We were told at ICHEP that the LHC would very soon try a single-sector beam test, injecting particles into one sector of the collider to check whether they could be transported. A press release reports this test as successful [1]. Can’t wait til September 10, when the real test – […]
Science
449 posts
I’m doing a little catching up on some talks that I’ve archived for a while, but never watched. One of these is a TED conference talk on climate change by Al Gore. It is a phenomenal presentation, updating some of his thinking on the climate. I highly recommend watching it: […]
When I was in college, I decided to try something. I changed my name. Well, I went by a different name – my middle name. I bear my maternal grandfather’s name as my middle name, and for I time I decided to alter my life a little and go by […]
As inspired by the comment from ChemMan, here are the relevant excerpts from HR2642 for science: “National Science Foundation research and related activities For an additional amount for `Research and RelatedActivities’, $22,500,000, of which $5,000,000 shall be available solelyfor activities authorized by section 7002(b)(2)(A)(iv) of Public Law110-69. education and human […]
It was a long road, but the Congress has now approved the Iraq war spending bill. Both houses have now approved the final version of the spending bill, which presumably goes to the President for either a veto or a signature. News sources [1] [2] report that the bill contains […]
The tumultuous Iraq War Supplemental lumbers forward [1]. Despite the President’s threat to veto the bill if it contains domestic spending, about half the Senate Republicans voted to include domestic spending in the bill. Whew. This one gets thicker every day. The AIP has highlighted the money proposed for NSF […]
It’s easy to forget that until the famous case in Dover, PA in 2006, the Discovery Institute and its passionate fight for the right to have intelligent design taught alongside evolution was succeeding in a number of test cases. The wedge strategy, a strategy to make intelligent design an equal […]
This is going to be a stressful week. Deadlines for my research are starting to approach, and this coming weekend I fly to Italy for the last of the Elba BaBar collaboration meetings. Every four years, BaBar has convened in the spring in Elba to discuss the work that is […]
With all the disagreement about how to proceed on global climate change, you begin to forget that not that long ago energy companies were paying scientists to go out in public and speak against the science of climate change. We have gone from an era where scientists themselves were issue […]
I found this interesting article on the whole ecosystem of the innovation crisis: the “Gathering Storm” report, the America COMPETES act, the failure to fund all of this last year, the efforts to get science into the supplemental, and the connections between science and the economy. Science Magazine’s article [1] […]
As many programs on TV and radio – both humorous and not humorous – have noted, whether you call the state of the economy in “recession” or “slow-down”, people are generally unhappy with the financial state of the nation. Making things frustrating for the high-tech sectors of the economy critical […]
I posted a short note about a week ago, expressing concern that the hyper-politicization of the war supplemental had begun. Well, it has begun. As reported in several online news articles [1] [2], the Democrats in the House are trying to bypass the appropriations committee (with what looks like at […]