LE MERVEILLEUX JARDIN DES EPICES - Le curcuma, l'épice qui colore nos assiettes

Le curcuma est une épice qui nous vient de l'Inde. C'est l'ingrédient principal du curry. Sa belle couleur jaune met du soleil dans nos assiettes. Et son parfum poivré, musqué et subtilement âcre donne indéniablement à nos plats un goût d'ailleurs.

Riche en curcumine, le curcuma est l'objet de nombreuses attentions scientifiques. Car il pourrait aider à protéger contre les maladies liées au stress oxydatif telles que les maladies cardiovasculaires ou la maladie d'Alzheimer. Il pourrait aussi permettre de prévenir la survenue de certains cancers. Et présenter des propriétés anti-inflammatoires intéressantes.

© Simon A. Eugster, Wikimedia Commons, CC by-sa 3.0 ; H. Zell, Wikimedia Commons, CC by-sa 3.0 ; magdal3na, Fotolia

FuturaSciences

ASTRONOMY - Full Observatory Moon

 2024 January 27

Full Observatory Moon
Image Credit & Copyright: Yuri Beletsky (Carnegie Las Campanas Observatory, TWAN)

Explanation: A popular name for January's full moon in the northern hemisphere is the Full Wolf Moon. As the new year's first full moon, it rises over Las Campanas Observatory in this dramatic Earth-and-moonscape. Peering from the foreground like astronomical eyes are the observatory's twin 6.5 meter diameter Magellan telescopes. The snapshot was captured with telephoto lens across rugged terrain in the Chilean Atacama Desert, taken at a distance of about 9 miles from the observatory and about 240,000 miles from the lunar surface. Of course the first full moon of the lunar new year, known to some as the Full Snow Moon, will rise on February 24.

ASTRONOMY - Epsilon Tauri: Star with Planet

 2024 January 26

Epsilon Tauri: Star with Planet
Image Credit & Copyright: Reg Pratt

Explanation: Epsilon Tauri lies 146 light-years away. A K-type red giant star, epsilon Tau is cooler than the Sun, but with about 13 times the solar radius it has nearly 100 times the solar luminosity. A member of the Hyades open star cluster the giant star is known by the proper name Ain, and along with brighter giant star Aldebaran, forms the eyes of Taurus the Bull. Surrounded by dusty, dark clouds in Taurus, epsilon Tau is also known to have a planet. Discovered by radial velocity measurements in 2006, Epsilon Tauri b is a gas giant planet larger than Jupiter with an orbital period of 1.6 years. And though the exoplanet can't be seen directly, on a dark night its parent star epsilon Tauri is easily visible to the unaided eye.

O FUTURO NO PRESENTE - Sustentabilidade do Pal-V Liberty Pioneer Edition

O uso de combustível sustentável é algo que torna o PAL-V mais atrativo. Este carro foi pensado para ser sustentável. A tecnologia usada no carro voador permitiu o recurso a combustível híbrido. Ele tem por base a utilização de combustíveis eletrónicos. Essa opção contribui para tornar o carro mais verde ao minimizar os impactos ambientais, como a emissão de gás carbónico.

O carro voador já é um sucesso, contando com diversas unidades já vendidas. Robert Dingemanse afirmou que tem 90 unidades já vendidas para clientes da Europa e da América do Norte.

O Liberty PAL-V encontra-se disponível para compra por valores a partir de US$ 316.000 (aproximadamente 288 411,62€). Portanto, ainda não é um veículo para as massas.

Ncultura

LE JARDIN MERVEILLEUX DES EPICES - Le fenouil et ses vertus digestives

Le fenouil est une plante originaire du bassin méditerranéen. D'aspect, il ressemble à s'y méprendre à l'aneth. Mais de goût, c'est l'anis qu'il rappelle. Sans toutefois que sa saveur soit aussi sucrée. Le fenouil peut se consommer cru ou cuit. Et ses graines, tout particulièrement, sont appréciées en tant qu'épice.

Les graines de fenouil sont notamment reconnues pour leur efficacité à lutter contre les troubles digestifs. Il semblerait en effet que leur consommation stimule les muscles de l'intestin. En tisane, par exemple, les graines de fenouil aident aussi à neutraliser l'acidité gastrique. Après un repas un peu trop riche, notamment.

