RESOURCE CRISIS: How to destroy a civilization
▻http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.fr/2014/05/how-to-destroy-civilization.html
Mathematical models may be a lot of fun, but when you use them to project the future of our civilization the results may be a bit unpleasant, to say the least. That was the destiny of the first quantitative model which examined the future of the world system; the well known “The Limits to Growth” study, sponsored by the Club of Rome in 1972. This study showed that if the world’s economy was run in a “business as usual” mode, then the only possible result was collapse.
This kind of unpleasant results is a feature of most models which attempt to foresee the long term destiny of our civilization. Not that it should be surprising considering the speed at which we are wasting our natural resources. Nevertheless, whenever these studies are discussed, they generate a lot of criticism and opposition. It is the result, mainly, of emotional reactions: there is nothing to do about that, it is the way the human mind works.
But let’s try to put aside emotions and examine a recent study by by Motessharry, Rivas and Kalnay (MRK) on the destiny of human society that became known as the “NASA funded model” after a note by Nafeez Ahmed. The model has attracted much criticism (as usual) but it is worth looking at it with some attention because it highlights some features of our world which we should try to understand if we still think we can avoid collapsing (or at least mitigate it).
The MRK model has this specific feature: it divides humankind in two categories, “commoners” and “elites”, assuming that the first category produces wealth while the second doesn’t. In some assumptions, it turns out that the elite can completely drain all the resources available and bring society to an irreversible collapse, even though the resources are renewable and can reform the initial stock.
I think this is a very fundamental point that describes events which have happened in the past. As I noted in a previous post, it may describe how the Roman Empire destroyed itself by excessive military expenses (we may be doing exactly the same). Or, it may describe the collapse of the society of Easter Island, with a lot of natural capital squandered in building useless stone statues while putting a high strain on the available resources (the story may be more complex than this, but its main elements remain the same)
So, it looks like elites (better defined as “non productive elites”) may play a fundamental role in the collapse of societies. But how exactly can this be modeled? The MRK model does that using an approach that, as I noted earlier on, is typical of system dynamics, (even though they do not use the term in their paper. Not only that, but it is clearly a model in the style of those “mind sized” models which I had proposed in a paper of mine. The idea of mind sized models is to avoid a bane of most models - of all kinds - that of “creeping overparametrization”. Since, as a modeler, you are always accused that your model is too simple, then you tend to add parameters over parameters. The result is not necessarily more realistic, but surely you add more and more uncertainty to your model. Hence, the need for “mind-sized” models (a term that I attribute to Seymour Paper)........
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Space Radiation Remains Major Hazard for Humans Going to Mars
▻http://www.wired.com/2014/04/radiation-risk-iss-mars
People living in the U.S. are exposed to about 3 millisieverts of radiation from natural background sources each year (millisieverts are units of radiation exposure in the human body). A nuclear accident, like Fukushima, might raise this by about 1 millisievert. An astronaut on a round-trip, two-and-a-half-year Mars mission, by contrast, can expect to receive around a sievert of cosmic ray radiation, nearly 1,000 times more.
[…]
Cucinotta estimates that an astronaut’s lifespan after exposure to radiation on a Mars trip would be shortened between 15 and 24 years from the average.
[…]
Before humans are sent to the Red Planet, NASA should do a focused decade-long study on all the potential health problems that radiation could cause. Hopefully, this would bring up new ways to combat some of the worst effects.
Les codes de la NASA rendus accessibles | Big Browser
▻http://bigbrowser.blog.lemonde.fr/2014/04/10/open-source-les-codes-de-la-nasa-rendus-accessibles
Aujourd’hui, la #NASA rend public un catalogue des #codes qui se cachent derrière plus de 1 000 projets développés depuis les années 1960 par l’agence spatiale américaine. Le magazine américain Wired rapporte qu’à partir de jeudi 10 avril les internautes pourront par exemple se procurer les lignes de code du système de guidage du module lunaire Apollo 11, qui ont permis à Buzz Aldrin et Neil Armstrong de marcher sur la Lune le 21 juillet 1969.
