Category Archives: Research

The Mysteries of Mass

The Mysteries of Mass (bozos at Scientific American broke the page so I removed the link – poor usability):

Physicists are hunting for an elusive particle that would reveal the presence of a new kind of field that permeates all of reality. Finding that Higgs field will give us a more complete understanding about how the universe works.

Autonomous Vehicle Technology Competition

DARPA Grand Challenge:

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) today announced the 40 teams selected to advance to the semifinals of the DARPA Grand Challenge 2005 autonomous ground vehicle competition. The teams come from 14 states and Canada and represent varied backgrounds including universities, individuals, corporations, and a high school.
…
The team that develops an autonomous ground vehicle that finishes the designated route most quickly within 10 hours will receive $2 million.

Only if a team succeeds will the the money be paid. Last year no team succeeded.

The Future of Scholarly Publication

Scholarly journals’ premier status diluted by Web by Bernard Wysocki Jr., The Wall Street Journal:

In the U.S. a powerful open-access advocate has been Harold Varmus, a Nobel laureate, former UC scholar and former NIH director. He’s now head of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He co-founded Public Library of Science with Berkeley’s Dr. Eisen, backed by a $9 million grant from a private foundation. Charging authors a fee of $1,500, the group launched its first peer-reviewed journal, PLoS Biology, in 2003, and also distributes its contents free on the Internet.

I have nothing against Journals trying to stay in business. I do however, think the internet has created a better method of distributing information than existed previously. And, given the current state of the internet, I do object to scientific knowledge being kept out of the scientific and public community. The ability to use the internet to more effectively communicate new knowledge should not be sacrificed to protect the old model journals had for sustaining themselves. They should find a way to fund themselves and make their material availalbe for free on the internet (I think some delay for free public access would be fine – the shorter the delay the better). Or they should be replaced by others that do so.

Luckily sites like the Public Library of Science (freely accessible online scholarly publications) are offering such an alternative.

Science Funding Dips In U.S. While Soaring In China

Science Funding Dips In U.S. While Soaring In China by Cynthia Tucker, Editorial in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Writing this month in The Wall Street Journal, Norman Augustine, a former CEO of Lockheed Martin Corp., and Burton Richter, a Nobel laureate in physics, said:

“As a percentage of GDP, federal investment in physical science research is half of what it was in 1970. (By contrast), in China, R&D expenditures rose 350 percent between 1991 and 2001, and the number of science and engineering Ph.D.s soared 535 percent.”

Update: link broken so removed the link to the original article.