BUGS BUNNY'S ANNIVERSARY: EH, WHAT'S UP DOC?

Mel Blanc, the Bugs Bunny's voice

Today, The Grandma has reviewed a new lesson of her Intermediate Language Practice manual (Chapter 30). 

The Grandma is a great fan of Looney Tunes, especially Coyote, and today is the 78th anniversary of the first appearance of Bugs Bunny one of the Looney Tunes greatest stars. 

Congratulations Bugs! Thanks for hours and hours of humour and entertainment, generation after generation.

More information: Place and Position I & II

Bugs Bunny is an animated cartoon character created by L. Schlesinger Productions, later Warner Bros. Cartoons in the late 1930s and voiced originally by Mel Blanc.

Bugs is best known for his starring roles in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of animated short films, produced by Warner Bros. Though a similar character debuted in the WB cartoon Porky's Hare Hunt (1938) and appeared in a few subsequent shorts, the definitive character of Bugs is widely credited to have made his debut in director Tex Avery's Oscar-nominated film A Wild Hare (1940).

More information: Warner Bros

Bugs is an anthropomorphic gray and white hare or rabbit who is famous for his flippant, insouciant personality. He is also characterized by a Brooklyn accent, his portrayal as a trickster, and his catch phrase Eh... What's up, doc? Due to Bugs' popularity during the golden age of American animation, he became an American cultural icon and the official mascot of Warner Bros. Entertainment. He can thus be seen in the older Warner Bros. company intros.

Bugs Bunny's first appearance

Since his debut, Bugs has appeared in various short films, feature films, compilations, TV series, music records, comic books, video games, award shows, amusement park rides, and commercials. 

He has also appeared in more films than any other cartoon character, is the ninth most-portrayed film personality in the world, and has his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

While Porky's Hare Hunt was the first Warner Bros. cartoon to feature a Bugs Bunny-like rabbit, A Wild Hare, directed by Tex Avery and released on July 27, 1940, is widely considered to be the first official Bugs Bunny cartoon.

It is the first film where both Elmer Fudd and Bugs, both redesigned by Bob Givens, are shown in their fully developed forms as hunter and tormentor, respectively; the first in which Mel Blanc uses what would become Bugs' standard voice; and the first in which Bugs uses his catchphrase, What's up, Doc? A Wild Hare was a huge success in theaters and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Cartoon Short Subject.

More information: Neatorama

By 1942, Bugs had become the number one star of Merrie Melodies. The series was originally intended only for one-shot characters in films after several early attempts to introduce characters, Foxy, Goopy Geer, and Piggy, failed under Harman–Ising. By the mid-1930s, under Leon Schlesinger, Merrie Melodies started introducing newer characters.

Bugs Bunny's evolution

Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid (1942) shows a slight redesign of Bugs, with less-prominent front teeth and a rounder head. 

Bugs was used to advertise World War II because they were low on troops so they found out the most athletic adults watched Bugs Bunny so they used that to attract them into the war so they could fight. In company with cartoon studios such as Disney and Famous Studios, Warners pitted its characters against Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Francisco Franco, and the Japanese.

More information: Smithsonian

After World War II, Bugs continued to appear in numerous Warner Bros. cartoons, making his last Golden Age appearance in False Hare (1964). He starred in over 167 theatrical short films.

In the fall of 1960, ABC debuted the prime-time television program The Bugs Bunny Show. This show packaged many of the post-1948 Warners cartoons with newly animated wraparounds. After two seasons, it was moved from its evening slot to reruns on Saturday mornings.

Bugs Bunny in Herr Meets Hare (1945)

The Bugs Bunny Show changed format and exact title frequently but remained on network television for 40 years. 

The packaging was later completely different, with each cartoon simply presented on its own, title and all, though some clips from the new bridging material were sometimes used as filler.

From the late 1970s through the early 1990s, Bugs was featured in various animated specials for network television.

Bugs returned to the silver screen in Box-Office Bunny (1991). This was the first Bugs Bunny cartoon since 1964 to be released in theaters and it was created for Bugs' 50th anniversary celebration.