Le but de cette initiative est d’encourager l’utilisation des codes de la NASA en dehors de l’agence pour donner un nouveau souffle à des logiciels qui datent parfois de plusieurs dizaine années. Les possibilités sont infinies : le système de #cartographie du télescope spatial Hubble, par exemple, a été adapté par une équipe de biologistes pour suivre les déplacements des ours polaires en Arctique.
Ces même lignes de code, dont l’utilisation commerciale est autorisée, ont aussi servi de base pour le développement d’un programme utilisé pour programmer les IRMs dans des hôpitaux débordés, ou encore pour les algorithmes de certains sites de rencontres.
La NASA se sanctionne elle-même
▻http://www.dedefensa.org/article-la_nasa_se_sanctionne_elle-m_me_07_04_2014.html
@TITREBREVE = La NASA se sanctionne elle-même Une des décisions de “sanction” les plus étranges, les plus incohérentes, prises aux USA soi-disant contre la Russie, suite à l’affaire criméenne, est celle de la NASA décidant d’interrompre nombre de programmes de coopération avec la Russie. Les conséquences pourraient être particulièrement contraignantes, voire catastrophiques, principalement sinon exclusivement pour la NASA, dans le domaine des vols habités... (Une hypothèse pour cette décision
That Old Space Race Feeling: NASA Memo Suspends Contact With Russians - Megan Garber - The Atlantic
▻http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/04/that-old-space-race-feeling-nasa-memo-suspends-contact-with-russians/360056
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=es7Br9kJBbo
Space has often been celebrated as a place that allows humans, literally and otherwise, to transcend the petty divisions of life on Earth. Astronauts, upon seeing the planet from outside its borders, often comment on how small the planet’s vastness makes our differences seem. The grounding philosophy of the International Space Station, first articulated at the height of the Cold War, is that there should be a place outside of Earth dedicated to international cooperation. It’s logic so common, and so comforting, that Bette Midler wrote a song about it.
I mention all that because of this: a memo that was sent to NASA employees this morning. One announcing that, because of “Russia’s ongoing violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the U.S. space agency will be suspending its contact with representatives of the Russian government. The suspension, The Verge notes, includes “travel to Russia, teleconferences, and visits by Russian government officials to NASA facilities.”
It is a big deal.
Here’s the purported memo, as published by the site Space Ref:.....
Le Club de Rome confirme la date de la catastrophe: 2030
►http://www.europesolidaire.eu/article.php?article_id=879
Il y a quelques semaines, le Club de Rome célébrait le quarantième anniversaire de son célèbre rapport (surnommé « Halte à la croissance ? »), dit aussi Rapport Meadows, du nom de son principal rédacteur. Ce rapport avait été présenté au public le 1er mars 1972, à partir d’une commande faite par le même Club de Rome (créé en 1968) au Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) en 1970.
Le point essentiel, que tous les gouvernements, que toutes les entreprises, tout les média auraient du noter, est que le rapport de 2012 confirme celui de 1972. Celui-ci donnait soixante ans au système économique mondial pour s’effondrer, confronté à la diminution des ressources et à la dégradation de l’environnement. La situation est confirmée par la formule du Smithsonian Magazine, « The world is on track for disaster... », autrement dit, “tout se déroule comme prévu pour que survienne le désastre”.
Ce désastre, comme le résume le physicien australien Graham Turner, qui a succédé à Dennis Meadows comme rédacteur coordonnateur, découlera du fait que, si l’humanité continue à consommer plus que la nature ne peut produire, un effondrement économique se traduisant pas une baisse massive de la population se produira aux alentours de 2030.
