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ECLIPSE
This morning, 20th of March, we watched the eclipse of the sun, which was only partial here in Burgundy, but exceptional nevertheless because :- the eclipse occurred on the day of the spring equinoxe-...
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HERBARIUMS AGAIN/ENCORE DES HERBIERS
The Salon Photo Nature in Saint Jean de Losne took place last week-end. It is not as such a scientific event, but with its 15 photographers exhibiting some of their best wildlife images, Patryck...
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PASTEUR AND HIS PORTRAIT/PASTEUR ET SON PORTRAIT
Today is the 150th anniversary of Pasteur's patenting of the pasteurisation process. To commemorate and celebrate, the University of Burgundy's laboratory Cyméos, led by Daniel Raichvarg, who...
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SCIENTIFIC QUILT/QUILT SCIENTIFIQUE
Following the piece on Pasteur's portrait, I am writing today about another, very ambitious, artistic/scientific project, from Britain. I first heard of it last week on the Inside Science programme on...
View ArticleDR CUSHING'S PHOTOGRAPHS/LES PHOTOGRAPHIES DU DR CUSHING
Yesterday, there was a short piece on BBC's Radio 4, on the Today programme, about the man called the "father of modern neurosurgery". Dr William Harvey Cushing (1869-1939) was a pioneering surgeon in...
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ANOTHER SCIENTIFIC QUILT/UN AUTRE QUILT SCIENTIFIQUE
This quilt dates back to 1876. It is an astronomical quilt, depicting the solar system, with a comet coming from the left to pass behind the sun. The earth is very small, placed before a belt of...
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READING ANCIENT PAPYRI/COMMENT LIRE D'ANCIENS PAPYRUS
Since the discovery of the Villa of the Papyri, in Herculanum, in the mid-eighteenth century, scholars have been trying to decipher the 1,800 burnt volumes or so retrieved from this splendid luxury...
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SCIENTIFIC ILLUSTRATION SEMINAR PUBLICATION/PUBLICATION DU SEMINAIRE...
I am pleased to announce the publication of papers from our seminar . Eleven papers are now available on line, along with numerous illustrations, at the following address...
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MODELS/MAQUETTES
How do you represent what is not immediately visible to the eyes? especially if it's hidden undergound, like mine shafts, pits and galleries? Industrial sites now redundant have lately become tourist...
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AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHS AND ARCHAELOGY/PHOTOGRAPHIES AERIENNES ET ARCHEOLOGIE
There is an exhibition at the moment in the Cote d'Or Archives in Dijon, rue Jeannin, of photographs taken from the air by René Goguey, from the 70s. He intends to donate his photos to the archives....
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GNOMONIC SUNDIALS/CADRANS SOLAIRES GNOMONIQUES
In the Musée de la Vie Bourguignonne in Dijon, there are several scientific instruments, among which this three-dimensional sundial, dating back to the eighteenth century :Au Musée de la Vie...
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EARTH'S INNER CORE/AU CENTRE DE LA TERRE
You may be familiar with this kind of image : a slice of the earth taken out to reveal the inside, made up of several layers :Vous avez peut-être déjà rencontré ce type d'images : une section de la...
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BUFFON'S PRIMATES/LES PRIMATES DE BUFFON
Dr Jorge Martinez Contreras, from the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana in Mexico, has recently published the result of many years of intense research on Buffon's primates. When he came to Dijon in...
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MAN'S IMPACT ON NATURE/IMPACT DE L'HOMME SUR LA NATURE
Valérie Chansigaud's latest book is entitled La Nature à l'épreuve de l'homme- approximately "Nature put to the test of mankind". It deals with the impact of men on their environment and the backlash...
View ArticleYEAR OF LIGHT/ANNEE DE LA LUMIERE
UNESCO has declared 2015 to be the International Year of Light - many events have taken place already, and quite a few are still to be held around the globe - so there is certainly something going on...
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NEW LINKS/NOUVEAUX LIENS
I am adding today two links to admirable and useful sites dedicated to Darwin and his co-discoverer of evolution, Wallace. They will be a useful addition to the complete works of Buffon that are also...
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MATHEMATICAL OBJECTS/OBJETS MATHEMATIQUES
On Monday, I visited a very small but fascinating exhibition in the Science Library on the Campus in Dijon. They have on display some mathematical models dating back to the nineteenth century,...
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MARIE THARP
Marie Tharp (1920-2006) worked as a geologist at the Lamont Geological Laboratory at Columbia. From the late 1940s she transferred onto paper data from sonars equipping ships exploring the Atlantic,...
View ArticleSPACE SATELLITES TIMELAPSE/VUE EN ACCELERE DES SATELLITES
Timelapses have become quite common on the Net - whether it's some proud parent photographing a child for several years, or the evolution of future or past landscapes, they have an incredible appeal :...
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GRAVITATIONAL WAVES/ONDES GRAVITATIONNELLES
I am not going in this post to try and explain what gravitational waves are and how they were discovered. I am totally incapable of doing that. The news bulletins have been busy doing precisely that,...
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