Horizon in the Milky Way

On twitter Filippo Menconi shared an incredible flash applet realized with Stéphane Guisard's photos. The applet is intercative: for example you can change point of view simply moving the mouse up and down, rigth and left. After some experiment, I try to realize a little video using the applet. I produce two videos, without changing in point of view. In particular I propose you the video with Clouds over us⁽¹⁾ by Seeking for a name like soundtrack:

I hope that you can like this little experiment. In every case, if you are curious, in the following part of the post, you can read the procedure that I use:

Refining the mass of W

In our standard model of elementary particles we have four fundamental interactions: gravity, electromagnetism, strong nuclear force and weak interaction. In particular the last force is responsible for the radioactive decay and for the hydrogen fusion in stars. The bosons of the interaction (the particle exchanged between two fermions) are $W^\pm$ and $Z$ bosons. An example of weak interaction is $\pi^+$ decay:

The weak bosons are predicted in 1968 by Glashow, Weinberg and Salam⁽¹⁾ and discovered at CERN in 1983 in a series of experiments conducted by Carlo Rubbia and Simon van der Meer⁽²⁾. Now, from one of the last analysis from Tevatron, we have the last measure of W bosons. Indeed CDF's researchers propose the following preliminary value for $W$: \[M_W = (80.387 \pm 0.019) GeV\] and combining it with previous measures, the new preliminary world average is

I must remember that $(80.390 \pm 0.016) GeV$ will became the new $W$ mass only after the publication of the CDF's preprint (pdf) in a peer review journal and after the publication of the further calculation on the Particle Data Group. Indeed Wired (and en.wiki, following Wired), following Tommaso Dorigo, who simply described the experimental process that carries to the measure and to the new proposal, has just setted the new mass, forgetting the reviewing scientific process. So, until then, the average mass is $(80.399 \pm 0.023) GeV$⁽³⁾.

Experimental problems in OPERA

It seems that are some experimental problems in OPERA:

The OPERA Collaboration, by continuing its campaign of verifications on the neutrino velocity measurement, has identified two issues that could significantly affect the reported result. The first one is linked to the oscillator used to produce the events time-stamps in between the GPS synchronizations. The second point is related to the connection of the optical fiber bringing the external GPS signal to the OPERA master clock.
These two issues can modify the neutrino time of flight in opposite directions. While continuing our investigations, in order to unambiguously quantify the effect on the observed result, the Collaboration is looking forward to performing a new measurement of the neutrino velocity as soon as a new bunched beam will be available in 2012. An extensive report on the above mentioned verifications and results will be shortly made available to the scientific committees and agencies.

I remember that alxo BOREXINO, an other experiment at Gran Sasso Laboratories, will try to measure neutrino's speed. Indeed the experimental mistake could preduce a higher velocity than the previous collected data.

INFN | Nature | Science Insider

Renato Dulbecco

Renato Dulbecco was born on the 22nd february 1914 at Catanzaro, Italy. He worked between Italy and USA, where he went for the first time in 1947 with Rita Levi-Montalcini. He winned Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1975 with David Baltimore and Howard Martin Temin

for their discoveries concerning the interaction between tumour viruses and the genetic material of the cell

At the conclusion of his Nobel Lecture he said:

This discussion about cancer prevention is a development of the experimental results obtained in the field of oncogenic viruses, but it is also strongly influenced by the new social conscience of many scientists. Historically, science and society have gone separate ways, although society has provided the funds for science to grow and in return science has given society all the material things it enjoys. In recent years, however, the separation between science and society has become excessive, and the consequences are felt especially by biologists. Thus, while we spend our life asking questions about the nature of cancer and ways to prevent or cure it, society merrily produces oncogenic substances and permeates the environment with them. Society does not seem prepared to accept the sacrifices required for an effective prevention of cancer. The situation is clearly unacceptable, and we biologists would like to see it corrected. We have ourselves begun to put our house in order, by banning some experiments that may contain a risk for mankind. We would like to see society take a similar attitude, abandoning selfish practices that are dangerous for society itself. We would also like to see a new co-operation of science and society for the benefit of all mankind and hope that the dominant forces in society will recognize that this is a necessity.

Recently (2008) he also writes:

We are at a turning point in the study of tumor virology and cancer in general. If we wish to learn more about cancer, we must now concentrate on the cellular genome. We are back to where cancer research started, but the situation is drastically different because we have new knowledge and crucial tools, such as DNA cloning. We have two options: either to try to discover the genes important in malignancy by a piecemeal approach, or to sequence the whole genome ofa selected animal species. The former approach seems less formidable, but it will still require a vast investment of research, especially if the important genes differ in cancers of different organs and if they encode regulatory proteins. A major difficulty for conventional approaches is the heterogeneity of tumors and the lack of cultures representative of the various cell types present in a cancer. I think that it will be far more useful to begin by sequencing the cellular genome. The sequence will make it possible to prepare probes for all the genes and to classify them for their expression in various cell types at the level of individual cells by means of cytological hybridization. The classification of the genes will facilitate the identification of those involved in progression.⁽²⁾

He passed away on the 19th february 2012 at La Jolla, USA.

In one generation we have come a long way in our efforts to understand cancer. The next generation can look forward to exciting new tasks that may lead to a completion of our knowledge about cancer, closing one of the most challenging chapters in biological research.⁽²⁾

Video abstract: Diffusion in curved spacetimes

In the following video, that I uploaded on youtube, Matteo Smerlak speaks about his recently published paper, Diffusion in curved spacetimes (arXiv):

A little note about the gyromodel of life

Some days ago I write a little tumblrpost about Theory of the Origin, Evolution, and Nature of Life by Erik D. Andrulis. In that occasion I expressed my skepticism comparing Andrulis' theory with string theory. Today I would report a post written by John Timmer, that is more detailed, but he starts writing:

Physicists have been working for decades on a "theory of everything," one that unites quantum mechanics and relativity. Apparently, they were being too modest.

But for me the most important quote is the following:

Peer review isn't meant as a way to censor unpopular or radically new ideas. It is meant to ensure that publications meet minimal scientific standards (how minimal will depend on the journal), and it imparts a level of credibility to anything that passes review. As far as I can determine, this paper doesn't meet even minimal scientific standards. By giving it the credibility of having been peer-reviewed anyway, the reviewers arguably failed in their duty.

I see two consequences of this failure: first of all a possible loss of credibility for open access journals (and this is not a good thing), and a possible loss of credibility for some sites (like physorg.com) that republish official press release without criticism.
In this sense it could be a good occasion for a scientific network like Field of Science to gain a lot of regular readers in the next months (and in particular I hope to write with more regularity in the future...)