Extrait d’un commentaire :
Et alors...? Oui pour Mr & Mme Lambda ça va être une catastrophe très personnelle, mais pour l’histoire de la planète une peripétie de plus. Une tentative de plus pour l’émergence d’une intelligence viable, ce n’est de loin pas la première. Je ne me fais aucun souci pour ce laboratoire du vivant qu’est notre planète. Juste dommage d’arriver à un tel degré de complexité et de laisser « tomber » au nom de l’avidité qui caractérise notre espèce. Parce que notre planète entretient une forme de vie d’une complexité folle, et je ne parle pas de l’homme ! Notre espèce est une forme parasitaire, de type viral donc à vie très courte faute de « support » ! Non je parle du monde végétal qui lui a toute ses chances après notre court passage, destructeur certes, mais peut-être nécessaire comme « booster » d’évolution. Mais dans tous les cas dommage, nous aurions gagné à être des symbiotes, mais l’Intelligence de l’évolution de la Vie en mouvement en a « décidé » autrement. L’espèce à laquelle nous nous identifions contenait dès le départ les germes de sa propre destruction. Trop avide, trop agressive, même si cela peut-être un « moteur » d’expansion, il aurait fallu une intelligence plus holistique pour que cela puisse fonctionner, et ce n’est de loin pas le cas ! Donc ...
Ce graph est dans le rapport de la #NASA de #Motesharrei
▻http://seenthis.net/messages/239274
#visualisation #modélisation
Source exacte #smithsonian_museum
A propos du lien de @touti :
Et voilà comme en une semaine, on est donc passé d’”une étude universitaire partiellement financée par une bourse du centre Goddard de la Nasa et avançant des scénarios pouvant mener à la chute de notre civilisation” à “la NASA annonce la fin du monde”, avec images d’apocalypse en noir et blanc et tout le bazar.
La NASA de l’apocalypse. | Klaire fait grr
►http://www.klaire.fr/2014/04/02/nasa
Compilation d’articles sur le sujet :
►http://seenthis.net/messages/499739
Climate Change : Nasa Key Indicators
▻http://climate.nasa.gov/key_indicators#co2
https://dl.dropbox.com/s/7g9hjpj9427xcpo/climatechange.png
Et d’autres figures importantes
Comment la #Terre change sous nos yeux | Eco(lo)
▻http://ecologie.blog.lemonde.fr/2014/02/07/comment-la-terre-change-sous-loeil-des-satellites
La planète change, et nous en sommes fortement responsables. Si certaines évolutions sont naturelles (comme par exemple les éruptions volcaniques), l’activité humaine, du fait de l’#urbanisation galopante, de l’#industrialisation polluante ou de la déforestation massive, accélère grandement le changement climatique, n’en déplaisent aux climatosceptiques. C’est ce que montre la #NASA américaine dans des séries d’images satellite, World of Change, qui documente comment les terres, les océans, l’atmosphère et le soleil de notre planète évoluent année après année. Un projet tant captivant qu’édifiant.
Ces transformations ont été captées par huit satellites du programme Landsat, un projet du Centre américain de veille géologique des Etats-Unis (USGS) et de la NASA lancé en 1972 - qui ont également été à l’origine du projet similaire Timelapse, déjà évoqué sur ce blog.
▻http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/?src=twitter
Ah oui là, la « mère Aral » elle en a pris un sacré coup, va falloir mettre à jour ma série B...
Aral Sea: trends and scenarios | GRID-Arendal - Maps & Graphics library
▻http://www.grida.no/graphicslib/detail/aral-sea-trends-and-scenarios_9219#
Aral Sea: trends and scenarios
Year: 2005
From collection: Vital Water Graphics
Author: Philippe Rekacewicz
The demise of the Aral Sea was caused primarily by the diversion of the inflowing Amu Dar’ya and Syr Dar’ya rivers to provide irrigation water for local croplands. This graphic shows the disappearance of the Aral Sea from 1957 to 2000 and three possible scenarios showing the relationship between future demand (and thus water abstraction) and future available runoff in cubic kilometres per year. The scenarios cover the time period from 2000 to 2020. They show what may happen if water abstraction and the demand for water continue to increase, what may happen if they remain the same as they were in the year 2000, and what may happen if they decrease.
