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Tag archives: science and society
3D neutrinos on your phone, Hamiltonian: an Irish Musical, is a March for Science a good idea?
By Hamish Johnston
How would you like to explore a giant neutrino detector in 3D from the comfort of your mobile phone? VENu is a new smartphone app that allows you explore the physics underlying the MicroBooNE neutrino detector at Fermilab. Developed by Alistair McLean of New Mexico State University and an international team of physicists, the app is used in conjunction with the Google Cardboard headset to provide users with a virtual-reality experience of MicroBooNE. VENu includes games that offer “brain teasing challenges” including working out how to spot a neutrino event in a busy background of cosmic-ray events. The app can be downloaded free of charge from the Apple Store and the Google Android Marketplace.
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Great wagers in physics, CERN’s pine marten gets stuffed, Doomsday Clock moves closer to midnight
Flat out: Wallace saw him coming. (Courtesy: PI)
By Hamish Johnston
I bet you can’t resist clicking on “Great wagers in physics history” – which has been compiled by Colin Hunter at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Canada. A surprising number involve Stephen Hawking, whose record on winning is quite abysmal according to Hunter. Hawking’s fellow Cantabrigian Isaac Newton also enjoyed a flutter and accepted Christopher Wren’s offer of 40 shillings to anyone who could – in two months – derive a force law that explained Keplers laws of planetary motion. Newton succeeded, but ran overtime so he didn’t collect the cash. In the image above you can read about another wager involving a “flat-Earth theorist”.
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Mercury now orbits between Mars and Jupiter, fun with liquid nitrogen, 3D printing an asteroid
By Hamish Johnston
He may have taken the name of a planet, but the late rock star Freddie Mercury now has an asteroid named after him. 17473 Freddiemercury, is about 3.4 km in diameter and resides in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The designation was made by the Minor Planet Center of the International Astronomical Union and announced on Sunday by Mercury’s former Queen band mate and astrophysicist Brian May. In the above video, May gives some background to the naming, which was done to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Mercury’s birth. And if you watch to the end, you will see a clip of 17473 Freddiemercury streaking across the sky with Queen rocking in the background.
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An animated history of physics, messing around with methane and Vangelis on space
By Hamish Johnston
Topping this week’s Red Folder is an “Animated history of physics” narrated by the Irish comedian and science enthusiast Dara O Briain. Running from Galileo to Einstein’s general theory of relatively – and giving very short shrift to quantum mechanics – it’s more of a selected history. You can enjoy the animations and O Briain’s soothing brogue in the video above.
O Briain often teams up with the particle physicist and media celebrity Brian Cox, who is also in the news recently for teaching children in London how to ignite potentially explosive gas. Before you call social services, it was all in the name of science education and part of Cox’s visit to St. Paul’s Way Trust School. Cox had been invited to the school’s summer science school and obliged by leading an experiment into the properties of methane. “There is no shortage of enthusiasm for students and young people when you talk about science and engineering,” Cox told the Reuters news agency.
Pokémon physics, photon torpedoes, a neutrino Ghostbuster and more
Don’t walk into the water! Pokémon Go arrives at Fermilab. (Courtesy: Lauren Biron/Fermilab)
By Michael Banks and Hamish Johnston
The smartphone app Pokémon GO has been all the rage since its recent launch. The augmented-reality game is based on the Nintendo franchise and features players exploring their surroundings while trying to catch as many of the virtual creatures as possible, According to Science, Pokémon have been spotted at a number of science centres including NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory while Symmetry Magazine reports that the game has also infiltrated particle-physics labs such as Fermilab, with scientists seen walking around the lab peering into their phone as they hunt down Pokémon.
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Physics World talks to Spanish TV about migrating Nobel laureates
By Hamish Johnston
A few weeks ago I was in Germany for the 66th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, where I moderated a “press talk” about migration and science. This was essentially a panel discussion that involved two chemistry Nobel laureates – Martin Karplus and Daniel Shechtman – and two early-career physicists: Winifred Ayinpogbilla Atiah from Ghana and Ana Isabel Maldonado Cid from Spain.