More information: Today in History

In 1996, Bugs and the other Looney Tunes characters appeared in the live-action/animated film, Space Jam, directed by Joe Pytka and starring NBA superstar Michael Jordan. The film also introduced the character Lola Bunny, who becomes Bugs' new love interest.

Bugs Bunny aka Ióssif Stalin in Herr Meets Hare

In 1997, Bugs appeared on a U.S. postage stamp, the first cartoon to be so honored, beating the iconic Mickey Mouse. The stamp is number seven on the list of the ten most popular U.S. stamps, as calculated by the number of stamps purchased but not used.

A younger version of Bugs is the main character of Baby Looney Tunes, which debuted on Kids' WB in 2001. In the action comedy Loonatics Unleashed, his definite descendant Ace Bunny is the leader of the Loonatics team and seems to have inherited his ancestor's Brooklyn accent and comic wit.

In 2011, Bugs Bunny and the rest of the Looney Tunes gang returned to television in the Cartoon Network sitcom, The Looney Tunes Show.

In 2015, Bugs starred in the direct-to-video film Looney Tunes: Rabbits Run, and later returned to television yet again as the star of Cartoon Network and Boomerang's comedy series New Looney Tunes, formerly Wabbit.

Watch Looney Tunes Cartoon Compilation

Carrots are devine... 

You get a dozen for a dime, It's maaaa-gic!

Bugs Bunny

GERDA TARO: PHOTOJOURNALISM DURING THE WAR

Gerta Pohorylle aka Gerda Taro

Dedicated to Jordi Borràs. 

Ni un pas enrere!

Today, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Intermediate Language Practice manual (Chapter 29).

More information: It/There I , II & III

In the evening, The Grandma has had dinner with Claire Fontaine and they have been talking about Gerda Taro, the German photojournalist who died on a day like today in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. Claire and The Grandma admire Taro and her photos and they want to talk about her and her work.

Gerda Taro (1 August 1910, Stuttgart, Germany-26 July 1937, near Brunete, Spain) was a German war photographer, and the companion and professional partner of photographer Robert Capa. Her real name was real name Gerta Pohorylle. Taro is regarded as the first female photojournalist to cover the front lines of a war and to die while doing so. She heavily contributed to the early days of the work accredited to the alias Robert Capa.

Gerta Pohorylle was born in 1910 in Stuttgart, Kingdom of Württemberg, into a middle-class Jewish Galician family. Pohorylle attended a Swiss boarding school. In 1929, the family moved to Leipzig, just prior to the beginning of Nazi Germany. Taro opposed the Nazi Party, joining leftist groups. 

Gerda Taro

In 1933, she was arrested and detained for distributing anti-Nazi propaganda. Eventually, the entire Pohorylle household was forced to leave Nazi Germany toward different destinations. Taro would not see her family again.

Escaping the anti-Semitism of Hitler's Germany, Pohorylle moved to Paris in 1934. In 1935, she met the photojournalist Endre Friedmann, a Hungarian Jew, learning photography and becoming his personal assistant. They fell in love. Pohorylle began to work for Alliance Photo as a picture editor.

In 1936, Pohorylle received her first photojournalist credential. Then, she and Friedmann devised a plan. Both took news photographs, but these were sold as the work of the non-existent American photographer Robert Capa, which was a convenient name overcoming the increasing political intolerance prevailing in Europe and belonging in the lucrative American market.

Capa was derived from Friedmann's Budapest street nickname Cápa which means Shark in Hungarian. The secret did not last long, but Friedman kept the more commercial name Capa for his own name, while Pohorylle adopted the professional name of Gerda Taro after the Japanese artist Tarō Okamoto and Swedish actress Greta Garbo. 

More information: BBC

The two worked together to cover the events surrounding the coming to power of the Popular Front in 1930s France.

When the Spanish Civil War broke out (1936), Gerda Taro travelled to Barcelona to cover the events with Capa and David Chim Seymour. Taro acquired the nickname of La pequeña rubia , The little blonde. They covered the war together at northeastern Aragon and at the southern Córdoba.

 

Gerda Taro & Robert Capa

Always together under the common, bogus signature of Robert Capa, they were successful through many important publications, the Swiss Züricher Illustrierte, the French Vu. 