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Why global water shortages pose threat of terror and war
▻http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/feb/09/global-water-shortages-threat-terror-war
The US security establishment is already warning of potential conflicts – including terror attacks – over water. In a 2012 report, the US director of national intelligence warned that overuse of water – as in India and other countries – was a source of conflict that could potentially compromise US national security.
The report focused on water basins critical to the US security regime – the Nile, Tigris-Euphrates, Mekong, Jordan, Indus, Brahmaputra and Amu Darya. It concluded: “During the next 10 years, many countries important to the United States will experience water problems – shortages, poor water quality, or floods – that will risk instability and state failure, increase regional tensions, and distract them from working with the United States.”
Have #Beirut's Social Movements Died?
►http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/have-beiruts-social-movements-died
Although the situation looks hopeless, there’s a new kind of understanding that we need to create alternatives. (Photo: Marwan Bu Haidar) Although the situation looks hopeless, there’s a new kind of understanding that we need to create alternatives. (Photo: Marwan Bu Haidar)
2013 was a dark year for social activism in Beirut, in which disillusionment, fear, and apathy prevailed, where calls to demonstrate were met with few boots on the ground. It was a stark difference to the energy and hopes that existed only a handful of years before, and where large demonstrations for various issues resonated strongly with the public. What happened?
Yazan al-Saadi
read (...)
#Culture_&_Society #Articles #Laique_Pride #Lebanon #MARCH_14 #March_8 #nasawiya
High-Energy X-ray View of ’Hand of God’ | NASA
▻http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/nustar/B1509-pia17566
High-Energy X-ray View of ’Hand of God’
Can you see the shape of a hand in this new X-ray image? The hand might look like an X-ray from the doctor’s office, but it is actually a cloud of material ejected from a star that exploded. NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, has imaged the structure in high-energy X-rays for the first time, shown in blue. Lower-energy X-ray light previously detected by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory is shown in green and red.
Nicknamed the “Hand of God,” this object is called a pulsar wind nebula. It’s powered by the leftover, dense core of a star that blew up in a supernova explosion. The stellar corpse, called PSR B1509-58, or B1509 for short, is a pulsar: it rapidly spins around, seven times per second, firing out a particle wind into the material around it — material that was ejected in the star’s explosion. These particles are interacting with magnetic fields around the material, causing it to glow with X-rays. The result is a cloud that, in previous images, looked like an open hand. The pulsar itself can’t be seen in this picture, but is located near the bright white spot.
One of the big mysteries of this object is whether the pulsar particles are interacting with the material in a specific way to make it look like a hand, or if the material is in fact shaped like a hand.
NuSTAR’s view is providing new clues to the puzzle. The hand actually shrinks in the NuSTAR image, looking more like a fist, as indicated by the blue color. The northern region, where the fingers are located, shrinks more than the southern part, where a jet lies, implying the two areas are physically different.
The red cloud at the end of the finger region is a different structure, called RCW 89. Astronomers think the pulsar’s wind is heating the cloud, causing it to glow with lower-energy X-ray light.
In this image, X-ray light seen by Chandra with energy ranges of 0.5 to 2 kiloelectron volts (keV) and 2 to 4 keV is shown in red and green, respectively, while X-ray light detected by NuSTAR in the higher-energy range of 7 to 25 keV is blue.
#NASA
#High-Energy X-ray View of ’Hand of God’
Des images de Mars à couper le souffle | Slate.fr
▻http://www.slate.fr/life/80921/magnifiques-images-mars-couper-souffle
DES IMAGES DE MARS À COUPER LE SOUFFLE
La planète rouge a aussi son Yann Arthus-Bertrand... C’est la caméra à haute définition embarquée à bord de la sonde MRO en orbite autour de Mars. Sa banque d’images fait l’objet d’un beau livre.
