Tootfinder

Rafferty, Cowboys OL from 1976-89, dies at 70 https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/45464143/tom-rafferty-former-cowboys-ol-1976-89-dies-70

Some statistics about all robotic #LunarLanding attempts so far from 1965 to 2025 compiled from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_the_Moon and https://scicomm.xyz/@AkaSci@fosstodon.org/114636519291241321 in which I only count those for which descent to the surface had been initiated, not missions lost at launch or on the way - in a nutshell ~70% of all landings by government agencies went well (essentially the same rate 60 years ago and now!) but only ~30% by private companies. Here goes ...
There have been two separate periods of soft lunar landing attempts of ca. a dozen years each, from 1965 to 1976 and 2013 to 2025 (ongoing) with a huge gap between them.
In the first interval there were 20 attempts with 13 successes (Luna 9, 13, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21 and 24 and Surveyor 1, 3, 5, 6 and 7), one partial success (Luna 23, counting as 50%) and 6 failures (Luna 5, 7, 8, 15 and 18 and Surveyor 4), so the success rate was 13.5/20 = 68 %. All missions were by - the Soviet and U.S. - governments.
In the second interval there were so far 14 attempts with 6 full successes (Chang'e-3, 4, 5 and 6, Vikram 2 and Blue Ghost), three partial successes (SLIM, IM-1 and 2, counting as 75%, 50% and 25%, respectively) and 5 failures (Beresheet, Vikram 1, Hakuto-R 1 and 2 and Luna 25) so the success rate was 7.5 / 14 = 54%.
But looking only at the government missions it was 72%, slighly up from 50 years ago. While for the commercial attempts it was only 29%. In total the success rate was 19 (18 government-run) missions out of 34 (28) attempts or 62% but 69% for governments only. And if you throw in the 6 Apollo landings, the total success rate rises to 68% and the government-only rate goes even up to 75%.

Extreme #Temperaturen in großen Seen haben sich in den letzten Jahrzehnten massiv verstärkt.
#Hitzewellen und #Kälteperioden sind heute über 100 % intensiver als vor 1996. Dies…

Climate change-induced amplification of extreme temperatures in large lakes - Communications Earth & Environment
The world’s largest freshwater bodies have experienced a 20-60% increase in lake surface temperature extremes over the past 50 years, with heatwave and cold-spell intensities more than doubling after 1996 or 1976, according to a hydrodynamic-ice model driven by climate data.

Stellar distributions around supermassive black holes in gas-rich nuclear star clusters
Mor Rozner, Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.04229 ht…

Stellar distributions around supermassive black holes in gas-rich nuclear star clusters
We study the stellar distribution around supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in gas-rich nuclear star clusters (NSCs). NSCs could contain vast amounts of gas, which contribute significantly to shaping the stellar distribution, typically altering the stellar density cusp from the usual Bahcall \& Wolf 1976 solution and consequently affecting the dynamics in the NSC. The dense gaseous environment in NSCs gives rise to dynamical phenomena that are otherwise rare in other gas-free environments. Here w…

Heute vor 48 Jahren: Am 2. Juni 1977 zündeten die #USA im Rahmen von Operation Fulcrum die 15. Atombombe "Forefoot". Fulcrum war eine Serie von #Kernwaffentests bei der 1976/77 insgesamt 24 Bomben im Testgebiet in

https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/de/2025/05/20/ausweitung-des-abpumpverbots-in-westflandern-es-ist-bereits-so/

Ausweitung des Abpumpverbots in Westflandern: "Es ist bereits so trocken wie im legendären Sommer 1976" | VRT NWS: nachrichten
Das Abpumpverbot in Westflandern wird ausgeweitet. Landwirte dürfen auch aus den Flüssen Mandel, Hertsbergebeek und aus dem Trinkwasser-Reservebecken Blankaart kein Wasser mehr abpumpen. In vier weiteren Einzugsgebieten ist dies bereits seit über einer Woche der Fall. Auch das Wasser aus dem Yser (Ijzer in NL) darf vorerst nicht mehr zur Trinkwassergewinnung genutzt werden, weil die Qualität aufgrund von „enormer Versalzung“ nicht ausreicht.

Heute vor 49 Jahren: Am 28. Mai 1976 unterzeichneten Präsident Gerald Ford und Generalsekretär Leonid Brezhnev den PNE-Vertrag (Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty) für unterirdische Kernexplosionen zu friedlichen Zwecken, vereinbar mit dem #Atomwaffensperrvertrag.

"In Boston, between 1709 and 1713, townspeople protested vigorously and then took extralegal action when Andrew Belcher, a wealthy merchant, refused to stop exporting grain during a bread shortage in the city...he chose to export grain to the Caribbean, at a handsome profit, rather than sell it for a smaller profit to hungry townspeople, his ships were attacked and his warehouses emptied by an angry crowd...Bostonians of meagre means learned that through concerted action, the powerless could become powerful, if only for the moment. Wealthy merchants who would not listen to pleas from the community could be forced through collective action to subordinate profits to the public need."
- Gary B. Nash, "Social Change and the Growth of Prerevolutionary Urban Radicalism" in The American Revolution (ed. Alfred F. Young, Northern Illinois University Press, 1976), pg. 11
#history #politics #america #quote

Heute vor 48 Jahren: Am 25. Mai 1977 zündeten die #USA im Rahmen von Operation Fulcrum die 14. Atombombe "Crewline". Fulcrum war eine Serie von #Kernwaffentests bei der 1976/77 insgesamt 24 Bomben im Testgebiet in