Archive for moon

Nature tidbits [28 Aug 25]

Posted in Books, Kids, pictures, Travel, University life with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 24, 2025 by xi'an

A nice cover (and a used pun) on the cover of this issue of Nature. That (reminded of trees from the Guadeloupean rainforest and) which refers to the rich microbiomes found in trees, with a partition between sapwood and heartwood. Along

  • an editorial call for “hazardous” research, namely the relevance of studies on urban gullies that endanger surrounding populations and have unpredictable dynamics, albeit scientists alone cannot provide solutions.
  • a Columbian study on how the microbial communities acting during the fermentation of cocoa and could be controlled towards finer chocolat).
  • the alas now usual articles on the impacts of Trump.2.0 on science and academia, with US Minister of Health Kennedy launching a call for finding the environmental cause of autism. When most researchers blame primarily genetics and associate the rise in cases with a rise in detection and awareness. And pointed out at the earlier drop in NIH funds for autism research, the overall balance being negative.
  • plus a useful debunking of five quantum theory myths! Along with the story of a 2020 Science paper by Vaitiekėnas et al. on Majoranas that raised enough questions for Science to publish an expression of concern, now lifted after the publication of a long correction.
  • (a video of) rappelling robots diving into a lava tube!!
  • a Verne-esque proposal to create a lunar biodepository, a (dubious imho) mix between Noah’s Ark and the (unscientific) faith in cryogeny
  • a more sobering call for more frequent data inputs (forcing datasets) to calibrate climate models, with no mention made of statistics or machine learning…
  • an operative “mind-reading” device… with a protection password (and a 74% efficiency)!
  • two research articles on AI unification of cognitive theories.
  • Another one on the (revolutionary) construction of an optical encoder-decoder network towards generating images.

A glimpse of the Moon Blanc Massif [jatp]

Posted in Mountains, pictures, Running, Travel with tags , , , , , , , , on March 5, 2025 by xi'an

all over the moon [or not]

Posted in pictures, Travel with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on January 26, 2024 by xi'an

High diddle diddle,
The Cat and the Fiddle,
The Cow jump’d over the Moon,
The little dog laugh’d to see such Craft,
And the Dish ran away with the Spoon.

Read about the cumulated non-sense of a commercial company sending human remains (incl. some DNA of Arthur C. Clarke) to the Moon by a commercial mission, along with NASA scientific experiments, and of the Navajo Nation objecting to it for religious reasons. Wasting energy, time, room (albeit less than 70g) for vanity purposes (at $12,000 per gram) is evidently absurd, almost to the scale of launching a Tesla into space. But such is calling upon religious beliefs to control what can fly to the Moon and what cannot is equally absurd, especially when considering that the whole Moon lander is contaminated with all sorts of material, including DNA. But there may be a dog (on the Moon) since the mission failed.

Marsset

Posted in Books, Mountains, pictures, Travel with tags , , , , , , on November 4, 2023 by xi'an

One World ABC Seminar [3rd season] 

Posted in Books, pictures, Statistics, University life with tags , , , , , , on September 25, 2021 by xi'an

The third season of the [now monthly] One World ABC Seminar is starting! With talks by

30 September: Matias Quiroz
28 October: Michael Gutmann
25 November: Clara Grazian
27 January: Rafael Izbicki
Thanks to Massimiliano Tamborino (Warwick) to running this seminar! (Register if you have not yet done so.)