Les images qui constituent cette vidéo ont été prises à 300 km d’altitude au dessus de la planète Mars. La distance est inférieure à celle de la Station spatiale internationale au dessus de la Terre.
La définition des photos, en partie liée à l’absence de filtration de la lumière par l’atmosphère très ténue de la planète rouge, donne un résultat à couper le souffle.
L’impression de déjà vu est renforcée par le recours au noir et blanc qui élimine la dominante orangée habituelle que lui donne l’oxyde de fer présent à sa surface. Privée de cette couleur, Mars arbore des reliefs assez fantastiques mais dont les motifs nous sont familiers....
The NSA sent employees Thanksgiving talking points | The Verge
▻http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/2/5168040/the-nsa-sent-employees-thanksgiving-day-talking-points
Some of the suggested points designed to deflect dinnertime interrogations:
NSA programs protect Americans and our Allies. As an example, they have helped to understand and disrupt 54 terrorist events since 9/11: 25 in Europe, 11 in Asia and 5 in Africa. Thirteen of those had a homeland nexus.
NSA analysts do not decide what topics to work. They respond directly to requirements driven by the President’s Intelligence Priorities Framework and managed by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
NSA does not and will not steal industry secrets in order to give US companies a competitive advantage.
NSA performs its mission exceptionally well. We strive to be the best that we can be, because that’s what America requires as part of its defense in a dangerous world.
More than 6,000 NSA cryptologists have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Twenty have died in the line of duty helping our troops accomplish their missions.
The men and women of NSA take an oath to the Constitution. As private citizens themselves, NSA employees are acutely aware of the importance of upholding the Fourth Amendment, and they uphold it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
We encourage the American public to work with us to define the way ahead in balancing transparency and national security. We embrace public dialogue.
▻http://www.rcfp.org/sites/default/files/2013-12-02-Home_Affairs_Cmte_letter.pdf
December 2, 2013 OPEN LETTER TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS HOME AFFAIRS COMMITTEE:
As news organizations, editors, and journalists who often report on government actions that officials seek to keep secret, we write to the Committee on the eve of the forthcoming appearance of Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger to express our grave concern over pointed calls by those in authority for censorship of The Guardian and criminal prosecution of its journalists in the name of national security. Such sanctions, and the chilling impact created by even the threat to impose them, undermine the independence and integrity of the press that are essential for democracy to function.
At the height of the Vietnam War in 1971 the U.S. Supreme Court refused the request of President Nixon to enjoin a newspaper from publishing a classified Defense Department report on the war that had been leaked to a reporter. In rejecting censorship of true, newsworthy information as fundamentally inconsistent with a free press and a free people, Justice Hugo Black cautioned that “[t]he word ‘security’ is a broad, vague generality” that should not be invoked to abrogate the right of the press to educate citizens. “The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security for our Republic.”
Recent disclosures concerning secret activities of GCHQ and the U.S. National Security Agency may have embarrassed or angered political leaders, but they have educated the public on critically important matters and sparked a valuable global debate over the proper exercise of the vast surveillance powers that now exist. It is the responsibility of journalists to provide the type of accurate and in-depth news reports published by The Guardian and others that have informed the public and framed important, unresolved issues concerning the balance between security and privacy. Vigorous news coverage and the debate it fosters advance the public interest.
It is thus unwise and counterproductive to react to the reporting on disclosures from Edward Snowden by reflexively invoking security concerns to silence the press or to accuse a news organization of aiding terrorists simply by providing citizens with information they need to know. Published reports in The Guardian on the Snowden disclosures have been prepared with the care and sensitivity to security concerns that editors have long demonstrated. We understand that both GCHQ and the NSA were provided an opportunity, in advance of publication, to comment and alert the journalists to particular security concerns. The reporting has been both responsible and, given the intense displeasure of those in power, courageous.
