These last days, there was a lot of talk about traffic ajms obsevred on the road to Mount Everest summit. They were the cause of several dramatic accidents in 2019, like in the previous years. Most people would not imagine how challenging survival is at high-altitude, without even counting on the huge physical exhaustion from… Read More
Category: Sciences
Designed to help in a computer science and algorithms teaching course, these are great ideas of algorithm descriptions using only simplified drawings and no word (styled like Ikea assembly instructions). I love them. Idea-instructions.
A few years ago I had written about Guillermo Luijk’s technique to remove completely noise from digital photos. We know that this is a difficult task, but his solution is relatively simple: Shot the scene in a correct exposure according to our usual workflow; Repeat the shot now reducing shutter speed by 4 f-stops that… Read More
Let Particle Physics have fun
I don’t know why but this video clip attracts me strangely. Even if I don’t understand all the advanced notions that are evocated quickly one after the other, (I am not really up-to-date despite all my efforts to understand some of it), I bow in front of the enormous work to adapt Queen’s music (Bohemian… Read More
Space and tennis collide in Roland Garros
30 years ago, on May 28, 1983, in the middle of a tennis match between John McEnroe and Drew Gitlin, the public suddenly started to applaud with no apparent reason. The first US space shuttle, Enterprise, was flying over the Roland Garros stadium during an in-flight demonstration for the Bourget air show. Even McEnroe did… Read More
Sex ed – 2 conflicting options
I am unsure which one is the best approach to teenager sex education… YouTube link YouTube link from Miss Lovecraft
The fall of gelatin
The shock of gelatin falling onto a hard surface. Filmed in slow motion. YouTube link
Free electron
The other day, I was talking with Frank about exceptional software programmers able to influence notably a whole company by their own activity or impossibly better than the rest of the programming crowd. This person is the one you need to hire when you have an exceptional entrepreneurial project or the one you want to… Read More
Zoom into the surface
Just at the surface of a 3D fractal volume, happen very astonishing things. Surface detail from subBlue on Vimeo.
Kermit, it’s the end
You know that you’re a computer dinosaur when you discover that a computer program you started with is reaching its end-of-life after… 30 years. The Kermit Project is canceled, effective 1 July 2011. I think that I actually started using Kermit on a Vax 11/780 computer from Digital Equipment Corporation to exchange data between various… Read More
3 Berkeley Lab radiation experts about Fukushima
This is an exceptionally precise and understandable presentation of the knowledge amassed about the Fukushima dramatic events since 11th March 2011. On April 17, 2011, Robert Budnitz, Ed Morse and Tom McKone discussed Japan’s nuclear crisis. I recommend their comments (including the web sites they list in the end of the presentation). YouTube link Listed… Read More
I discovered (thanks to BoingBoing) a superb Russian blog which shows copies of scientific documents dating back to the era of communist Russia. scienceillustration.mypage.ru : A little bit of nostalgia for “communist science” (and sometimes for the Western science seen by USSR) with beautiful pictures and illustrations.
For those of you who asked for more details about the reliability of lead-free soldering (see the end of my previous titled “Manufacturing of electronic boards“, I have found an interesting and useful analysis from Numonyx (now Micron Semiconductors). Lead-free and leaded package soldering compatibility – Backward and forward compatibility This white paper explores the… Read More
I like to see it summarized in a wider scope on the following graph: What do you not see? Via: ScienceBlogs.
If you think that this Winter’s cold wave is really tough, you’d better think again. People living in parts of Russia welcome -20°C as the comeback of Spring… when it comes after -50°C. (images credit: Evgeny Bugaev) (images by V. Makushkin, via)
After 800,000 years: Global warming
How did carbon dioxide evolve in Earth atmosphere in the nearly 1 million years in the past? YouTube link
The mimic octopus
This is an extremely weird octopus which -like many other octopuses- is able to change its skin color. It does it much better than usual, but its real prowess is its ability to change its body form to simulate or mimic the appearance of other aquatic animals. Absolutely astonishing. YouTube link
Water droplet on carbon nano-tubes [video]
A carbon nanotube array is actually extremely hydrophobic (pushes water away). This makes bouncing water onto it quite interesting. For scentists and for us onlookers. YouTube link
ISS Tour – Welcome To The International Space Station!
We’re still wondering what this ISS space station is for. We can see it from the ground at night. But, now, we can visit it as comfortably as some of the apartments on sale with Real Estate agents, as if NASA was trying to sell it. YouTube link
The creator of the fractal concept, Benoît Mandelbrot, just died. Born in Poland, the great mathematician had both French and American citizenship and inspired millions of mathematicians and artists. Rechercher des fractales sur Google.