Their early war photos are distinguishable since Taro used a Rollei camera which rendered squared photographs while Capa produced rectangular Leica pictures. However, for some time in 1937 they produced similar 135 film pictures together under the label of Capa&Taro.

Subsequently, Taro attained some independence. She refused Capa's marriage proposal. Also, she became publicly related to the circle of anti fascist European intellectuals, Ernest Hemingway, George Orwell, who crusaded particularly for the Spanish Republic.

The Ce Soir, a leftist newspaper of France, signed her for publishing Taro's works only. Then, she began to commercialize her production under the Photo Taro label. Regards, Life, Illustrated London News and Volks-Illustrierte were amongst those publications. 

Reporting the Valencia bombing alone, Gerda Taro attained the photographs which are her most celebrated. Also, in July 1937, Taro's photographs were in demand by the international press when, alone, she was covering the Brunete region near Madrid for Ce Soir.

More information: The Telegraph

Although the Nationalist propaganda claimed that the region was under its control, the Republican forces had in fact forced that faction out. Taro's camera was the only testimony of the actual situation.

During her coverage of the Republican army retreat at the Battle of Brunete, Taro hopped onto the footboard of a car that was carrying wounded soldiers, then a Republican tank crashed into its side. Taro suffered critical wounds and died the next day, July 26, 1937. 

Gerda Taro

The circumstances of Taro's death have been questioned by British journalist Robin Stummer, writing in the New Statesman magazine.  

Stummer cited Willy Brandt, later Chancellor of West Germany, and a friend of Taro's during the Spanish Civil War, saying that she had been the victim of the Stalinist purge of Communists and Socialists in Spain not aligned to Moscow. However, Stummer provided no other evidence for this claim.

In an interview with the Spanish daily El País, a nephew of a Republican soldier at the Battle of Brunete explained that she had died in an accident. According to the eye-witness account, she had been run over by a reversing tank and she died from her wounds in El Goloso English hospital a few hours later.

Due to her political commitment, Taro had become an anti-fascist figure. On August 1, 1937, on what would have been her 27th birthday, the French Communist Party gave her a grand funeral in Paris, buried her at Père Lachaise Cemetery, and commissioned Alberto Giacometti to create a monument for her grave.

More information: The New York Times

 

 In a war, you must hate somebody or love somebody; 

you must have a position or you cannot stand what goes on. 

Robert Capa

THE WAY OF SAINT JAMES & THE GAME OF THE GOOSE

The Catalan-Aragonese Kings' mausoleum, Poblet

Today, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Intermediate Language Practice (Chapter 28). 

After doing these activities, The Grandma has visited the monastery of Santa Maria de Poblet where Jaume I The Conqueror is buried.

She has wanted to remember this king in the day of his festivity and investigate about the real connections between the Way of Saint James, the Game of the Goose and Jaume I The Conqueror. 

Welcome to one of the most amazing secrets in our history...

More information: Questions 2 - I , II & III

The Pilgrimage of Compostela, known in English as the Way of Saint James among other names, is a network of pilgrims' ways serving pilgrimage to the shrine of the apostle Saint James the Great in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, where tradition has it that the remains of the saint are buried. Many follow its routes as a form of spiritual path or retreat for their spiritual growth.

The French Way and the Routes of Northern Spain are the courses which are listed in the World Heritage List by UNESCO.

Saint James the Apostle

The Way of Saint James was one of the most important Christian pilgrimages during the Middle Ages, together with those to Rome and Jerusalem, and a pilgrimage route on which a plenary indulgence could be earned; other major pilgrimage routes include the Via Francigena to Rome and the pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

Legend holds that Saint James's remains were carried by boat from Jerusalem to northern Iberian Peninsula, where he was buried in what is now the city of Santiago de Compostela. The name Santiago is the local Galician evolution of Vulgar Latin Sancti Iacobi, Sant Iago in Asturian and Saint James in English.

The Way can take one of dozens of pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela. Traditionally, as with most pilgrimages, the Way of Saint James began at one's home and ended at the pilgrimage site. However, a few of the routes are considered main ones. During the Middle Ages, the route was highly travelled. However, the Black Death, the Protestant Reformation, and political unrest in 16th century Europe led to its decline. 

