Eric Holcomb 🌈 🏳️‍🌈

Japan’s Critical Minerals Resilience Didn’t Start in 2010 – or 2026 Japan’s deep-sea rare earth breakthrough in January 2026 was not a rapid response. It was the latest turn of a ratchet that has been clicking forward for decades.

Japan’s deep-sea rare earth breakthrough in January 2026 was not a rapid response. It was the latest turn of a ratchet that has been clicking forward for decades.

Flying drones and robot dogs being used to move medical samples between NHS hospitals What started as a slightly sci-fi experiment above central London is quietly turning into everyday NHS logistics.

Flying drones and robot dogs being used to move medical samples between NHS hospitals

www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/fly...

Europe urged to follow China's industrial 3D printing strategy Chinese players lead desktop segment as EU lacks focus on deployment, demand creation

Europe urged to follow China's industrial 3D printing strategy
https://asia.nikkei.com/business/technology/europe-urged-to-follow-china-s-industrial-3d-printing-strategy

Modi's India boosts infra spending, seeks manufacturing-led growth Annual budget scales up biopharma, semiconductors, components and rare earths

Modi's India boosts infra spending, seeks manufacturing-led growth
https://asia.nikkei.com/economy/modi-s-india-boosts-infra-spending-seeks-manufacturing-led-growth

Gladys West, mathematician whose work paved the way for GPS, dies at 95 A self-described "little farm girl" in the Jim Crow Era, Gladys West's complex and pioneering work for the U.S. Navy helped to improve billions of lives — and keep us from getting lost.

A self-described "little farm girl" in the Jim Crow Era, Gladys West's complex and pioneering work for the U.S. Navy helped to improve billions of lives — and keep us from getting lost. n.pr/3YVSGJK

Plata Restaurant, Agora Hills, California

Lisbon 2025

Race for AI space centres: why the US goes all in after China makes first move Beijing and Washington battle for tech domination with next-gen plans to launch supercomputers into orbit and transform global connectivity.

Race for AI space centres: why the US goes all in after China makes first move
www.scmp.com/news/china/s...

Nvidia-backed startup Starcloud trained an AI model from space for the first time.

Last month, the company launched a satellite with an Nvidia H100 graphics processing unit. Now, the satellite is running and querying responses from Gemma, an open LLM from Google, CNBC has learned. cnb.cx/3XN89LI

Welcome to Itiner-e – The Digital Atlas of Ancient Roads- the most detailed open digital dataset of roads in the entire Roman Empire ... Itiner-e allows you to view, query and download roads. itiner-e.org #skystorians 🗃️#roman

Wispy

🌍 Introducing the Global Building Atlas Maps Mania is a blog dedicated to tracking the very best digital interactive maps on the internet and the tools used to create them.

#world #architecture #BigData #datasets

'The Global Building Atlas is a new global, high-resolution 3D dataset of the world's 2.75 billion buildings.'

googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/12/intr...

East Asia sub-sea cable security Source: DW

Israel plans to deploy Iron Beam laser defence system by year-end The first operational high-power laser beam will be deployed this year, providing a cost-effective and rapid solution for drones and unmanned aerial vehicles.

www.euronews.com/2025/12/02/i...

If you want to satiate AI’s hunger for power, Google suggests going to space Google engineers think they already have all the pieces needed to build a data center in orbit.

Google's ambitious Project Suncatcher intends to deploy swarms of solar panel-equipped satellites in low-Earth orbit, each carrying AI accelerator chips designed for training, content generation, synthetic speech and vision, and predictive modeling.

Coffee

We built a database of 290,000 English medieval soldiers – here’s what it reveals We created the database in order to challenge assumptions about the lack of professionalism of everyday soldiers.

A blast from my past - the Medieval Soldier database takes nearly 300,000 military service records from 1369-1453 and makes them available as a searchable database.

An invaluable resource for understanding medieval warfare, society and the English medieval state. Learn more in the link. 🗃️

Italian aerospace group Leonardo unveils ‘Michelangelo Dome’ air defense system Inspired by Israel’s Iron Dome, the system is set to be fully operational by 2028, will protect key sites from emerging threats, including hypersonic missiles and drones

Italian aerospace group Leonardo unveils ‘Michelangelo Dome’ air defense system https://www.timesofisrael.com/italian-aerospace-group-leonardo-unveils-michelangelo-dome-air-defense-system/

Meta and Partners Announce Completion of Core 2Africa Subsea Cable System - IT News Africa | Business Technology, Telecoms and Startup News Meta, in collaboration with Bayobab (MTN Group), Orange, center3, Telecom Egypt, Vodafone Group, and WIOCC announced the completion and activation of the core 2Africa Subsea Cable system.

Meta & partners complete 2Africa subsea cable. At 45,000+ km, it’s the WORLD'S LONGEST open-access system, linking 33 countries across 3 continents. FIRST to connect East and West Africa in ONE continuous loop!

This is fascinating! Semiyarka has been found to be an ancient city in Kazakhstan, specializing in production of tin-bronze, and contemporary with the Late Bronze Age kingdoms (Kassite Babylonia, Mittani, Hatti, New Kingdom Egypt, Mycenaean Greece, etc) in the Middle East and Mediterranean.

NATO has had decades to work out these logistical problems. Astonishing that they haven’t done so earlier or even made a credible attempt.

Image of the progress pride flag flying at our ESAC site in Spain.

Image of the progress pride flag flying at our ESRIN site in Frascati, Italy.

Image of the progress pride flag flying at our ESEC site in Belgium.

Image of the progress pride flag flying at our ESOC site in Darmstadt, Germany.

Today is #LGBTQinSTEMDay 🌈

ESA proudly joins the STEM community in celebrating the unique contributions of LGBTQ+ individuals.

The Pride Flag will fly across ESA sites as a reminder of how far we’ve come, and how much more there is to do.

#SpaceForAll

Cabo da Roca, Portugal

Sinstra, Portugal #2

Sinstra, Portugal #1

Pena Palace #4

Pena Palace #3

Pena Palace and Sinstra, Portugal #2

Pena Palace and Sinstra, Portugal #1

Lisbon - Belém District #3