From August 7 to 9, these are the Nights of the Stars. This August, several interesting phenomena will be observable. It takes place during a year rich in astronomical events, including Rosetta and New Horizons missions.
If you are in France, the French Association for Astronomy offers a list of events that take place this weekend in the territory. If you are in France these days, do not hesitate!
Would a scientist, let alone a scientist who is the cause of fundamental changes, rather work to make progress on her or his work, or sue anyone who had the impudence to contradict her or him? Knowing that falsifiability is at the heart of a serious scientific approach.
You may think this is obviously a rhetoric question, but its answer does not seem to be obvious for the Bogdanoff twins. At least, their recent interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro seems to attest it. As this interview deserves to be questioned, I propose to do so, as viewed from here.
Continue reading If the Bogdanoff brothers were in orbit, would it have any influence on Pluto?
On Thursday, July 23, 2015, the French Constitutional Council endorsed the major parts of the law on intelligence. It also has considered the part concerning intelligence on the Internet of the military planning law adequate for the protection of privacy. Yet, few hours earlier, the un Committee for the Human Rights had expressed concerns about the law on intelligence.
Three articles were censored, but the majority of the new law is validated. In particular, the black boxes have been validated, despite the questions they raise.
Here is the epilogue to a subject repeatedly discussed in this blog. That said, a future law can always improve balances in the law. Hopefully this will be the case, based on a rigorous examination of the consequences of this law.
Is it because it concerns the origins of things? Anyway, the Big Bang is a scientific subject which everyone seems to have heard of. However, it appears that general ideas about it are not really clear.
As it will be question of the Big Bang in the subjects I will address soon in this website, here is an opportunity to inaugurate scientific popularisation articles in my blog: I propose to present the basics of the Big Bang, using simple experiments that everyone can do at home.
Continue reading The Big Bang: when the Universe is not banging!
On 24 June 2015, thanks to the students of the Académie intercommunale de Court-Saint-Étienne et Ottignies-Louvain-la-neuve, took place the public creation of one of my compositions. The song is entitled 21st of June. A camera was present, which recorded this rendition. I give some explanations below, especially concerning my strange gesticulations, but first enjoy the video:
Even though the public do not know him very much, Claude Carliez is an important name of the entertainment industry, especially cinema.
The draft law on intelligence, which I have mentioned here and there, was approved with a large majority by the French National Assembly and the French Senate. This is despite the inria has produced a very critical note towards it, adding to the long list of reasoned criticisms of this law that I have already mentioned elsewhere. Now, the French Constitutional Council must assess the law. As far as I am concern, I hope that the question of balance between surveillance and democratic control will arise.
Ultimately, breeding and agriculture have enabled for an increase in life expectancy of the human species. But, at its beginning, that is to say the first hundreds of years of experimentations, these practises could have seemed rather negative: agriculture and sedentary breeding induced a rhythm of life more tiring than the one of hunter-gatherer, and proximity to crops and livestock favoured the emergence and spreading of diseases. A question then arises: how is it that our ancestors persisted in this direction?
In issue 498 (April 2015) of the French science magazine La Recherche, Pierre Jouventin, former research director in ethology at the cnrs, proposes an interesting hypothesis which, in some indirect way, may give an explanation to this enigma1P. Jouventin, 2015. L’Évolution de l’homme sur la piste du loup, La Recherche, 498, pp. 60–65..
Continue reading Could the Wolf be a man to the Man (and reciprocally)?
Notes
| ↑1 | P. Jouventin, 2015. L’Évolution de l’homme sur la piste du loup, La Recherche, 498, pp. 60–65. |
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The law on intelligence, which I mentioned here, was approved by 25 French members of parliament, while five opposed it. So they were 30 to be present when voting a law that affects individual freedoms. 30 when the legislature is composed of 577 members.
The German writer and literature Nobel prize holder Günter Grass is deceased this Monday 13 April 2015, in a clinic in Lübeck.