More information: Camino de Santiago

By the 1980s, only a few hundred pilgrims per year registered in the pilgrim's office in Santiago. In October 1987, the route was declared the first European Cultural Route by the Council of Europe; it was also named one of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites. Since the 1980s the route has attracted a growing number of modern-day international pilgrims.

Whenever St. James's Day, 25 July, falls on a Sunday, the cathedral declares a Holy or Jubilee Year.

Zogo del'Oca de Miran

The Game of the Goose is a board game where two or more players move pieces around a track by rolling a die. The aim of the game is to reach square number sixty-three before any of the other players, avoid obstacles such as the Inn, the Bridge and Death.

The game is thought to have originated in the 16th century, and is considered the prototype of many of the commercial European racing board games of later centuries. The game is mostly played in Europe and seen as family entertainment. Commercial versions of the game appeared in the 1880s and 1890s, and feature typical old European characteristics such as an old well and children in clothes from the period.

The game's origins are uncertain. Some connect the game with the Phaistos Disc because of its spiral shape.

The board consists of a track with consecutively numbered spaces, usually 63, and is often arranged in a spiral with the starting point at the outside. Each player's piece is moved according to throws of one or two dice. Scattered throughout the board are a number of spaces on which a goose is depicted; landing on a goose allows the player to move again by the same distance. 

More information: Master of Games

Additional shortcuts, such as spaces marked with a bridge, move the player to some other specified position. There are also a few penalty spaces which force the player to move backwards or lose one or more turns, the most recognizable being the one marked with a skull and symbolizing death; landing on this space results in the player being sent back to start.

Why are the Way of Saint James and the Game of the Goose related?

The popular board game would be really a crypto map and its creation could be related to the Knights Templar.

The Grandma in the Poblet Route

It is very likely that most of us have spent rainy afternoons playing the game of the goose, childlike at first glance, but it could save a studied symbolism hidden from those who do not look with suitable eyes. The origin of this popular game is uncertain: some attribute it to disk of Festo, one of the most fascinating archaeological mysteries unsolved; others, in medieval Florence of the Medicis and finally, is attributed to the creation of the Templars in the twelfth century, inspired by the Way of Saint James.

Knights Templar protected pilgrims on their journey to Rome, Jerusalem and Santiago de Compostela, considered holy places for Christianity, being the route to Santiago where the Templars got more power and influence. The current French Way was not a very safe place in the Middle Ages, especially as some territories crossed areas outside the Christian control. For this reason, the Templars have designed a crypto map where the 63 squares of the board correspond to certain points of the Way of Saint James.

More information: Ancient Origins

Each of the symbols of the boxes would refer to emblems and signs that the Master Builders have placed in relevant parts of the road, including mentions that the first bridge board could correspond with the town of Puente la Reina in Navarra. 

The cryptographic encryption board? Starting in Roncesvalles and end in Finisterre, would be created to give a code that any Templar could understand regardless of their mother tongue and could memorize without having to carry the board in tow.

Jaume I, El Conqueridor

Another theory studies this crypto map like an exile escape way by the Gypsies and the Occitans, communities that took different paths: the first ones to the west and south of the Iberian Peninsula and the second ones to te British Islands.

This theory doesn't talk about the apostle Saint James the Great but Jaume I El Conqueridor (The Conqueror), the king of the Catalan-Aragonese crown who helped Cathars and Gypsies to escape from the Pope of Avinhon.

Beyond these possible theories of origin of the game, many interpretations verging speculation and although the correspondence between squares and landmarks of the Way of Saint James is attributed, these are unclear.

Only searching and investigation could arrive in a closer future to offer us more information about this route and this game but meanwhile we can imagine and believe whatever we want.

Open your mind and don't believe in official channels because words are the best allies to discover the past. We only have to find them and decodified them.

More information: Monestir de Poblet

He walked along a little farther and saw James, the son of Zebedee, 

and his brother John. They too were in a boat mending their nets. 

Then he called them. So they left their father Zebedee in the boat 

along with the hired men and followed him.

