Anubis, protector of the gates to the Underworld, seated atop a chest, detail, found in the Tomb of Tutankhamun (KV62).
Anubis or Anpu was the god of embalming and the dead. Since jackals were often seen in cemeteries, the ancient Egyptians believed that Anubis watched over the dead. Anubis was the god who helped to embalm Osiris after he was killed by Seth.
Photo: Neil Harrison, from Tutankhamun Exhibition, 2013. Geneva, Switzerland.
Sounding like a huge swarm of angry bees or maybe a hedge trimmer on steroids, a small quadcopter lifts up off of a landing pad in front of the main hospital building on the WakeMed campus in Raleigh, N.C. Underneath it is a metal box — smaller than a shoebox — with vials of blood samples inside of it that are now heading across the campus to the lab for analysis, guided by a drone operator on the ground.
It’s not a long trip.
“This facility happens to be across a very busy road from our main campus hospital,” says Stuart Ginn, an ENT surgeon and medical director of innovations at WakeMed. But when taken by carrier on foot or by car, he says “the logistics of getting those samples across often resulted in about a 45-minute time of delivery.”
But now, with the drone?
“We’ve seen that drop to about 10 minutes, and that’s really door to door,” Ginn says. “The actual flight time one way is about three minutes because it’s not a long route.”
Saving that much time can, in some instances, save lives, and at the very least it should reduce delays in providing medical treatment.
Now, WakeMed’s partner in this endeavor, UPS subsidiary UPS Flight Forward, has won federal approval to expand its drone delivery operations, allowing the company to use multiple aircraft in multiple locations to make revenue-generating deliveries over longer distances.
NASA astronauts and best friends, Christina Koch and Jessica Meir, made history Friday, October 18, 2019, by conducting the first all-woman spacewalk outside the International Space Station (ISS)! The Expedition 61 flight engineers ventured into the vacuum of space at 7:38 a.m. EDT to swap out a failed power controller that regulates the batteries used to collect and distribute power to the orbital laboratory – a task that took a total of seven hours and 17 minutes to complete.
This was Koch’s fourth spacewalk and Meir’s first. Both women, selected as astronaut candidates in 2013, are on their first trip to work and live aboard the space station. Meir will be the 15th woman to spacewalk, and the 14th U.S. woman.
Get to know the astronauts
In addition to being an astronaut, Christina Koch is an engineer and physicist. Her career has taken her to extreme parts of the planet to conduct scientific field missions in places like the Antarctic South Pole and Greenland’s Summit Station. Prior to being selected as an astronaut candidate in 2013, she worked as an Electrical Engineer at our Goddard Space Flight Center’s Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics.
Jessica Meir dreamed of the day she would make it to space since the age of five. That dream became a reality on Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2019 as she left Earth on her first spaceflight – later floating into her new home aboard the International Space Station.
While Meir’s new home is more than 200 miles over the Earth, she is no stranger to extreme environments. She studied penguins in Antarctica and mapped caves in Italy – both of which prepared her for the ultimate extreme environment: space.
#AllWomanSpacewalk, what’s the deal?
The all-woman spacewalk wasn’t something we purposefully planned; it is a testament to the increasing number of female astronauts in the space program. For example, Koch’s and Meir’s 2013 class of astronaut candidates was 50 percent women!
When asked in an interview about the importance of conducting her mission and this spacewalk, Koch said,
“In the end, I do think it’s important, and I think it’s important because of the historical nature of what we’re doing. In the past women haven’t always been at the table. It’s wonderful to be contributing to the space program at a time when all contributions are being accepted, when everyone has a role. That can lead in turn to increased chance for success. There are a lot of people who derive motivation from inspiring stories of people who look like them, and I think it’s an important story to tell.”
It’s important to note that spacewalks are not easy; astronauts typically describe them as the most physically challenging thing they do. Assignments are made on the basis of which astronauts are the best prepared to accomplish the tasks at hand under the conditions at the time. Today, Koch and Meir were the top astronauts for the job.
Women are no stranger to spacewalks!
