"Working in film, we often are tasked with creating something never seen before," said John Knoll a developer of the "Star Wars" movies.

"But scientific discoveries prove to be more spectacular than anything we imagine."

If you could stand on the surface of Kepler-16b, you'd have two shadows.

At sunset, you would see an orange star about the size of the sun and next to it a much fainter red star.

As the stars slipped toward the horizon, they would change places in the sky, like partners in a dance.

You would not need to be Luke Skywalker visiting his home planet of Tatooine in the movie "Star Wars" to watch the twin sunset. 

The only science fiction in this story is how to make the 200 light-year journey to Kepler-16, a binary star system jointly sharing the Saturn-sized planet, Kepler-16b.

Both the Kepler-16 stars are smaller than the sun, so their planet lives largely outside the so-called habitable zone where liquid water could exist on its surface.

Water is believed to be an essential ingredient for life as we know it.

Besides, the planet is estimated to experience temperatures from -100 to -150 degrees Fahrenheit (-70 to -100 degrees Centigrade).

The threat is specifically drug trafficking.

It's cocaine coming but of the South American continent, transiting through these vulnerable post-conflict societies en route to Europe.

It's estimated by the UN ADC that somewhere 30% of the cocaine consumed in the growing market for cocaine in Europe, transits through that region.

We had last year in Sierra Leone, a 704-kilo seizure from a light aircraft that landed at Freetown airport, the capital, and that was seized by the authorities with the assistance of UN police on the ground.

We also had a 2.3-tonne seizure of cocaine by the French Navy off the Liberian coast last year.

In Liberia in the last 18 months, there's been over 10 tonnes of cannabis, which has been trafficked to the region.

So there's drugs as a primary problem.

We also have firearms trafficking, which is rampant throughout that region, remnants of the conflict still, we're seeing AK47s, as weapon of choice, but rocket-propelled grenades, other ammunitions being moved across borders to fuel further conflicts around that area.

Testing Boycott Spreads to Portland High Schools and Beyond

 By  Kelsey Sheehy

Feigning sickness to avoid a big test is one of the oldest tricks in the teen playbook, but high school students at Portland Public Schools aim to take it a step further.

Members of the Portland Student Union launched an "Opt Out" campaign, urging peers to boycott the odious-all-round-the-country state-mandated standardized tests.

"We’re choosing to opt-out the curst tests as they are stupid waste of class time, they have zero benefit. Why play around the fee we pay? If my Dad sweats guts out to pay for my school, I wonna get education, not a schizo drill," one of the students says.

While their organized protest may warm the hearts of teachers and protesters in numerous other states, opting out of the state-mandated exams are likely to jeopardize students' chances of graduating. 

Standardized testing is known to consume an ever-growing proportion of education budgets nationwide, swallowing up whole weeks of classroom time.

Focusing so much energy on testing is unanimously recognized to undermine the intrinsic value of teaching and learning.