Mark 1:19-20

PETER SELLERS: THE GREAT CHIEF INSPECTOR CLOUSEAU

Peter Sellers

Today, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Intermediate Language Practice manual (Chapter 27). After doing her homework, The Grandma has watched Murder by Death a masterpiece.

It's a 1976 American satirical mystery comedy film with a cast featuring Eileen Brennan, Truman Capote, James Coco, Peter Falk, Alec Guinness, Elsa Lanchester, David Niven, Peter Sellers, Maggie Smith, Nancy Walker, and Estelle Winwood, written by Neil Simon and directed by Robert Moore.

More information: Questions 1 - I & II

The plot is a broad parody or spoof of the traditional country-house whodunit, familiar to mystery fiction fans of classics such as Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. The cast is an ensemble of British and American actors playing send-ups of well-known fictional sleuths, including Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Charlie Chan, Nick and Nora Charles, and Sam Spade. It also features a rare acting performance by author Truman Capote.

The Grandma is a great fan of Agatha Christie's novels and she adores her fictional characters Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.

The Pink Panther film

On a day like today thirty-eight years ago, Peter Sellers, one of the best comedians and one of the main characters in Murder by Death, died in London. The Grandma wants to remember him and talk a little about his interesting life, his career and Chief Inspector Clouseau, one of his most memorable performances.

Peter Sellers (8 September 1925-24 July 1980) was an English film actor, comedian and singer. He performed in the BBC Radio comedy series The Goon Show, featured on a number of hit comic songs and became known to a worldwide audience through his many film characterisations, among them Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther series of films.

Born in Portsmouth, Sellers made his stage debut at the Kings Theatre, Southsea, when he was two weeks old. He began accompanying his parents in a variety act that toured the provincial theatres. He first worked as a drummer and toured around England as a member of the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA). He developed his mimicry and improvisational skills during a spell in Ralph Reader's wartime Gang Show entertainment troupe, which toured Britain and the Far East.

More information: Biography

After the war, Sellers made his radio debut in ShowTime, and eventually became a regular performer on various BBC radio shows. During the early 1950s, Sellers, along with Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine, took part in the successful radio series The Goon Show, which ended in 1960.

Peter Sellers as Chief Inspector Clouseau

Sellers began his film career during the 1950s. Although the bulk of his work was comedic, often parodying characters of authority such as military officers or policemen, he also performed in other film genres and roles. 

Films demonstrating his artistic range include I'm All Right Jack (1959), Stanley Kubrick's Lolita (1962) and Dr. Strangelove (1964), What's New, Pussycat? (1965), Casino Royale (1967), The Party (1968), Being There (1979) and five films of the Pink Panther series (1963–78). 

Sellers's versatility enabled him to portray a wide range of comic characters using different accents and guises, and he would often assume multiple roles within the same film, frequently with contrasting temperaments and styles. Satire and black humour were major features of many of his films, and his performances had a strong influence on a number of later comedians.

More information: Ranker

Sellers was nominated three times for an Academy Award, twice for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performances in Dr. Strangelove and Being There, and once for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film for The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film (1959). He won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role twice, for I'm All Right Jack and for the original Pink Panther film, The Pink Panther (1963) and was nominated as Best Actor three times. 

Peter Sellers

In 1980 he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor-Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his role in Being There, and was previously nominated three times in the same category. Turner Classic Movies calls Sellers one of the most accomplished comic actors of the late 20th century.

In his personal life, Sellers struggled with depression and insecurities. An enigmatic figure, he often claimed to have no identity outside the roles that he played. His behaviour was often erratic and compulsive, and he frequently clashed with his directors and co-stars, especially in the mid-1970s when his physical and mental health, together with his alcohol and drug problems, were at their worst.  

Sellers was married four times, and had three children from his first two marriages. He died as a result of a heart attack in 1980, aged 54. English filmmakers the Boulting brothers described Sellers as the greatest comic genius this country has produced since Charles Chaplin.

More information: Open Culture

New York magazine stated that all of the films starring Sellers as Clouseau showcased his comedic brilliance. Sellers's friend and Goon Show colleague Spike Milligan said that Sellers had one of the most glittering comic talents of his age. Irv Slifkin said that the most prominent albeit ever-changing face in comedies of the sixties was Sellers who changed like a chameleon throughout the era, dazzling audiences. 

