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The bushfire has just taken the town away...
BREAKING NEWS: Police announced that two bodies were found in burnt-out houses in Yarloop.
Saturday, January 9, 2016
Bushfire in Western Australia eliminates an entire village
Sometimes, when a bushfire is about to attack a small rural village in Australia, the inhabitants are capable (thankfully) of rushing to safety. But their lovable village cannot save itself. And the terrible flames might then reduce it to sad devastation.
Footage from the Channel 7 helicopter shows the small village of Yarloop, 110 km south of Perth (Western Australia), after it was engulfed in a bushfire fanned by strong winds. The town lost nearly a hundred buildings, including precious historical constructions.
Thursday, January 7, 2016
They found a rock in the mud of Lake Eyre
In the desert environment of Lake Eyre (South Australia), this muddy guy with a rock in his right hand is overcome with joy.
Phil Bland, a researcher from Curtin University (Perth, Western Australia), accompanied by his colleague Robert Howie, just succeeded in digging up a 4.5-billion-year-old meteorite that fell here a few months ago. Although they were assisted by data from several devices that had followed the falling meteorite, their discovery was nevertheless an amazing needle-in-a-haystack success.
The USA has invested billions of dollars in voyages to the moon, enabling their scientists to obtain precious samples of meteorites that came from far away. In Australia, to obtain such an extraordinary sample, these two fellows simply drove their quads into the parched outback and started digging around in the mud with their hands.
Phil Bland, a researcher from Curtin University (Perth, Western Australia), accompanied by his colleague Robert Howie, just succeeded in digging up a 4.5-billion-year-old meteorite that fell here a few months ago. Although they were assisted by data from several devices that had followed the falling meteorite, their discovery was nevertheless an amazing needle-in-a-haystack success.
The USA has invested billions of dollars in voyages to the moon, enabling their scientists to obtain precious samples of meteorites that came from far away. In Australia, to obtain such an extraordinary sample, these two fellows simply drove their quads into the parched outback and started digging around in the mud with their hands.
Flying Frenchie has come down to rest in the Drôme
Tancrède Melet, known throughout the world for his spectacular aerial exploits as the « Flying Frenchie », was killed on Tuesday in a trivial accident in the Drôme.
Here's a recent video of a stunt in nearby Saint-Hilaire-du-Touvet.
When the accident occurred, Tancrède was holding down a hot-air balloon, which dragged him over a small cliff, to his death.
In the following video, Tancrède was planning a wing-suit drop down to Chamonix: a journey that would normally, on the ground, take a couple of hours.
Beware of bugs
Back in the days when I earned my living as a computer programmer, we coexisted constantly with bugs. I believe that such tiny evil spirits still exist, even though a lot of publicity talk tries to give the impression that they've been eradicated forever.
Click here to see the presentation of a marvelous little drone, made in China, called the Ehang 184, priced somewhere between US$200,000 to $300,000. It's designed for a personal owner, who isn't necessarily a licensed pilot, who has to get somewhere in a hurry. The above publicity photo seems to suggest that the owner lives in a romantic spot—in the vicinity of trees, statues and rusty old boats—alongside the water.
Charging the drone with electricity takes a few hours. The owner can then press a magic take-off button and set out on a trip that lasts for 23 minutes. The Ehang's automated flight systems will manage tasks such as communication with air traffic control and other aircraft, obstacle avoidance and navigation. In other words, if the drone doesn't collide with a tree (or anything else in the vicinity), that's because it's a smart machine... with no bugs whatsoever. In other words, faultless.
Well, thanks for inviting me to borrow your drone, to drop in at a nearby place. It's nice of you... and you assure me that your aircraft is both simple and perfect. But I prefer to travel romantically, by bicycle.
