Scientific computing in Python. Scientific computing in Python is expanding and maturing rapidly.
Last week at the SciPy 2015 conference there were about twice as many people as when I’d last gone to the conference in 2013. You can get some idea of the rapid develop of the scientific Python stack and its future direction by watching the final keynote of the conference by Jake VanderPlas. I used Python for a while before I discovered that there were so many Python libraries for scientific computing.
At the time I was considering learning Ruby or some other scripting language, but I committed to Python when I found out that Python has far more libraries for the kind of work I do than other languages do. It felt like I’d discovered a secret hoard of code. Deep Stuff sur Twitter : "Neuroscientists decipher brain’s noisy code #science... Neuroscientists decipher brain’s noisy code. By analyzing the signals of individual neurons in animals undergoing behavioral tests, neuroscientists at Rice University, Baylor College of Medicine, the University of Geneva and the University of Rochester have deciphered the code the brain uses to make the most of its inherently “noisy” neuronal circuits.
The human brain contains about 100 billion neurons, and each of these sends signals to thousands of other neurons each second. Understanding how neurons work, both individually and collectively, is important to better understand how humans think, as well as to treat neurological and psychiatric disorders like Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, autism, epilepsy, schizophrenia, depression, traumatic brain injury and paralysis. “If the brain could always count on receiving the same sensory response to the same stimulus, it would have an easier time,” said neuroscientist Xaq Pitkow, lead author of a new study this week in Neuron. Deep Stuff sur Twitter : "Building a Brain #science... Building a brain. The plight of the postdocs: Academia and mental health.
This is the story of a friend of a friend, a man by name Francis who took his life at age 34.
Francis had been struggling with manic depression through most of his years as a postdoc in theoretical physics. It is not a secret that short-term contracts and frequent moves are the norm in this area of research, but rarely do we spell out the toll it takes one our mental health. In fact, most of my tenured colleagues who profit from cheap and replaceable postdocs praise the virtue of the nomadic lifestyle which, so we are told, is supposed to broaden our horizon.
But the truth is that moving is a necessary, though not sufficient, condition to build your network. Scientific American sur Twitter : "Archaeologists take wrong turn and discover world's oldest stone tools: #science @sciamblogs. Archaeologists Take Wrong Turn, Find World’s Oldest Stone Tools. The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
Archaeologists have found 3.3 million-year-old stone tools at the site of Lomekwi 3 on the western shores of Lake Turkana (green) in Kenya. Image: via Wikimedia Commons SAN FRANCISCO–Archaeologists working in the Kenyan Rift Valley have discovered the oldest known stone tools in the world. Neuroscience: The brain, interrupted. Illustration: Paddy Mills Fabienne never found out why she went into labour three months too early.
But on a quiet afternoon in June 2007, she was hit by accelerating contractions and was rushed to the nearest hospital in rural Switzerland, near Lausanne. When her son, Hugo, was born at 26 weeks of gestation rather than the typical 40, he weighed just 950 grams and was immediately placed in intensive care. Three days later, doctors told Fabienne that ultrasound pictures of Hugo's brain indicated that he had had a severe haemorrhage from his immature blood vessels.
FusionQuest sur Twitter : "Under the umbrella @PPPLab's #NSTXU. #FirstPlasma2015 #Fusion #Energy #Science #Plasma. NSTX-U Press Kit. How to read a scientific paper – if you’re not a scientist. If you don’t use phrases like heteroscedasticity, dynamic convection, or quantitative polymerase chain reaction in your everyday life, join the club.
157 – Fusion at ITER. This episode is about ITER, the international project to build an experimental fusion plant in southern France.
While on vacation in that area, I had the opportunity to visit the site and talk to Richard Pitts about many aspects of the project. A star INSIDE a star: Scientists discover neutron star within a supergiant 200,000 light-years from Earth. Astronomers have found a strange hybrid star using a telescope in ChileThe so-called Thorne-Żytkow object consists of a neutron star that was swallowed by a much larger red supergiantSuch objects were first predicted to exist in 1975 by astronomers Dr Kip Thorne and Dr Anna ŻytkowThey are thought to occur when a neutron star collides with a red supergiant and is absorbedThe exact process by which this happens though is not well understoodHV 2112, the object that was found, is 200,000 light-years away By Jonathan O'Callaghan for MailOnline Published: 16:08 GMT, 17 September 2014 | Updated: 19:12 GMT, 17 September 2014.