To the rest of the world, it appears that press freedom itself is under attack in Britain today. British politicians are publicly calling for the criminal prosecution of The Guardian for having published true, accurate, and newsworthy information. A Scotland Yard investigation has been launched. “D notices” have been threatened. And the Prime Minister has raised the prospect of seeking an injunction prohibiting The Guardian from publishing any further intelligence revelations. These aggressive actions intimidate journalists and their sources. They chill reporting on issues of national security and on the conduct of government more generally.
In our Internet-connected world, the impact of actions in Britain extends far beyond the United Kingdom. U.N. Special Rapporteur Frank La Rue rightly expressed alarm that these actions do more than damage Britain’s international reputation as a defender of press freedom; they “provide encouragement to non-democratic regimes to justify their own repressive actions.” They undermine globally the essential independence of the press.
We therefore urge the Committee to use the occasion of Mr. Rusbridger’s appearance to reaffirm Britain’s commitment to a vigorous, free, and independent press. It is important to acknowledge that the Snowden revelations, filtered to the public through responsible journalists, have served the public interest. And it is equally important to respect the autonomy of the newsroom. Damage to democracy and to the credibility of elected governments inevitably is inflicted when disapproval of truthful reporting causes officials to intrude into the internal editorial decisions of news organizations.
Respectfully,
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press American Society of News Editors
The Associated Press
The E.W. Scripps Company
The McClatchy Company
The New York Times Company
The New Yorker
Newspaper Association of America ProPublica
The Seattle Times Company
Society of Professional Journalists
The Washington Post
World Association of Newspapers and News
Publishers (WAN-IFRA)
#surveillance
#nasa
#snowmen
Houston - we need some plutonium - ScienceWonk
▻http://blogs.fas.org/sciencewonk/2013/09/houston-need-plutonium
This is where the Pu-238 half-life comes into play – it will take 87.7 years for 50% of the Pu-238 (and for power production to drop by half), so power will drop by only about 0.8% in a year. The Pu-238 half life is short enough to make for a furious decay rate – enough to produce the power needed to run a spaceship – but long enough to last for the decades needed to reach Pluto (the destination of the New Horizons ship) or to linger in orbit around Jupiter and Saturn (a la Galileo and Cassini). Without RTGs powered by Pu-238 we can’t explore much beyond the asteroid belt. This is why the possible exhaustion of our stocks of this nuclide so alarms Adams. According to Adams, #NASA has already delayed or cancelled a number of planned missions to the outer Solar System, including a mission to study Europa, whose oceans are considered a prime candidate as an abode for life outside of Earth. The Department of Energy estimates that an annual outlay of $20 million or less would be enough to supply NASA’s Pu-238 needs, but this amount has not been forthcoming.
Yosemite Fire From Space: Photos Released By NASA
La #carte NOAA “green” de la végétation mondiale, présentée avec #leaflet.js
▻http://fil.rezo.net/green
Découvrez la planète verte... | Slate.fr
►http://www.slate.fr/life/74325/decouvrez-la-planete-verte
Cette #cartographie a été réalisée grâce au capteur VIIRS installé à bord du #satellite Suomi NPP de la #Nasa et de la #NOAA (National oceanic and atmospheric administration). L’instrument permet de distinguer de subtiles nuances de vert. Ainsi, le satellite a pu enregistrer les variations de la couverture de #végétation au cours des saisons successives de l’année, entre avril 2012 et avril 2013. Plus le vert est sombre, plus la #végétation est épaisse.
L’île de Man sur orbite
A l’assaut du huitième continent, par Philippe Rivière @fil (#2012/08 en accès libre)
►http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2012/08/RIVIERE/48044
SpaceX, Orbital Sciences, XCOR Aerospace… Ces nouvelles sociétés privées, qui vendent des vols spatiaux à des Etats ou des organismes de recherche, rêvent d’atteindre Mars avant la #NASA .