Charging the drone with electricity takes a few hours. The owner can then press a magic take-off button and set out on a trip that lasts for 23 minutes. The Ehang's automated flight systems will manage tasks such as communication with air traffic control and other aircraft, obstacle avoidance and navigation. In other words, if the drone doesn't collide with a tree (or anything else in the vicinity), that's because it's a smart machine... with no bugs whatsoever. In other words, faultless.
Well, thanks for inviting me to borrow your drone, to drop in at a nearby place. It's nice of you... and you assure me that your aircraft is both simple and perfect. But I prefer to travel romantically, by bicycle.
A year ago today, France became forever Charlie
Click here to access the website of Le Parisien, which commemorates the start of a year of terror in France.
Wednesday, January 6, 2016
Can we "enhance" humans by means of customized genes ?
I've preferred to leave the verb "enhance" in inverted commas, because geneticists are frankly playing at behaving as a divinity, and nobody knows with certainty yet whether these scientists are God or the Devil. Or maybe a bit of both. Consequently, many observers consider that it's still too early to say whether or not we have the right to perform so-called human gene editing.
A conference on these questions took place in Washington on December 1–3, sponsored by Britain’s Royal Society, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the US National Academies. Click here for a Scientific American website on this subject.
In my recent blog post about the French scientist Emmanuelle Charpentier [display], I mentioned a celebrated method known as the CRISPR–Cas9 system, for which she was a contributor. This technology has made DNA modification so simple that amateur biologists working in home laboratories are starting to fiddle with it, and to "hack genomes". Not surprisingly, the CRISPR-Cas9 method appears to have played a central role in the Washington conference.
A conference on these questions took place in Washington on December 1–3, sponsored by Britain’s Royal Society, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the US National Academies. Click here for a Scientific American website on this subject.
In my recent blog post about the French scientist Emmanuelle Charpentier [display], I mentioned a celebrated method known as the CRISPR–Cas9 system, for which she was a contributor. This technology has made DNA modification so simple that amateur biologists working in home laboratories are starting to fiddle with it, and to "hack genomes". Not surprisingly, the CRISPR-Cas9 method appears to have played a central role in the Washington conference.
Tuesday, January 5, 2016
Cameron and his team are as wet and warm as a cup of tea
David Cameron has just told his ministers that they're all free, individually, to adopt whatever attitude they like to the forthcoming referendum about whether Britain should or should not remain in Europe. In other words, with respect to this all-important question, Cameron and his team have no common policy. As on a sinking ship, it's every man for himself. What weird behavior for an alleged government! To my mind, with this lukewarm approach to decision-making, the UK is moving closer and closer to Brexit.
Click here for a BBC video : "UK and the EU — How to make a Brexit" which mentions the exit of Greenland after a referendum in 1982. Here is their conclusion : "Divorce can sometimes be painful [...] but it did not have to be messy. The secret to breaking up is the same for states as for people — good planning, good sense and an ability to learn how to live and trade together in a shrinking world."
My Internet provider wants to become a banker
This is amazing news. My French Internet provider, named Orange, is about to buy a bank, which will make it possible to carry out all the ordinary financial transactions that an Internet provider might wish to perform. At the same time that Orange is looking into the idea of acquiring a bank, they're also talking about purchasing one of their Internet rivals (Bouygues).
Culture is what remains once you’ve forgotten everything else
My 2000th tweet. Culture is what remains once you’ve forgotten everything else. I’ve always imagined that this excellent saying was French, maybe from Ernest Renan: "La culture est ce qui reste quand on a tout oublié."
Monday, January 4, 2016
Could God be looked upon as a dangerous assassin ?
To commemorate the terrible slaughter on 7 January 2015 at Charlie Hebdo, the resuscitated weekly will be using the following cover:
It reads: "A year later, the assassin is still on the run." And we see a blood-stained God Almighty with a Kalashnikov strapped to his back, racing madly away. The message is clear. Behind the human assassins who perpetrated the slaughter at Charlie Hebdo, the ghastly cause was absurdly fanatical religious belief.