© Isidre blanc, Wikimedia Commons, CC by-sa 4.0 ; Cozine, Fotolia

FuturaSciences

ASTRONOMY - Jyväskylä in the Sky

 2024 January 25

Jyväskylä in the Sky
Image Credit & Copyright: Harri Kiiskinen

Explanation: You might not immediately recognize this street map of a neighborhood in Jyväskylä, Finland, planet Earth. But that's probably because the map was projected into the night sky and captured with an allsky camera on January 16. The temperature recorded on that northern winter night was around minus 20 degrees Celsius. As ice crystals formed in the atmosphere overhead, street lights spilling illumination into the sky above produced visible light pillars, their ethereal appearance due to specular reflections from the fluttering crystals' flat surfaces. Of course, the projected light pillars trace a map of the brightly lit local streets, though reversed right to left in the upward looking camera's view. This light pillar street map was seen to hover for hours in the Jyväskylä night.

ASTRONOMY - Earth and Moon from Beyond

 2024 January 24

Earth and Moon from Beyond
Image Credit: NASA, Artemis I; Processing: Andy Saunders

Explanation: What do the Earth and Moon look like from beyond the Moon? Although frequently photographed together, the familiar duo was captured with this unusual perspective in late 2022 by the robotic Orion spacecraft of NASA's Artemis I mission as it looped around Earth's most massive satellite and looked back toward its home world. Since our Earth is about four times the diameter of the Moon, the satellite’s seemingly large size was caused by the capsule being closer to the smaller body. Artemis II, the next launch in NASA’s Artemis series, is currently scheduled to take people around the Moon in 2025, while Artemis III is planned to return humans to lunar surface in late 2026. Last week, JAXA's robotic SLIM spacecraft, launched from Japan, landed on the Moon and released two hopping rovers.

O FUTURO NO PRESENTE - Características do carro voador

Ora, tendo em conta que o carro voador conjuga o automóvel com o helicóptero, será um Helicarro ou um Carrocoptero? Na verdade, o carro voador da PAL-V realiza o seu funcionamento com recurso a pequenas asas fixas e a uma hélice traseira que o empurra para a frente.

Por isso, a iniciativa de tornar este veículo uma realidade permitiu conjugar as funcionalidades de 3 veículos: um carro, helicóptero e um avião. O carro voador requer um campo de aviação para poder descolar. Ele conta com um motor de 200 cavalos para realizar essa tarefa na perfeição.

Segundo o CEO da empresa da Holanda, Robert: “O Liberty marcará o início da era dos carros voadores. Ao usar a infraestrutura e os regulamentos existentes, já podemos começar a utilizar o Liberty no próximo ano. No futuro, continuaremos a desenvolver produtos inovadores de mobilidade aérea”.

Ncultura

LE JARDIN MERVEILLEUX DES EPICES - La coriandre, l’épice des pharaons

Le goût de la coriandre ne laisse généralement pas indifférent. On l'aime ou on ne l'aime pas. Ses graines -- qui peuvent faire penser à des graines de poivre et constitue le fruit de la coriandre -- exhalent une saveur orangée.

La légende veut que les archéologues aient trouvé des graines de coriandre jusque dans les tombeaux des pharaons. Et dans le plus célèbre d'entre eux, celui de Toutankhamon. Il faut dire que la coriandre figure alors dans la liste des plantes médicinales. Car les graines de coriandre pourraient aider à lutter contre le diabète et présenter des propriétés antibactériennes. Elles aideraient aussi à la digestion et auraient des vertus aphrodisiaques.

© PDPics, Pixabay, CC0 Creative Commons ; H. Zell, Wikimedia Commons, CC by-sa 3.0

FuturaSciences

ASTRONOMY - Deep Nebulas: From Seagull to California

 2024 January 23

Deep Nebulas: From Seagull to California
Image Credit & Copyright: Alistair Symon

Explanation: How well do you know the night sky? OK, but how well can you identify famous sky objects in a very deep image? Either way, here is a test: see if you can find some well-known night-sky icons in a deep image filled with faint nebulosity. This image contains the Pleiades star cluster, Barnard's Loop, Horsehead Nebula, Orion Nebula, Rosette Nebula, Cone Nebula, Rigel, Jellyfish Nebula, Monkey Head Nebula, Flaming Star Nebula, Tadpole Nebula, Aldebaran, Simeis 147, Seagull Nebula and the California Nebula. To find their real locations, here is an annotated image version. The reason this task might be difficult is similar to the reason it is initially hard to identify familiar constellations in a very dark sky: the tapestry of our night sky has an extremely deep hidden complexity. The featured composite reveals some of this complexity in a mosaic of 28 images taken over 800 hours from dark skies over Arizona, USA.