Sellers and The Goon Show were a strong influence on the Monty Python performers, as well as on Peter Cook, who described Sellers as the best comic actor in the world.

More information: Pinterest

I feel ghostly unreal until I become 

somebody else again on the screen. 

Peter Sellers

KEPLER-452B, THE EARTH'S COUSIN WAS DISCOVERED

Joseph at the Garraf Astronomical Observatory

Today, The Grandma and Joseph de Ca'th Lon have been visiting an amazing place in a beautiful range, the Garraf Astronomical Observatory.

Joseph is a great expert in Astronomy and has explained her the last news about Kepler-452b, one of the last planets that has been discoved and one very similar to the Earth.

Before visiting the Garraf Astronomical Observatory, The Grandma has studied another lesson of her Intermediate Language Practice manual (Chapter 26). 

More information: Relative Clauses III & IV
 

Kepler-452b, a planet sometimes quoted to be an Earth 2.0 or Earth's Cousin, based on its characteristics; known sometimes as Coruscant by NASA, also known by its Kepler Object of Interest designation KOI-7016.01, is an exoplanet orbiting the Sun-like star Kepler-452 about 1,400 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus.

Kepler 452b

It was identified by the Kepler space telescope, and its discovery was announced by NASA on 23 July 2015. However, a study in 2018 by Mullally et al. implied that statistically, Kepler-452 b has not been proven to exist and must still be considered a candidate. 

It is the first potentially rocky super-Earth planet discovered orbiting within the habitable zone of a star very similar to the Sun.

The planet is about 1,400 light-years away from the Solar System. At the speed of the New Horizons spacecraft, about 59,000 km/h, it would take approximately 26 million years to get there.

More information: NASA

Kepler-452b has a probable mass five times that of Earth, and its surface gravity is twice Earth's, though calculations of mass for exoplanets are only rough estimates. If it is a terrestrial planet, it is most likely a super-Earth with many active volcanoes due to its higher mass and density. The clouds on the planet would be thick and misty, covering much of the surface as viewed from space.

The Grandma is arriving to the Observatory

The planet takes 385 Earth days to orbit its star. Its radius is 50% bigger than Earth's, and lies within the conservative habitable zone of its parent star. 

It has an equilibrium temperature of 265 K, a little warmer than Earth. The host star, Kepler-452, is a G-type star that is about the same mass of the Sun, only 3.7% more massive and 11% larger.

It has a surface temperature of 5757 K, nearly the same as the Sun, which has a surface temperature of 5778 K. The star's age is estimated to be about 6 billion years old, about 1.4 billion years older than the Sun, which is 4.6 billion years old. From the surface of Kepler-452b, its star would look almost identical to the Sun as viewed from the Earth.

The star's apparent magnitude, or how bright it appears from Earth's perspective, is 13.426. Therefore, it is too dim to be seen with the naked eye.

More information: NASA

Kepler-452b orbits its host star with about 20% more of the Sun's luminosity with an orbital period of 385 days and an orbital radius of about 1.04 AU, nearly the same as Earth's (1 AU).

It is not known if Kepler-452b is a rocky planet but based on its small radius, Kepler-452b is likely rocky. It is not clear if Kepler-452b offers habitable environments. It orbits a G2V-type star, like the Sun, with nearly the same temperature and mass and 20% more luminous. However, the star is six billion years old, making it 1.4 billion years older than the Sun. At this point in its star's evolution, Kepler-452b is receiving 10% more energy from its parent star than Earth is currently receiving from the Sun.

Kepler's Small Habitable Zone Planets

If Kepler-452b is a rocky planet, it may be subject to a runaway greenhouse effect similar to that seen on Venus.

This in turn would be accompanied with the carbonate–silicate cycle being buffed in duration due to increased volcanic activity on Kepler-452b. 

This could allow any potential life on the surface to continue to evolve for another 500–900 million years before the habitable zone is pushed out of Kepler-452b's orbit.

