2020年9月28日 星期一

America's navy moves toward unmanned vessels








These sailor-less vessels are harder to spot on a radar and are cheaper to build and operate than traditional American warships



ECONOMIST.COM
America's navy moves toward unmanned vessels
AI, captain

2020年9月24日 星期四

The question that obsessed Nobel Laureate Linda Buck was how our sense of smell worked.





Nobel Prize



"That's where the joy comes from, and I think also where the great discoveries come from."
The question that obsessed Nobel Laureate Linda Buck was how our sense of smell worked.
In 1999 she revealed the answer to be a complicated system in which each olfactory receptor detects more than one odorant and can be detected by more that one receptor. This code underlies our ability to recognise more than 10,000 different odours, just as we can spell thousands of words with just 26 letters.
Discover more about Buck: https://bit.ly/2Igteth




2020年9月23日 星期三

Absorbing inspiration like a sponge

 Nature as architect

Sea sponge.
Absorbing inspiration like a sponge
The skeletal structure of ocean sponges could inspire a new generation of stronger buildings, longer bridges, and lighter spacecraft, say researchers.

2020年9月20日 星期日

Hypatia希帕提亞,生於約350年-370年之間,死於415年3月

 Wikipedia 的"詳傳" 英文版,出乎意外:English

Hypatia[a] (born c. 350–370; died 415)[1][5] was a Hellenistic Neoplatonist philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician, who lived in AlexandriaEgypt, then part of the Eastern Roman Empire. She was a prominent thinker of the Neoplatonic school in Alexandria where she taught philosophy and astronomy.[6] She is the first female mathematician whose life is reasonably well recorded.[7] Hypatia was renowned in her own lifetime as a great teacher and a wise counselor. She is known to have written a commentary on Diophantus's thirteen-volume Arithmetica, which may survive in part, having been interpolated into Diophantus's original text, and another commentary on Apollonius of Perga's treatise on conic sections, which has not survived. Many modern scholars also believe that Hypatia may have edited the surviving text of Ptolemy's Almagest, based on the title of her father Theon's commentary on Book III of the Almagest.

希帕提亞古希臘語Ὑπατία,生於約350年-370年之間,死於415年3月)[註 1],又譯作海芭夏海帕西亞,著名的希臘化古埃及新柏拉圖主義學者,是當時名重一時、廣受歡迎的女性哲學家數學家天文學家占星學家以及教師,她居住在希臘化時代古埃及的亞歷山卓,對該城的知識社群做出了極大貢獻。根據後世研究顯示,她曾對丟番圖的《算術》(Arithmetica)、阿波羅尼奧斯的《圓錐曲線論》(Conics)以及托勒密的作品做過評註,但均未留存。從她的學生辛奈西斯寫給她的信中,可以看出她的知識背景:她屬柏拉圖學派──雖然我們只能假設她曾採納普羅提諾的學說(普羅提納斯為公元三世紀時的柏拉圖門人,也是新柏拉圖學派的創始者)。另外有少許證據顯示,希帕提亞在科學上最知名的貢獻,為發明了天體觀測儀以及比重計。她最後被暴徒迫害殺死。2009年其生平被改編成西班牙電影《風暴佳人》搬上銀幕。




"Hypatia"
Marble, -1874
By Odoardo Tabacchi, - (1836 -1905)
Odoardo Tabacchi (Valganna, December 19, 1836 - Milan, March 23, 1905) was an Italian sculptor.
He was trained at the Brera Academy starting in 1845, from here he studied with other sculptors in Milan, Rome (where in 1851 he won a three-year scholarship), Florence and Naples. From 1860 to 1868 a studio was opened in Milan, then he moved to Turin, where he became a professor at the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts.
He was known for making copies of classical statues, busts, and reliefs. In 1870, in Parma he showed a statue that represents: La Peri. In 1872, he exhibited in Milan L Hypatria (Naples, 1877). He also completed a larger-than-life marble, later bronze, statue by Arnaldo da Brescia, exhibited in Turin in 1880. He made a portrait of Michelangelo Buonarroti for the Roman Exhibition 1883. In Turin, in 1884, he exhibited a sculptural group entitled Pericoloso book; and three busts Fiori del Ballo, Count Avogadro di Quaregna and Dreamland.


The play Hypatia, performed at the Haymarket Theatre in January 1893, was based on the novel by Charles Kingsley.[207]
Julia Margaret Cameron's 1867 photograph Hypatia, also inspired by Charles Kingsley's novel[207]
Ὑπατία
Hypatia Sanzio.png
拉斐爾在畫作《雅典學院》中所繪的白衣女子,後世咸信此人即為希帕提亞
出生約350年-370年
東羅馬帝國埃及行省亞歷山卓
逝世415年3月(44歲-65歲)[1]
東羅馬帝國埃及行省亞歷山卓
時代古典哲學
地區古希臘學者
學派新柏拉圖主義
主要領域
數學天文學


中文版2則參考資料:

外部連結[編輯]

2020年9月7日 星期一

Reviving a lost fruit 千年前蜜棗再生記



Dan Balilty for The New York Times



The harvest this month of the long-lost Judean dates at a kibbutz in Israel was hailed as a modern miracle of science. The honey-blond fruit was plucked from a tree that sprouted from a 2,000-year-old seed retrieved from an archaeological site in the Judean wilderness.

Our reporter recounted the work and determination of two women — a researcher on natural medicine and an expert on arid agriculture — to bring back the ancient dates.

這個久違的猶太時代的蜜棗,這個月在以色列一個基布茲有收穫了,這被譽為現代科學奇蹟。 這款蜜桃果實是從一棵樹--朱迪亞曠野的一個考古現場獲取的2000年曆史的種子中萌發--上摘下的。
我們的記者講述了兩位婦女的工作和決心,一位自然醫學研究人員和一位乾旱農業專家,帶回了古老的蜜棗。


2020年9月2日 星期三

Wilhelm Ostwald、(1853-1932) 触媒作用、化学平衡および反応速度に関する研究

Wilhelm Ostwald、(1853-1932)
Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald ドイツ帝国     触媒作用、化学平衡および反応速度に関する研究

In the 19th century chemists noticed that certain chemical reactions seemed to be caused by substances that remained unchanged in the process.
In the 1880s Wilhelm Ostwald studied the speeds of numerous chemical reactions, including reactions occurring in the presence of acids and bases. In 1894 he revealed what happens: a substance - a catalyst - can affect a chemical reaction's speed, but is not included in its end-products. It does this by lowering the reaction's activation energy 活化能 - the energy needed to kick-off a reaction (see picture). This understanding shed great light on chemical reactions occurring in both industrial processes and living organisms and led to Ostwald receiving the 1909 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
More about Ostwald: https://bit.ly/318NaoK