While this was the first spacewalk to be conducted entirely by women, women are no strangers to spacewalks. Exactly 35 years and one week ago, Kathryn Sullivan (pictured above) made her own historic debut as the first U.S. woman to conduct a spacewalk. Since then, a total of 14 women (15 including Jessica) have ventured into the vacuum of space on 40 different spacewalks. Former Astronaut Peggy Whitson performed a record number of 10! From Astronauts to mission directors, women have been making their mark at the agency for decades now. A few of our recent pioneers are:
Lori Glaze: Director of our Planetary Science Division
Coming soon: The first woman to walk on the Moon
The first all-woman spacewalk is a milestone worth noting and celebrating as we look forward to putting the first woman and the next man on the Moon by 2024 with our Artemis lunar exploration program. With today’s historic event, we once again set a precedence for women to lead in space exploration.
We hope achievements such as this provide inspiration to you all around the world, proving that hard work can lead you to great heights. This is not just a historic day for NASA, but a moment we can all feel proud of.
Didn’t have time to tune in? Check out the replay, here. Koch was wearing the spacesuit with red stripes, while Meir’s had no stripes.
If you’d like to keep up with Christian Koch and Jessica Meir’s work 254 miles above planet Earth, follow them on Twitter at @Astro_ Christina and @Astro_Jessica.
More of Quebecoiswolf’s work can be found here and here.
Every nerve on my body crackles with raw energy. I feel sweat on my forehead.
“Mom!” she yells. “You’re hurting me!”
I try to loosen my grip, but my fingers don’t work. I keep pulling Anna away, out of the side doors into the heat and the
rotten air. The sun is too bright. Every breath feels like razorblades forced into my lungs.
“MOM!” She claws at my hand. “Your… your eyes. There’s something wrong with your eyes.”
I can taste blood in my mouth, harsh and metallic. My tongue brushes over one of my bicuspids, feeling it wiggle.
Oh God… I know what this is. It has to be
lycanthropy! I must’ve gotten too close to Henderson!
If I’m infected, I have to let go before I infect Anna. But my hand won’t open. Every joint in my body aches like a rusted
machine forced into action.
“I’ll get a doctor,” says Anna, staring at me with wide green eyes. “No, we’ll go together. I’ll help you.”
The loose bicuspid drops free like a failed businessman stepping out of the tenth story window of his office.
It’s in my mouth. I spit it out, but then another loosens and another and…
“NO!” Finally, I pry my fingers open and push Anna away. “Stay back!”
She reaches out with shaking hands. “It’s okay, Mom. I’m not afraid of that. Just-”
I turn on my heels and run. Hair grows from under my skin like needles being driven through flesh. My ears are stretched
and stretched until they ring and throb in agony. The security guards have to be chasing me by now. Even if I sign their
paychecks, it won’t stop them from using nets and cattle prods, the same as they would with any other werewolf.
I pass soundstages, offices, trailers, and craft trucks. Actors and crewmen scatter like deer. I spit out loose teeth. My
tongue brushes over the sharp, predatory replacements that grow to fill the gaps. My shoulders push against the silk of
my blouse as bones move under skin.
Something snaps. I don’t know if it’s bone, skin, or clothing. There’s too much pain to tell where it hurts. I fall. My shoulder
slams into concrete. Every pain, every ache, and every throbbing nerve bursts into flame.
The world spins and spins and spins as if I’ve been drinking. I try to focus on one thing. One point. A tall cowboy in chaps
with a revolver. In that instant, I know that I’ve stumbled into soundstage one, where they’re filming
Waco Quick-Draw, a B-movie starting some idiot from the Oklahoma panhandle.
“Get back to work!” I shout.
Cast and crew gather around me like wolves closing around a kill, babbling with worry. I try to rise to my feet and escape,
but my body won’t move except to mutilate itself. My fingernails fall away to be replaced by vicious claws. Cartilage stretches
and my head feels like it’s being crushed. I can see it… my nose deforming, moving away from my face into a snout.
But the pain finally fades
The world goes black.
Read the rest in WEREWOLVES VERSUS: HOLLYWOOD! Download the entire issue for any price on Gumroad or Itch.io! Your purchase will benefit all of the contributors to this issue.