In 2009, NASA's Kepler spacecraft was observing stars on its photometer, the instrument it uses to detect transit events, in which a planet crosses in front of and dims its host star for a brief and roughly regular period of time. 

More information: NASA

In this last test, Kepler observed 50000 stars in the Kepler Input Catalog, including Kepler-452; the preliminary light curves were sent to the Kepler science team for analysis, who chose obvious planetary companions from the bunch for follow-up at observatories. 

Observations for the potential exoplanet candidates took place between 13 May 2009 and 17 March 2012. After observing the respective transits, which for Kepler-452b occurred roughly every 385 days, its orbital period, it was eventually concluded that a planetary body was responsible for the periodic 385-day transits. The discovery was announced on July 23, 2015 in an announcement made by NASA.

Joseph & The Grandma at the Garraf

At nearly 1,400 light-years distant, Kepler-452b is too remote and its star too far for current telescopes or the next generation of planned telescopes to determine its true mass or whether it has an atmosphere. 

The Kepler spacecraft focused on a single small region of the sky but next-generation planet-hunting space telescopes, such as TESS and CHEOPS, will examine nearby stars throughout the sky. 

Nearby stars with planets can then be studied by the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope and future large ground-based telescopes to analyze atmospheres, determine masses and infer compositions. Additionally the Square Kilometer Array would significantly improve radio observations over the Arecibo Observatory and Green Bank Telescope.

More information: CBS

Scientists with the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute have already begun targeting Kepler-452b, the first near-Earth-size world found in the habitable zone of a Sun-like star. SETI Institute researchers are using the Allen Telescope Array, a collection of 6-meter telescopes in the Cascade Mountains of California, to scan for radio transmissions from Kepler-452b. 

As of July 2015, the array has scanned the exoplanet on over 2 billion frequency bands, with no result. The telescopes will continue to scan over a total of 9 billion channels, searching for alien radio signals.

More information: The Independent

If we were there (Kepler 452b), we'd get stronger.

John Grunsfeld

KÍLIAN JORNET & MERCHE A.H. JONES, SUMMITS OF LIFE

Merche Addams Holmes Jones

Today, The Grandma wants to rest a little in her English studies. She wants to dedicate this post to the person who has shared more time with her in these last years: Merche Addams-Holmes-Jones.

Merche A.H. Jones is a twister chaser who loves climbing and x-treme sports. Now, she is participating in one of the most important of her competitions and The Grandma and all the members of her families want to cheer her up to the victory.

Merche is Norwegian. Roald Amundsen is Norwegian, too. Norwegian people love nature and respect it. They are great explorers, climbers and runners although, nowadays, the best trail runner and ski mountaineer is Kílian Jornet, a man who Merche knows very well and admires a lot. Both of them have something in common, their summits of life.

More information: Visit Norway

Kílian Jornet Burgada, born 27 October 1987 in Sabadell, is a professional trail runner, ski mountaineer and long-distance runner.

He is a six-time champion of the long-distance running Skyrunner World Series and has won some of the most prestigious ultramarathons, including the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc, Grand Raid, the Western States Endurance Run and the Hardrock Hundred Mile Endurance Run.

Kílian Jornet, Hardrock

Jornet holds the fastest known time for the ascent and descent of Matterhorn, Mont Blanc, Denali and Everest.

Jornet was born in Sabadell, a Catalan city near Barcelona. He grew up in Refugi de Cap de Rec, a mountain hut at 2000 meters in the Pyrenees at the cross-country Lles ski resort in Lles de Cerdanya, where his father was a hut keeper and mountain guide. At the age of three he climbed Tuc de Molières, a three-thousander in the Pyrenees. By the age of five he climbed Aneto 3,404 m, the highest mountain in the Pyrenees, and a year later he climbed his first four-thousander, the Breithorn (4,164 m) in Switzerland.

He started ski mountaineering in 1999, and competed for the first time at the La Molina race of the Spanish Cup in 2000. In 2003, he became a junior member of the Spanish national ski mountaineering team, and has raced as a senior since 2007. Jornet studied at the University of Perpignan Via Domitia.

More information: Kílian Jornet

Jornet has been recognised as an elite athlete since 2004 by the Catalan and Spanish sports councils. For his achievements in the junior class ski mountaineering team, he won the Catalan sports award in 2004, 2005 and 2006.

