Phys.org April 27, 2020 An international team of researchers (Australia, UK, Poland, USA – Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Harvard University, Portugal, Germany, Italy) reported that four new measurements of light emitted from a quasar 13 billion light years away reaffirm past studies that found tiny variations in the fine structure constant which is used as a measure of the strength of the electromagnetic force, one of the four fundamental forces in nature. They made four measurements of the fine constant along the one line of sight to this quasar. Individually, the four measurements did not provide any conclusive answer as […]
Category Archives: Science without borders
Publishers try out alternative pathways to open access
Science Magazine March 13, 2020 Article-processing fees (APCs) can run several thousand dollars per paper. Two non-profit publishers, Annual Review and ACM, have debuted new ways to support Open Access journals without shifting the burden entirely to authors. In the Annual Reviews model to make a journal freely available, institutions would be asked for a contribution equivalent to their previous subscription—minus a 5% discount that Annual Reviews to retain a critical mass of paying institutions. It will reimpose paywalls and rescind the discount if not enough subscribers renew each year. ACM is asking the institutions that publish the most papers […]
The 10 most important future big-science facilities in physics
Physics World February 24, 2020 At a meeting on big science in physics, experts described several important facilities. New facilities to watch for are the James Webb Space Telescope; ITER; The European Extremely Large Telescope; the European Spallation Source (ESS); the Extreme Light Infrastructure; Hyper Kamiokande; the Square Kilometre Array; the Long Baseline Neutrino Facility; the Electron-Ion Collider; and a future electron-positron collider…read more.
This simple tool can help you manage multiple research projects – How to master the art of prioritization.
Nature Index January 23, 2020 One of the most difficult things in research is to pick, prioritize, and pursue the right research projects. The life of a researcher is in many ways centered on managing and implementing a portfolio of different projects on an ongoing basis. One of the tools is the Project management triangle, which says that all projects have three constraints (scope, time, and costs), which ultimately determine the quality of the project. If you change one of these elements, it will have consequences for the other elements. Once you’ve committed to a research project, it’s also important […]
Air pollution in New York City linked to wildfires hundreds of miles away
Science Daily January 22, 2020 Biomass burning, which occurs on a large-scale during wildfires and some controlled burns, is a major source of air pollutants that impact air quality, human health, and climate. Particulate matter with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5) has been shown to have particularly serious health effects when inhaled. Researchers at Yale University monitored the air quality at 5 sites in Cnnecticut and New York metropolitan area. In August of 2018, they observed two spikes in the presence of air pollutants found in the smoke of wildfires and controlled agricultural burning. Using data from […]
These 6 Incredible Discoveries From The Past Decade Have Changed Science Forever
Science Alert January 1, 2010 From finding the building blocks for life on Mars to breakthroughs in gene editing and the rise of artificial intelligence, here are six major scientific discoveries that shaped the 2010s and what leading experts say could come next – Are we alone?, Einstein was right (again), Welcome to the CRISPR era, Immunotherapy to the fore, Meet the relatives, and AI levels up…read more.
A fifth fundamental force could really exist, but we haven’t found it yet
Phys.org November 27, 2019 The universe is governed by four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces which are a part of the Standard Model of particle physics. But the Standard Model can’t combine with gravity in the way that we thought. Dark matter and dark energy are also problamatic. An international team of researchers (Hungary, the Netherlands) looks at an anomaly in the decay of helium-4 nuclei, and it builds off an earlier study of beryllium-8 decays. That also seems to violate the Standard Model slightly. The fifth force could exist, but we haven’t found […]
Have the great theories become obsolete?
Eurekalert November 6, 2019 Be it relativity theory, systems theory, or game theory: to this day, great theories are the figureheads of science. Today’s technology makes it possible to store huge amounts of data and analyse them rapidly. This has an effect on academic work. Researchers automatically evaluate large amounts of data in order to explain phenomena. Great theories and mid-range theories have always been questioned. However, nowadays, criticism has taken on a completely different quality. Digitalization has the ability to change the foundations of sciences. At an upcoming conference in Germany, ‘The Theoretical University in the Data Age. Have […]
A new equation may have finally solved Einstein’s ‘biggest blunder’
Space.com September 6, 2019 Researchers in Switzerland have introduced a new way of evaluating Albert Einstein’s equations of gravity to find a value for the cosmological constant that closely matches its observed value by adding an additional equation on top of Einstein’s field equations. In their modification of general relativity, the gravitational constant remains the same within our observable universe but may vary in a multiverse scenario where there may be patches of the universe invisible to us that have different values for the fundamental constants. Using this they found the universe is made up of about 74% dark energy. […]
U.S. Engineering Salaries Jump; Smartphone Developers Win Big
IEEE Spectrum September 11, 2019 These are some of the highlights that stand out in the just-released IEEE-USA Salary & Benefits Survey – income gains weren’t evenly spread among engineers of all specialties, regions, race, gender, or age; Smartphone Developers and Machine Learning Engineers Win Big; engineers working in energy and power engineering, robotics and automation, and engineers in instrumentation and measurement, are at the lower end of the scale. The Salary “Gap” between men and women is more like a chasm, the overall difference in median income in 2018 was $19,000. Large racial disparities persist. Income varied significantly with […]