City Arts is offering a series of artists’ commissions to run innovative and uplifting online workshops, with the aim of combating loneliness amongst people aged 55+. You will also contribute a written activity to an art pack and create a short, instructional, ‘How-To’ video for the web.

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Mount Etna is erupting again, and its hot lava fountains are illuminating the Sicilian sky.

The eruption began earlier this week, and Etna has since been spewing massive orange plumes of gas and thick clouds of ash.

Etna is Europe's most active volcano, and it erupts relatively often. The last major eruption was in 1992.

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Around the world many girls leave school before completing their education. It's said that those who stay to the end of high school have more agency and choice, but also earn more money and have fewer and healthier children.

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What would a world without vaccines look like? The Covid-19 pandemic has shown why we need vaccines. Thanks to vaccines, many of us have grown up without fear of contracting diseases such as polio and diphtheria. Do we take them for granted?

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The Salt Project and WFYI collaborated on a retrospective of the 75th anniversary of the classic Billie Holiday song "Strange Fruit." The video traces the dark inspiration for the song, and the redemptive power of art. The moving SALT video is followed by a powerful performance of the song by Marietta Simpson and Tyron Cooper.

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Watch real video of Perseverance’s Mars landing

The movie begins with the rover’s parachute opening above it as the rover and its landing gear enter the Martian atmosphere. Seconds later, a camera on the rover’s underside shows the heat shield falling toward the ground. If you look carefully, you can see one of the springs that pushed the heat shield off the rover came loose, said NASA engineer Allen Chen, the rover’s entry, descent and landing lead.

Science News

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Behold! The 1st panorama of Mars from the Perseverance rover

The car-sized rover snapped the panorama on Feb. 20, 2021, just two days after landing in Jezero Crater, an ancient lake on the Red Planet's surface, using its onboard Navigation Cameras (or Navcams). The panorama was created here on Earth with six individual images taken by the interplanetary robot's cameras.

Space.com

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WATCH: Mars Cam Views from NASA Rover

Mars 2020 is a Mars rover mission by NASA's Mars Exploration Program that includes the Perseverance rover with a planned launch on 30 July 2020 at 11:50 UTC, and touch down in Jezero crater on Mars on 18 February 2021.

NASA

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BBC

Simple and sublime seagrass meadows work naturally to absorb carbon. The leaves cause friction in the water and trap carbon from organic matter in the sediment. Yet industrial activity and pollution has damaged and reduced the extent of the meadows around the UK coast.

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BBC

The American space agency has successfully landed its Perseverance rover in a deep crater near the planet's equator called Jezero.

"The good news is the spacecraft, I think, is in great shape," said Matt Wallace, the mission's deputy project manager.

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BBC

Trees soak up carbon dioxide, trees store carbon dioxide. So why not build with wood instead of concrete and steel? The usual reason is strength, but Dr Michael Ramage at Cambridge University has what he thinks is the answer- cross-laminated timber.

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Guardian

John was 15 when a member of his Facebook group volunteered to become Britain’s “first white suicide bomber”. Another advocated attending Friday prayers at the local mosque and “slaying people where they stood”. Another wanted to firebomb the place of worship.

Ultimately, no blood was spilt. Police soon raided several homes linked to the group. John and a friend – also 15 and an adherent of far-right ideology – buried an arsenal of knives and machetes to ensure officers never found them.

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Midlands Movies

What are we planning? Well, we all know the challenges faced in the last 12 months, but to give the awards ceremony the best chance of occurring we delayed our regular March event until later in the year. (Click here for full announcement)

So, in place of a crowdfunding campaign to cover costs beforehand, we’ve decided to put the event planning on hold but still get things moving by opening the awards to filmmakers as quick as possible.