Orion's Arm - Encyclopedia Galactica - Muna Kipasi Incident. 10 Physics Facts About Summer. Middle East and North Africa focus group report by SciDev.Net. In praise of early independence. Many factors influence success in a science career.
Witter / ? 31 Essential Science Fiction Terms And Where They Came From. Hesgen : Today is National Women in ... National Women in Engineering Day (NWED) National Women in Engineering Day - 23 June 2014 - a day dedicated to raising the profile and celebrating the achievements of women in engineering.
Get involved and help create as many events and opportunities as possible to spread the word that engineering offers as many opportunites for women as men. Simply organise an event on o. S. James Gates Jr.: A Story in Science. Marie et Pierre Curie. PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES. Behind the Scenes of the Universe: From the Higgs to Dark Matter Dr. Gianfranco Bertone, University of Amsterdam. 4 Things Science Fiction Needs to Bring Back. It's tempting to look around at today's literary scene, with its Twilight and its Fifty Shades of Grey, and wonder if we shouldn't just flush the whole goddamn concept of written language down the toilet -- maybe start again with some sort of hybrid colorwheel/odor system for communicating thoughts. Strangely, the one genre thriving in the swamp of modern literature seems to be science fiction. It's kind of appropriate, actually: All of our crazy high technology has made publishing and distributing books about crazy high technology much more approachable and widespread than ever.
But even the best works could stand to learn a little something from the past, so here are a few things that I miss about old science fiction, and would like to see come back. Note: You know I'm probably going to whore the newest and final episode of my science fiction serial novel, Rx - Episode 3: Industry, up in this piece, right? This is something we authors must do. . #4. Getty #3. iLogPi : (WIMP) #DarkMatter detection... Research on interstellar physics and Galactic center activity, based on space radio spectroscopy.
Experiment. Twitter. Images of Big Bang experiments inside particle accelerators at CERN. Dirac Lecture 3 (of 4) - Magnetic Monopoles. 9 Reasons Why Running A Science Blog Is Good For You. What If Science Fiction Were Boringly Real? In surprise advance announcement, 2013 Nobel Prize in physics awarded to Higgs boson. A proton-proton collision which may or may not produce the Higgs boson (Image: Wikipedia Commons) In a stunning and premature decision that is a first in the 113 year history of the august institution, the Nobel Prize Committee in Stockholm today announced the awarding of the 2013 Nobel prize for Physics to the Higgs Boson. Originally scheduled for October 8, the announcement instead came more than a week in advance. The change in date was guarded with the same secrecy that has always guarded the nominations for the coveted prize.
The award has sparked immediate and intense controversy and speculation, both because of its premature announcement and because of the highly unconventional nature of the recipient. According to Prof. The Higgs boson thus becomes the first particle, and the first non-human entity, to be awarded the Nobel Prize in any field. Limpkin's blog. Diy Physics Blog - Experimental Modern and Quantum Physics for Do-It-Yourself Science Enthusiasts. Can We Resolve Quantum Paradoxes by Stepping Out of Space and Time? [Guest Post] How to Build the World’s Simplest Particle Detector. In about 10 minutes, using stuff you probably already have lying around your house, you can watch atomic nuclei and elementary particles for yourself using a diffusion cloud chamber—a rudimentary particle detector. There are lots of websites and YouTube videos giving step-by-step instructions to build such a chamber, but all require some component that’s hard to come by, such as dry ice or a high-voltage power source.
I’ve gotten around that by merging a cooling technique devised by Canadian high-school student Olivia Donovan with the chamber designed by Australian particle physicist and science communicator Suzie Sheehy. It’s not super-great as a cloud chamber, but it definitely reveals particles whizzing through it. You’ll need the following: How to Build Your Own Quantum Entanglement Experiment, Part 1 (of 2) Blending Art and Science › From The Lab Bench. 'Holographic Duality' Hints at Hidden Subatomic World. The strange properties of superconducting materials called “cuprates” (bismuth strontium calcium copper oxide is shown in this microscopy image), which cannot be described by known quantum mechanical methods, may correspond to properties of black holes in higher dimensions.