The full name is Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. The abbreviation I’m most familiar with is PI but there’s also Perimeter or PITP according to the institute’s Wikipedia entry. It is the only such institute in the country (as far as I’m aware) and it is very active in science outreach such as their latest foray: Graphic Talk about the Universe: a Clifford V. Johnson public lecture webcast. A January 16, 2019 posting on the…

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The debate takes place in New York City on Thursday, January 31, 2019. Ticket prices and more follow in the information from the January 17, 2019 IQ2US (Intelligence Squared) debates announcement received via email, Intelligence Squared U.S. Debates De-Extinction, in NYC and Online January 31 [2919] While bringing extinct species back to life was once a sci-fi fantasy out of ‘Jurassic Park’, recent biological and technological breakthroughs indicate that reviving creatures like the woolly mammoth…

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Caption: As of 2013, there were 7.8 million researchers globally, according to UNESCO. This means that 0.1 percent of the people in the world professionally do science. Their work is largely financed by governments, yet public officials are not themselves researchers. To help governments make sense of the scientific community, Russian mathematicians have devised a researcher typology. The authors initially identified three clusters, which they tentatively labeled as “leaders,” “successors,” and “toilers.” Credit: Lion_on_helium/MIPT Press…

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The Curiosity Collider folks have decided to ring in the new year with an event focused on optics. Here’s more from their January 15, 2019 announcement (received via email), FROM CONTEMPORARY ART TO SCIENCE ILLUSTRATION, IS “SEEING” REALLY “BELIEVING”? OR IS THERE MORE TO IT THAN THERE SEEMS? HOW CAN WE EXPLORE THE POSSIBILITIES THROUGH ART AND SCIENCE? OUR #COLLIDERCAFE IS A SPACE FOR ARTISTS, SCIENTISTS, MAKERS, AND ANYONE INTERESTED IN ART+SCIENCE. MEET, DISCOVER, CONNECT,…

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Specifically, the researchers are describing these as cellulose nanofibrils. On the left of the image, the seed look mores like an egg waiting to be fried for breakfast but the image on the right is definitely fibrous-looking, Through contact with water, the seed of Neopallasia pectinata from the family of composite plants forms a slimy sheath. The white cellulose fibres anchor it to the seed surface. Courtesy: Kiel University (CAU) A December 18, 2018 news…

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I’m not a big fan of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) companies that promise to tell you about your ancestors and, depending on the kit, predisposition to certain health issues as per their reports about your genetic code. (I regularly pray no one in my family has decided to pay one of these companies to analyze their spit.) During Christmas season 2018, the DNA companies (23andMe and Ancestry) advertised special prices so you could gift someone in…

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I have two bits about the Romans: the first is noted in the head for this posting and the second is about a chance to experience a Roman style classroom. Empire of Letters This January 8, 2019 news item on phys.org announces a book about how the technology of writing influenced how ancient Romans saw the world and provides a counterpoint to the notion that the ancient world (in Europe) was relentlessly oral in nature,…

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It seems to me that I stumbled across quite a few carbon nanotube (CNT) stories in 2018. This one comes courtesy of Japan (from a June 28, 2018 news item on Nanowerk), Researchers at Tokyo Tech have developed flexible terahertz imagers based on chemically “tunable” carbon nanotube materials. The findings expand the scope of terahertz applications to include wrap-around, wearable technologies as well as large-area photonic devices. Here’s a peek at an imager, Figure 1.…

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The conference itself will be held from May 22 – 24, 2019 at Arizona State University (ASU) and the deadline for abstracts is January 31, 2019. Here’s the news straight from the January 8, 2019 email announcement, The Seventh Annual Conference on Governance of Emerging Technologies & Science (GETS) May 22-24, 2019 / ASU / Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law111 E. Taylor St., Phoenix, AZ  The conference will consist of plenary and session presentations…

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The 150th anniversary of the Periodic Table of Elements has occasioned its own International Year as declared by the United Nations (UN) and, hopefully, a revival of the ‘elements cupcake’ craze which seems to have had its heyday in 2011/12. (I wrote about the cupcakes here in a March 21, 2012 posting ‘Periodic table of cupcakes, a new subculture?‘) As for IYPT 2019, let’s get started with Mark Lorch’s (professor of Science, Communication, and Chemistry…

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