Apr 30 2006
I checked my usual news sources, the Google and Yahoo! news aggregators, after the release of the EPP2010 report. Nothing. I was shocked. Plenty of bad news about this or that, but nothing about a diverse panel of scientists and non-scientists, chaired by an economist, calling on the nation to support particle physics in order [...]
Apr 29 2006
There’s been a lot of buzz concerning a Spanish version of the U.S. national anthem. Like an electric field, things like this tend to strongly polarize the nation. The media seizes on this kind of thing, throws the switch, and suddenly the nation is feeling one way or the other. Even the President weighed in, [...]
Apr 27 2006
For twenty years, the United States has invested less and less in basic research in the physical sciences as a fraction of GDP. The U.S. spends about $8-$8.5 billion per year on basic research in the physical sciences (that represents the combined DOE science, NSF, and NIST budgets). Today, “it was reported that Exxon has [...]
Apr 26 2006
Today, the National Academies concluded their decadal study of particle physics – EPP2010 – with the release of the multidisciplinary committee’s report. The EPP2010 report is several things. It is a strong cautionary bullhorn to the United States, telling us that ceding leadership in fundamental particle physics will pose more economic and social risk than [...]
Apr 26 2006
The EPP2010 is released at 11:30 today. Here are my notes and thoughts.
“EPP2010 Homepage”:http://www7.nationalacademies.org/bpa/EPP2010.html
*11:30* Prompt beginning. Appearing: Harold Shapiro (chair), Sally Dawson (vice-chair), John Bagger, Takaaki Kajita.
*11:31*: Opening remarks by Shapiro. This report lays otu the future of U.S. particle physics. The committee is 1/3 particle physicists, 1/3 related disciplines, and 1/3 outside of physics, [...]
Apr 25 2006
Well, we crossed the 2000 visitor mark a few days ago here at the Adventures of My Pet Hamster. That warrants a few remarks, in honor of the occasion.
Who are you people? You need to leave more comments, so I can ignore them. What’s an adventure (of my pet hamster) without sidekicks who have little [...]
Apr 24 2006
Science is a tough business. Experiments rise and fall based on their scientific merit, judged through a peer review process that is meant to weed the well-planned projects from the rest. Last week, that time-honored system of peer review was apparently thrown to the side of the road as the Braidwood neutrino experiment was cancelled [...]
Apr 09 2006
Science is, like all human endeavors, full of competition. As in all competition, friendly or otherwise, there has to be somebody who gets disappointed. Today, I am pleased to announce that I am a little disappointed.
My competitors in the “Belle Collaboration”:http://belle.kek.jp have announced at a major conference they have observed the rare B decay B+ [...]
Apr 08 2006
This week offered America a rare but important lesson in statistics. What worried me was that the venue most people get the information from – the news media – widely seems to flub the lesson. I’d give agencies like NBC and CNN a D- in their ability to report accurately on statistical results.
The lesson was [...]
Apr 07 2006
As I mentioned a few hours ago, this week has seen one great result in the understanding of nature using evolution. The Wall Street Journal also reports on a second discovery: the resurrection, by studying dozens of genes from a variety of species, of an ancient hormone receptor that last existed 450 million years ago [...]
Chirp, a microblog Going Up Alleys The Perils of the Ice Queen
