Science News

[prasen9]

Genes are not patentable in the US: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/ ... ng-future/

[prasen9]

Science, libel, and free speech in the UK: the curious case of Simon Singh. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/apr/0 ... ibel-court

[suresh]

WARNING: Physics Envy May Be Hazardous To Your Wealth!

This is an interesting paper on risk management in finance. One of the authors, Mark Muller, is an ex-physicist (worked on string theory; was a post-doc in our group at Penn while I was a student.)

[arjun2761]

Genes are not patentable in the US: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/ ... ng-future/

Prasen, at this point this is just a decision of a district court that is not binding on anyone other than within that district. This will be a significant ruling only if the Federal Circuit (which is the national appeals court for patent issues) affirms this decision. Furthermore, this is also an issue which may ultimately find its way to the Supreme Court (either through the chain of appeals from this case or another case).

[prasen9]

Ah thanks. Did not realize that.

[prasen9]

Someone says that Fermilab could decide on Higgs by next year. http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang ... ab_yet.php Does this seem plausible, Suresh? I was thinking that the LHC was *necessary* to decide this.

[suresh]

Someone says that Fermilab could decide on Higgs by next year. http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang ... ab_yet.php Does this seem plausible, Suresh? I was thinking that the LHC was *necessary* to decide this.

No one really knows what the mass of the Higgs particle is but there are plenty of constraints from existing data. I am sure that there is a small window where Fermilab may be able to scoop LHC if they get lucky. Even if Fermilab does that, there is a lot of things it can't do and LHC will have plenty of physics left to explore. The biggest problem in High Energy Physics during the last two decades is how far behind experiment has been with regard to verifying/ruling out theories beyond the Standard Model of Particle Physics. The Higgs is the only remaining part of the Standard Model that is, as yet, unverified. LHC can most definitely probe into aspects of the physics beyond the Standard Model.

Suresh

[prasen9]

Thanks. At least partly because some stupid Congressmen pulled the plugs on digging long tunnels near Dallas. I have heard true stories of Congressmen slam funding for meteorological research on better weather prediction models because they think all you have to do is turn on the TV and get the weather forecast for free!

[suresh]

Thanks. At least partly because some stupid Congressmen pulled the plugs on digging long tunnels near Dallas.

I remember struggling to getting my first post-doc, in part, due to funding being diverted towards SSC related projects. The worst part of it all was that I thought that my (fledgling) career was worth sacrificing if it meant that SSC would generate new data. When the plug was finally pulled on the SSC, I was real angry about the whole thing. From what I hear, this was not the first time this happened in the US. Fermilab deserves a lot of kudos for extending its lifetime by clever upgrades.

Suresh

[prasen9]

News with very big URL:
World's Deepest Undersea Vents Discovered

[suresh]

A World Record Arithmetic Progression of 26 primes has been found on April 12, 2010 by PrimeGrid.

The progression is written as

43142746595714191+23681770*23#*n for n=0,..., 25 and 23#=2*3*5*7*11*13*17*19*23.

It was found by Benoat Perichon of France, using a PS3 running Linux. The AP26 Search was a distributed project started by PrimeGrid in December 2008. For more details see the announcement at AP26 Found!!! See also Primes in arithmetic progression

[prasen9]

After oil and water, we have the next crisis brewing: http://www.theonion.com/articles/geolog ... cks,17341/ Slow down consumption, I say!

[prasen9]

You, I, and the Neanderthal: http://www.sciencemag.org/special/neandertal/

[prasen9]

Creative minds http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/10154775.stm

[prasen9]

Suresh appointed as the U.S. National Science Foundation Director:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-off ... on-posts-1