A Nobel view on scientific leadership
Brian Schmidt speaks to young scientists in Lindau. (Courtesy: Lindau Meeting)
By Alaina G Levine, at the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in Germany
One of the best things about being at the 66th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting is that there are surprises around every corner. The organizers give you a programme, but you might not even realize the significance of an event until you are knee deep in it.
This morning, I attended one of four “Science Breakfasts” held this week, in which Nobel laureates and leaders in various industries share the stage and discuss topics of interest to the young scientists who have travelled from all over the world to participate in the meeting.
Over croissants and orange juice, the 2011 physics Nobel laureate Brian Schmidt took part in a lively discussion that itself was a mouthful: “Decoding science leadership: Developing capacity for leading innovation in a rapidly evolving 24/7 world with disruptive opportunities and challenges”.
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Talking about immigration with Nobel laureates in Lindau
Lakeside view: Lindau’s harbour on Lake Constance.
By Hamish Johnston at the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in Germany
I arrived in the German town of Lindau yesterday evening expecting it to be a sleepy little burg where I would struggle to find somewhere open to get a bite to eat. Instead I was greeted at the station by a cacophony of car horns and singing as Germany had just beat Slovakia and claimed its place in the next round of the Euro 2016 football tournament.
I’m here in the far south of Germany for the 66th Nobel Laureate Meeting. Tomorrow I will be hosting a “press talk” about how immigration continues to shape the scientific world. Last week’s momentous decision by the UK to leave the European Union is sure to come up in the panel discussion, which will include input from two chemistry Nobel laureates – Martin Karplus and Daniel Shechtman. I will also be joined on the panel by two early-career physicists: Winifred Ayinpogbilla Atiah from Ghana and Ana Isabel Maldonado Cid from Spain.
Killer asteroid bust-up, exposing academic plagiarism, #IAmAPhysicist and more
Time-lapse image of the asteroid Euphrosyne as seen by NASA’s WISE space telescope, which is used by NEOWISE to measure asteroid sizes. (Courtesy: NASA)
By Hamish Johnston
First-up in this week’s Red Folder is a tale of killer asteroids, hubris and peer review from the Washington Post. The science writer Rachel Feltman has written a nice article about a claim by physicist-turned-entrepreneur Nathan Myhrvold that NASA’s research on asteroids that could potentially collide with Earth is deeply flawed. On Monday, Myhrvold posted a 111-page preprint on arXiv that argues that asteroid radii measured by NASA’s NEOWISE project are far less accurate than stated by NASA scientists. What’s more, Myhrvold seems to suggest that NEOWISE scientists have “copied” some results from previous asteroid studies.
Myhrvold began his career as a theoretical physicist and, after a stint as Microsoft’s chief technology officer, founded an intellectual-property firm. He has never worked in the field of asteroids, yet he has taken great exception to some of the physics and statistical analysis underlying the NEOWISE results. His paper has been submitted to the journal Icarus, but has not yet passed peer review – unlike the NEOWISE results. In her article, Feltman ponders why Myhrvold is actively promoting his controversial work – he was featured in a New York Times article on Monday – before it has passed peer review. She also speaks to several NEOWISE scientists, who are not amused.
The toll of a year in space, running a marathon on the ISS, skip-diving at CERN and more
By Tushna Commissariat and Michael Banks
“A year here is a really really long time,” says astronaut Scott Kelly in an interview (watch the video above) that he did on board the International Space Station (ISS) just a month before he returned to Earth in March this year. The retired astronaut is talking about the very real effects of spending a long period in space, specifically citing both the physical effects as well as the “psychological stress” involved. “During my time in orbit, I lost bone mass, my muscles atrophied and my blood redistributed itself in my body, which strained my heart. Every day I was exposed to 10 times the radiation of a person on Earth, which will increase my risk of developing a fatal cancer for the rest of my life. Not to mention the psychological stress, which is harder to quantify and is perhaps as damaging,” he says.
The comments were part of the announcement of his upcoming memoir, Endurance: My Year in Space and Our Journey to Mars, which will be published later this year. Despite the damming tone, Kelly is still a staunch supporter of manned spaceflight and missions such as those to Mars, he just has a much clearer view on the realities involved. Read more about his announcement over at the GeekWire website.
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