DAVID ADAMS writes about the odder side of life…
The International Space Station photographed by Expedition 56 crew members from a Soyuz spacecraft after undocking. PICTURE: NASA
• The Russian space agency plans to shoot the first movie in outer space and recently announced it had selected four people to serve as non-professional crew members and actors. Roscosmos reported that the four include 36-year-old actor Yulia Peresild and director Klim Shipenko, 37 – both part of the main crew – and 33-year-old actor Alena Mordovina, who, together with 40-year-old camera director Alexei Dudin will be part of a reserve crew. Later this month they are expected to start training for a space flight scheduled for October. The movie, which will be shot at the International Space Station, reportedly has the working title of Challenge. Russia isn’t the only nation racing to make a movie in space – US space agency NASA announced last year it was colloborating with actor Tom Cruise to make a film aboard the ISS. The race is on!
• Spanish chocolatiers have created an edible version of Pablo Picasso’s famous 1937 anti-war painting, Guernica, depicting the bombing of the town during the Spanish Civil War. Chocolatiers and pastry chefs from Basque reportedly used about 500 kilograms of chocolate to create a 7.5 metre by 3.5 metre version of the work to commemorate the 85th anniversary of the bombing. Currently housed in a temperature-controlled room at the Reina Sofia art museum in Madrid, the artwork will later be taken on tour across Spain, Germany and France.
• More than 3,200 drones were used to create a spectacular light show in Shanghai, China, setting a new Guinness World Record. The lightshow over the Huangpu River, was put on by luxury car company Genesis to launch its new Genesis G80 car and used 3,281 unmanned aerial vehicles to create 3D images which included depictions of the new vehicle. The record for the most UAVs airborne simultaneously broke a previous record which involved 3,051 drones.