Is the assassin really still on the run? Yes, and this will remain true for as long as religious fanaticism infiltrates our societies. And that's surely for a long, long time. As we used to say in my childhood Australia: Up until the cows come home...
It reads: "A year later, the assassin is still on the run." And we see a blood-stained God Almighty with a Kalashnikov strapped to his back, racing madly away. The message is clear. Behind the human assassins who perpetrated the slaughter at Charlie Hebdo, the ghastly cause was absurdly fanatical religious belief.
Is the assassin really still on the run? Yes, and this will remain true for as long as religious fanaticism infiltrates our societies. And that's surely for a long, long time. As we used to say in my childhood Australia: Up until the cows come home...
High-tech loo
For the first decade of my existence, I lived in a rural house in South Grafton (Australia) that did not have a so-called WC (water closet). This dull aspect of my early life has often appeared to me as exceptional: an extraordinary caveman anecdote that I'm including proudly in an autobiographical book on which I'm working. Like many lucky people, I tend to forget that, today, over two billion citizens of the planet Earth have no access to satisfactory toilets.
Click here to examine a project for a low-priced high-tech loo known as the Nano Membrane Toilet, invented at Cranfield University in England, to be put on trial soon, probably in Ghana.
Click here to examine a project for a low-priced high-tech loo known as the Nano Membrane Toilet, invented at Cranfield University in England, to be put on trial soon, probably in Ghana.
For more information, click on the following video:
Sunday, January 3, 2016
French pharmaceutical company Sanofi is authorized to combat dengue fever in three countries
The Aedes Aegypti mosquito, distributed in tropical zones throughout the world, is the main vector of both dengue and yellow fever viruses. When the female mosquito sups human blood, it often deposits the virus that causes dengue, and this can bring about some 400 million infections a year worldwide. Among children, in particular, this painful, flu-like disease can be fatal. And, up until recently, no truly effective prevention had existed.
Saturday, January 2, 2016
Thinking rationally about terror
Here's a brilliant short New Yorker article on the subject of urban terrorism by the exceptional US physicist Lawrence Krauss.
His conclusion is sobering but appeasing:
His conclusion is sobering but appeasing:
... a mass killing like that which occurred in Paris would not significantly affect the death toll from guns in the USI take this opportunity of reminding my Antipodes readers that Krauss is the author of a momentous book on physics and philosophy: A Universe from Nothing. It reflects upon humanity's biggest question (which has often driven me crazy... at least for a moment or so): Why is there something rather than nothing at all?
Champion Frenchman at the wheel
This 41-year-old Frenchman, Sébastien Loeb, is the most successful automobile driver in the history of the World Rally Championship (WRC), having won it nine times in a row.
Having retired from WRC competitions, Loeb has decided to compete in this year's Dakar trial, which starts today from Buenos Aires. At the wheel of a Peugeot, he is accompanied by his faithful co-driver Daniel Elena. He should find the local road familiar, since Loeb happens to have won the Argentina rally eight times in a row!
I once spent twenty minutes or so watching a video created from inside Loeb's vehicle, along a quite ordinary mountain road. I soon had the distinct impression that Sébastien Loeb is infinitely more than a normal human animal like you or me. His visual system is surely some kind of extraordinary space computer coupled to his brain.
Having retired from WRC competitions, Loeb has decided to compete in this year's Dakar trial, which starts today from Buenos Aires. At the wheel of a Peugeot, he is accompanied by his faithful co-driver Daniel Elena. He should find the local road familiar, since Loeb happens to have won the Argentina rally eight times in a row!
I once spent twenty minutes or so watching a video created from inside Loeb's vehicle, along a quite ordinary mountain road. I soon had the distinct impression that Sébastien Loeb is infinitely more than a normal human animal like you or me. His visual system is surely some kind of extraordinary space computer coupled to his brain.