#Espace #Énergie #Tourisme #Entreprise #Transports #Technologie #Aéronautique
La future économie Terre-Lune et autres cartes, par Philippe Rekacewicz @reka
►http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/cartes/mars
Voir aussi :
Fortunes spatiales
►http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2012/08/RIVIERE/48043
Un voyage touristique autour de la #Lune ? Depuis le 19 juin, le ticket est à 155 millions de dollars. Si la première course à l’espace opposait deux grandes puissances — les #Etats-Unis et l’Union soviétique —, les armateurs spatiaux du XXIe siècle sont des entreprises privées, comme la société américaine Space Adventures, ou encore Excalibur Almaz, basée… sur l’#île_de_Man .
#Google Buys Quantum Computer for Artificial Intelligence Lab at #NASA | Singularity Hub
▻http://singularityhub.com/2013/06/05/google-buys-quantum-computer-for-artificial-intelligence-lab-at-nasa
Google is the second firm to purchase a #D-Wave computer. The 14-year-old firm sold a 128-qubit D-Wave One to Lockheed Martin in 2011. Lockheed went on to establish the USC Lockheed Martin Quantum Computing Center later that year. The Lockheed machine has since been upgraded to the 512-qubit D-Wave Two, and according to the New York Times, the NASA Ames machine may be upgraded to a 2,048 qubit chip in the next year or two.
(...) in recent years, D-Wave has begun to win over the critics. (...)
Google and its partners performed rigorous tests of the hardware before cutting D-Wave a check.
Launching the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab
▻http://googleresearch.blogspot.fr/2013/05/launching-quantum-artificial.html
We believe quantum computing may help solve some of the most challenging computer science problems, particularly in machine learning
Curiosity Rover Report (May 16, 2013): Rover Readies for Second Drilling - YouTube
▻http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVwuOByJ5zw&list=PLE8C83FF0367EEF8C&index=1
Impressionnant le système pour faire passer les échantillons d’un instrument à l’autre.(Permalink)
Mars Science Laboratory : Raw Images
▻http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/?s=#/?slide=274
Toutes les photos de Curiosity sol par sol, des premières aux dernières.(Permalink)
ISS Photo Locations
▻http://natronics.github.com/ISS-photo-locations
Since the first mission to the International Space Station over 12 years ago there have been over a million photographs taken by astronauts looking out from four hundred kilometers above Earth. Nearly all of them have been archived on NASA’s servers. I’ve crawled that archive, pulling down the location for each of the 1,129,177 photographs taken from the ISS1.
If we draw a dot for the location of every photo of Earth taken from space what do we see?
▻http://natronics.github.com/ISS-photo-locations/all_iss.preview.png
La Nasa offre 10 000 dollars à celui qui permettra d’améliorer l’ISS
▻http://www.rtbf.be/info/societe/detail_la-nasa-offre-10-000-dollars-a-celui-qui-permettra-d-ameliorer-l-iss?id=
La Nasa lance un concours international ouvert à tous afin d’optimiser la production d’électricité par les panneaux solaires de la Station spatiale internationale (ISS). L’agence spatiale américaine cherche l’idée géniale qui permettra de positionner ces panneaux de manière telle qu’ils généreront un maximum d’énergie, même pendant les positions orbitales les moins favorables. La Nasa offre en tout 30 000 dollars de prix.
Une puce GPS moins énergivore grâce au cloud computing
►http://www.futura-sciences.com/fr/news/t/technologie-1/d/une-puce-gps-moins-energivore-grace-au-cloud-computing_43848/#xtor=RSS-8
Des chercheurs de Microsoft affirment réduire d’un facteur 2.000 l’énergie consommée par une puce GPS en diminuant drastiquement la quête et le traitement des informations émises par les satellites. Le reste des données nécessaires est collecté et traité sur des serveurs …
Source : Futura-Sciences
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