When and where can I submit my film? With the above in mind, we’re therefore incredibly excited to announce on Friday 12th February we will open for submissions for the Midlands Movies Awards 2021 via FilmFreeway here

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National Geographical

Having signed the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature, committing to reversing biodiversity loss by 2030, the Prime Minister addressed the Leaders for Nature and People Event, channelling Attenborough and promising to, “put the issue of biodiversity and reversing the loss of species and habitat at the very heart of our ambitions for humanity and this planet.”

Yet while the Prime Minister was warning against upsetting the delicate balance of nature and pledging to take immediate action on biodiversity loss, licensed shooters were carrying out his government’s plan to cull up to 65,000 badgers: a native species, legally protected under the Protection of Badgers Act 1992.

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Independent

A Chinese spacecraft has arrived at Mars and is preparing to explore its surface, the country has said.

The Tianwen-1 spacecraft is one of three missions to the red planet arriving this month. It comes a day after a UAE spaceraft successfully went into orbit around the planet, and ahead of the arrival of Nasa's Perseverance rover.

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Guardian

Air pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil was responsible for 8.7m deaths globally in 2018, a staggering one in five of all people who died that year, new research has found.

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Bursary Awards help film exhibitors access professional development opportunities, improve their skills and boost their confidence.

We want to support your organisation’s individual training needs and can contribute to travel costs, event fees and accommodation expenses to get you where you need to be.

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Guardian

In January 1804, the West Indian island of Saint-Domingue became the world’s first black republic. The Africans toiling on the sugar-rich plantations overthrew their French masters and declared independence. The name Saint-Domingue was replaced by the aboriginal Taíno Indian word Haiti (meaning “mountainous land”) and the Haitian flag created when the white band was ceremonially ripped from the French tricolour. Two hundred years on, Haiti’s is the only successful slave revolution in history. It was led by Toussaint Louverture, a Haitian former slave and emblem of slavery’s hoped-for abolition throughout the Americas.

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BBC

We’re resourceful, adaptable and the smartest thing this planet has ever seen. We got ourselves into this mess but we can get ourselves out of it. BBC Radio Four, in partnership with the Royal Geographical Society presents 39 ideas to relieve the stress that climate change is exerting on the planet.

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Grey Moth Originals is committed to building a fairer, kinder, and better creative industry than the existing one. We want to actively springboard emerging filmmakers into the industry.

Our first £5k funding pot is now open for applications!

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When the first lockdown happened last summer, and suddenly families were home-schooling, we found some useful online resources to support parents, particularly with reading and writing. These are still available, but here we highlight some that are available now, either new resources, or tried and trusted.

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More than 97% of meadows have been destroyed, but the fight is now on to restore them. They are essential for plants and insects – but is it wise to lose food-producing fields?

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We all know that running, jogging and walking are a great way to look after your mental wellbeing and your heart, but did you know it’s a great way of looking after your physical brain health too?

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Browse the 25 photographs featured below and vote for the one you think should win this year's People's Choice Award. Voting closes at 14.00 GMT on 2 February 2021.

The winner will be announced on 10 February 2021.

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Is Earth FLAT or ROUND? Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye The Science Guy, and NASA's Michelle Thaller present the evidence to end this conspiracy theory once and for all!

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The Black Lives Matter movement has been nominated for the 2021 Nobel peace prize by Norwegian MP Petter Eide.

In nomination papers submitted to the committee Eide credited the movement for forcing countries to grapple with racism and bringing about systematic change across the world.

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Deadline 1st Feb

We are looking for a creatively curious visual artist and an author/writer who get excited about a blank page, like to think imaginatively and enjoy sparking off other people!

Each year Inspire: Culture, Learning and Libraries commission an artist and author to create and deliver a programme of visual art and literacy activity for children and families, inspired by and linked to the Summer Reading Challenge.

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What with Lockdown and the absence of any races to focus on, not only has Guy got out of the habit of running, he has also put on rather more weight than even he would have expected over the festival period.

Consequently he has decided to grab the nettle firmly, get off his butt and run 150 miles before Easter and in the process raise much needed funds for Hothouse Theatre’s Accelerated Literacy Project.

Accelerated Literacy

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