In 2005 he set a course record of 2:30:57 for the race to the 4,015-metre summit of the Dôme de Neige des Écrins. He was World Champion in the Buff SkyRunner World Series in 2007, 2008 and 2009 becoming the youngest athlete to win this honour.

Merche A.H. Jones is winning the race

His sister Naila Jornet Burgada and his girlfriend Emelie Forsberg from Sweden also compete in ski mountaineering and skyrunning events.

On 7 September 2013 Jornet and Forsberg had to be rescued by the Peloton de Gendarmerie de haute montagne at 3,800 meters of altitude while attempting to climb the north face of the Aiguille du Midi in the Mont Blanc massif, wearing trail running shoes with crampons and a body stocking.

Since February 2016 Jornet and Forsberg are resident in Rauma municipality in Norway.

More information: Summits of my Life

Summits of My Life is Kilian Jornet's personal project, in which he is trying to set ascent and descent records for some of the most important mountains on the planet, and culminated with the record attempt on Mount Everest. This project includes:

-Kilimanjaro 5,895 m. On 29 September 2010, Jornet ascended and descended Kilimanjaro in a record time of 7 hours, 14 minutes. This record was broken on 13 August 2014, when the Ecuadorian mountain guide Karl Egloff ran up and down in 6 hours and 42 minutes on 13 August 2014.

Kílian is climbing down Mont Blanc

-Mont Blanc traverse, 4,810 m. In September 2012, Jornet completed the Innominata, a route linking Courmayeur and Chamonix, in 8 hours and 42 minutes. 

A previous attempt at ski crossing the Mont Blanc massif from Les Contamines to Champex in June 2012 resulted in the death of the French mountaineer Stéphane Brosse when a snow cornice collapsed under him.

-Mont Blanc. In July 2013, Jornet achieved the fastest known time for the ascent and descent from Chamonix in 4 hours and 57 minutes.

-Matterhorn, 4,478 m. In August 2013, Jornet achieved the fastest known time for the ascent and descent from Breuil-Cervinia in 2 hours and 52 minutes. He improved the previous fastest known time set by Bruno Brunod in 1995 by more than 20 minutes. He started climbing up the 14,962 ft peak during mid-afternoon local time, reaching the summit in 1 hour 56 minutes via the Lion Ridge from the Italian side.

More information: UTMB Montblanc

-Denali, 6,168 m. In June 2014 Jornet completed the fastest known time for the ascent and descent with a time of 11 hours and 48 minutes using both skis and crampons, breaking the previous record by 5 hours and 6 minutes.

-Aconcagua, 6,960 m. In December 2014 Jornet set a record for climbing and descending Aconcagua from Horcones, the nearest road, at Puente del Inca, and back, in 12 hours and 49 minutes. Jornet's record was broken in February 2015, again by Karl Egloff, who completed the route in 11 hours and 52 minutes.

Merche A.H. Jones

-Elbrus, 5,642 m. Jornet made an attempt in 2013 to set the fastest known time for the ascent and descent from Azau but was forced to turn back by bad weather. The fastest known time for the ascent is 3:23:37 set in 2010 by Andrzej Bargiel, while the record time for ascent and descent is 4:20:45, set on 7 May 2017 by Karl Egloff.

-Mount Everest, 8,848 m. Jornet planned an attempt for September 2016, but after 3 weeks of acclimatizing at base camp on the north side of Mt Everest at 6,000m, the weather started to change and snow accumulations increased the risk of avalanche, so the attempt was cancelled. 

He returned in 2017 and successfully summited Mount Everest at midnight, local time, on 22nd May. Climbing without fixed ropes or supplemental oxygen, he reached the top via a new route in 26 hours from base camp. On May 27 he reached the summit again from advanced base camp in 17 hours, about 15-20 minutes slower than the records from this camp set by Hans Kammerlander and Christian Stangl in 1996 and 2006, respectively.

More information: Everest Trail Race

I am not afraid to fail; to get lost, 

to dream, to be myself, to find. 

I am not afraid to live.

Kílian Jornet