Auriga is one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy and remains one of the 88 modern constellations.  Located north of the celestial equator, its name is the Latin word for "charioteer", associating it with various mythological charioteers including Erichthonius and Myrtilus.  Auriga is most prominent during winter evenings in the Northern Hemisphere, along with the five other constellations that have stars in the Winter Hexagon asterism.  Because of its northern declination, Auriga is only visible as far as 34° south; for observers farther south it lies partially or fully below the horizon.  Its brightest star, Capella, is an unusual multiple star system among the brightest stars in the night sky.  In Chinese mythology, Auriga's stars were incorporated into several constellations, including the celestial emperors' chariots, made up of the modern constellation's brightest stars.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auriga_(constellation) 

Playing for Pizza by John Grisham   extract from a scene in Parma, Italy

With a casual wave at the cheese he said, "Of course you know the greatest cheese of all. Parmigiano-Reggiano.  You say Parmesan.  The king of cheese, and made right here.  Only real parmigiano comes from our little town.  "Next," he said, pointing to the first loop, "is the world-famous prosciutto.  You say Parma ham.  Made only here, from special pigs raised on barley and oats and the milk left over from making the parmigiano.  Our prosciutto is never cooked," he said gravely, wagging a finger for a second in disapproval.  "But cured with salt, fresh air, and lots of love.  Eighteen months it's cured."  "And then we have culatello, from the pig's leg, pulled off the bone, only the best parts, then covered in salt, white wine, garlic, lots of herbs, and rubbed by hand for many hours before stuffed into a pig's bladder and cured for fourteen months.  The summer air dries it, the wet winters keep it tender."  "These are the best pigs, for the culatello," he said, with another frown.  "Small black pigs with a few red patches, carefully selected and fed only natural foods.  Never locked up, no.  These pigs roam free and eat acorns and chestnuts." http://fuyuhoshikim.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/john-grisham-2007-playing-for-pizza.pdf

Anolini is a stuffed pasta from Parma, where it is served in broth during the holiday season.  The first recipe for anolini, a direct descendent of ravioli, was published in a book written by Bartolomeo Scappi at the beginning of the 16th century.  Naturally, it contains parmigiana reggiano.  Find recipe at:  http://www.academiabarilla.com/italian-recipes/emilia-romagna/anolini.aspx

Playing for Pizza is a novel about the Parma Panthers, an Italian football team.  There is a real team called the Parma Panthers, and they won their fourth consecutive IFL league title by beating the Milano Seamen 51-28 in the Italian Super Bowl XXXIIII in 2013.  Read about it at:  http://www.americanfootballinternational.com/tag/italian-super-bowl/

Element 115 – which has a temporary name of ununpentium – was first created in 2003 in Russia by scientists from the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna and collaborators from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.  That team produced four atoms of ununpentium, which quickly lost two neutrons and decayed into element 113.  A committee from the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry will study the Lund report and decide whether to grant element 115 official status on the periodic table of elements.  If that happens, the element will get a new name.  (The folks at Lawrence Livermore noted that element 106 was discovered in 1974 but didn’t get its official name of seaborgium until 23 years later.)  Both of ununpentium’s neighbors on the periodic table have completed this vetting process.  Element 114 was discovered in 1998 (also at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research) and named Flerovium in 2012 in honor of the institute’s Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions.  Element 116 was first created in 2000 and named Livermorium, in honor of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in 2012.  Scientists create these unstable, super-heavy elements because they can – they want to see if there’s a fundamental limit to the periodic table.  But they also expect that as they synthesize heavier and heavier atoms, they’ll reach what they call the “island of stability” – a group of elements that can last for entire seconds or even minutes before their nuclei break apart and they decay into other elements.  Karen Kaplan  http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-element-115-ununpentium-confirmed-20130827,0,2224471.story 

One of the biggest canyons in the world has been found beneath the ice sheet that smothers most of Greenland.  The canyon - which is 800km long and up to 800m deep - was carved out by a great river more than four million years ago, before the ice arrived.  It was discovered by accident as scientists researching climate change mapped Greenland’s bedrock by radar.  The British Antarctic Survey said it was remarkable to find so huge a geographical feature previously unseen.  The hidden valley is longer than the Grand Canyon in Arizona.  It snakes its way from the centre of Greenland up to the northern coastline and before the ice sheet was formed it would have contained a river gushing into the Arctic Ocean.  Now it is packed with ice.  The ice sheet, up to 3km (2 miles) thick, is now so heavy that it makes the island sag in the middle (central Greenland was previously about 500m above sea level, now it is 200m below sea level). 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23866810 

Seamus Heaney, one of the world’s best-known poets and winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize for literature, has died aged 74 after a short illness, his family said on August 30, 2013.  Northern Ireland-born Heaney was one of the world’s foremost poets writing in English whose works include his 1966 debut “Death of a Naturalist”, “The Spirit Level” and “District and Circle”.  Heaney was a rarity among poets, having won acclaim from critics while producing best-sellers. It once took him three hours to walk down Dublin’s main street as autograph hunters pursued him.  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/nobel-prize-winning-irish-poet-seamus-heaney-dies-at-74/article14036308/ 

Find a list of books by Seamus Heaney divided by poetry, prose, translator (for instance, Beowulf) and editor at:  http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/seamus-heaney.  The bibliography is followed by a list of books about Heaney. 

Find "Remarks by the President at the "Let Freedom Ring" Ceremony Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington" at:  http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/08/28/remarks-president-let-freedom-ring-ceremony-commemorating-50th-anniversa  The speech took close to thirty minutes, but you can read it in much less time.