Manchester moments
This fascinating news photo has stunned the Internet world:
It looks like a staged image with actors, maybe a sequence from a movie in the making. In fact, it's simply a photo of an ordinary alcoholic scene of Manchester by night. Click on the word series to access photos of an interesting kind in the website of the Manchester Evening News. Scroll to the second gallery in this website, which is quite funny.
I've never set foot in that big British city, but I have the impression that it's not the kind of place where I would like to settle down.
It looks like a staged image with actors, maybe a sequence from a movie in the making. In fact, it's simply a photo of an ordinary alcoholic scene of Manchester by night. Click on the word series to access photos of an interesting kind in the website of the Manchester Evening News. Scroll to the second gallery in this website, which is quite funny.
I've never set foot in that big British city, but I have the impression that it's not the kind of place where I would like to settle down.
Friday, January 1, 2016
Let's start the year at the Moulin Rouge
On French TV during this festive season of the year, we can see a lot of French cancan, often with dancers from the Moulin Rouge in Paris.
Click here if you feel like watching a 6-minute presentation of a couple of authentic and delightful cancan girls from the famous "red windmill" going through their steps.
Trivial little places like that seem to have acquired a more intense and wonderful meaning since our discovery of the mad mob of terrorists who would surely wish to destroy all that. On the contrary, we'll destroy all those Islamic arseholes before they let themselves loose in France for another tragic operation.
Click here if you feel like watching a 6-minute presentation of a couple of authentic and delightful cancan girls from the famous "red windmill" going through their steps.
Trivial little places like that seem to have acquired a more intense and wonderful meaning since our discovery of the mad mob of terrorists who would surely wish to destroy all that. On the contrary, we'll destroy all those Islamic arseholes before they let themselves loose in France for another tragic operation.
Wishes from the French president
Click here to access the New Year 2016 speech from the French president François Hollande.
"My first duty is to protect you. I am proud of you. In spite of the drama, France has not given in. In spite of the tears, she remained upright. Faced with hatred, she revealed the force of her values, those of the République. I owe you the truth. We have not reached the end of terrorism. The threat is still present, at the same level."The president made his speech from the Napoléon III Room of the Elysées Palace. This was the same place from which he had spoken last January, after the attack against Charlie Hebdo, then in the middle of November, when a wave of terrorist crimes killed 130 people in Paris and Saint-Denis.
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Antipodes blog: French woman of the year 2015
Emmanuelle Charpentier, born in 1968, is a French microbiologist, geneticist and biochemist.
Emmanuelle started her studies at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, then she acquired her doctorate at the Pasteur Institute. She worked for five years as a researcher in several US universities and hospitals, then pursued her activities in Europe, in Vienna, Sweden and Germany. Earlier this year, she accepted a post as director of the new Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin.
This 47-year-old lady is best known in the scientific world for her role in deciphering the molecular mechanisms of the bacterial CRISPR-Cas9 immune system, and her methods are now used as a tool for editing the DNA sequences of plants and animals.
She has just been named as one of ten winners of the prestigious Leibniz Prize in Germany. Included too by Time magazine in the list of the 100 most influential people in the world, Emmanuelle Charpentier will not be surprised or offended (I hope) if I name her in my humble Antipodes blog as French woman of the year 2015.
Emmanuelle started her studies at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, then she acquired her doctorate at the Pasteur Institute. She worked for five years as a researcher in several US universities and hospitals, then pursued her activities in Europe, in Vienna, Sweden and Germany. Earlier this year, she accepted a post as director of the new Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin.
This 47-year-old lady is best known in the scientific world for her role in deciphering the molecular mechanisms of the bacterial CRISPR-Cas9 immune system, and her methods are now used as a tool for editing the DNA sequences of plants and animals.
She has just been named as one of ten winners of the prestigious Leibniz Prize in Germany. Included too by Time magazine in the list of the 100 most influential people in the world, Emmanuelle Charpentier will not be surprised or offended (I hope) if I name her in my humble Antipodes blog as French woman of the year 2015.
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