guy, IMAGE, sent us back a lot of real photographic gems of our little mudball and information that added to our scientific understanding of our world. It showed us the unique qualities of the protective, living shield our core generates, and how it interacts with our … Read more

ANNOUNCEMENT: Searching for My Killer, by Edward Kendrick

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Searching for My Killer

QSFer Edward Kendrick has a new MM paranormal book out: Sequel to Ghostly Investigations My name is Tonio, and I’m a ghost. I want to, need to, find out who killed me so I can move on. The problem is, I have no idea how to do so. Or I didn’t, until Brody and Jon showed up. They’re ghosts, too, and they know Mike, a police detective, and Sage, a medium who can speak with the dead. With their help, and mine, will it be possible for Mike to find out who pushed me off the lighting bridge at the … Read more

FOR READERS: The Title Did It

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Book Titles - pixabay

FOR READERS Today’s reader topic comes from QSFer Denise Dechene: I have a subject for the bucket-A lot of readers talk about covers. That the reason they picked the book up and read the blurb was because the cover grabbed them. My question is what about the title of the book? Have you picked up and read the blurb on a book because the title grabbed you and you had to know what the book was about? Has a title of a book made you turn away and not want to read the book? Writers: This is a reader chat … Read more

SCIENCE: The Paradox of Earth’s Inner Core

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Earth's core - NASA

Earth’s Inner Core Shouldn’t Technically Exist Earth’s solid inner core formed about one billion years ago. Researchers are getting closer to figuring out how it happened. One day, about a billion years ago, Earth’s inner core had a growth spurt. The molten ball of liquid metal at the center of our planet rapidly crystallized due to lowering temperatures, growing steadily outward until it reached the roughly 760-mile (1,220 kilometers) diameter to which it’s thought to extend today. That’s the conventional story of the inner core’s creation, anyway. But according to a new paper published online this week in the journal … Read more

ANNOUNCEMENT/GIVEAWAY: The Connoisseur, by Amy Hoff

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The Connoisseur

QSFer Amy Hoff has a new queer fantasy book out: Loka’i is known for its excesses. The cultural capital of the world is famous for its food, its wine, and its pleasures, but the jewel in the crown of the city are the men of the famed harem of Loka’i, chosen by the Connoisseur. Aiea, a young girl, is chosen as the next Connoisseur of Loka’i. She is immersed in a world of luxury and beauty, with a lingering darkness behind the gilded veneer. The shadow of war threatens to upset everything those in Loka’i hold dear, and the carefree … Read more