The Dallas Amateur Radio Club’s annual Pizza Party will take place at our next club meeting. Don’t forget to bring your favorite pizza or side!

The DARC Winter Dinner is coming up on the 11th, too.

Don’t forget to check your email and vote for the 2018 club officers…and don’t forget to sign up to volunteer at the Dallas Marathon if you’ve forgotten to do that. The marathon is Sunday, Dec. 9th, 2018.

The contest calendar has one fun, traditional item, and one exciting new one. The ARRL 160-Meter CW Contest is keeping some hams busy, but others will be taking place in the first real FT-8 contest. As David, KG5EIU, mentioned earlier, participants must upgrade to the latest WSJT-X software (scroll way down on that page) to participate.

In ham radio news:

JOTA organizers report that Scout participation was up 36% this year. A round of applause is owed to everyone who helped a Scout get on the air.

In news from the world of science:

It turns out that there really is such a thing as spider milk. You will not, I hope, be seeing that at the store any time soon.

Ancient tools—up to 2.4 million years old—have now been found in north Africa, not just the eastern part of the continent. Scientists are beginning to suspect that they need to look in more places for traces of early humans.

Thanks to autopilot, pulling over an unconscious drunk driver took officers 7 miles…but fortunately, “I was on autopilot” is not a defense the driver can use in court.

And finally: InSight’s landing was just plain awesome, but don’t forget that Osiris-REX will be arriving at asteroid Bennu this Monday.