The Stephen Hawking speegh at the Paralympics opening ceremony:
"Look up at the stars and not down at your feet ... try to make sense of what you see ... be curious"
In 2009, for the first time, U.S. deaths linked to drug abuse exceeded those caused by road accidents (see chart), according to the Federal agency of the U.S. Government "Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ", which in 75% of cases points the finger at the inappropriateness of prescriptions. The main cause of medicines abuse is the dependence
This movie from NASA's Curiosity rover shows most of the high-resolution frames acquired by the Mars Descent Imager between the jettison of the heat shield and touchdown. It is possible to see what Curiosity filmed on its descent to the surface of the Red Planet, overlain with audio from the control room.
There is an idea of research policy that is making inroads in Italy and also in Europe: we should do as the U.S.A. does. Let us be guided by the tough but efficient market forces. No more luxuries, therefore. No more intellectually satisfying idleness. In order to spur economic growth, we must give up funding the "beautiful" basic science that produces knowledge rather than immediate profits; we should mobilize scientists paid with public money and use public funds to finance the rapid development of innovative products
A strong increase of cases of a novel swine-origin H3N2 influenza A virus has been reported in the USA, with Indiana and Ohio being the most affected states. First cases occurred in July 2011 and, since last week, only 29 people showed symptoms of this virus infection, but recently the count has quickly raised to 158 cases, mainly children. This flu spread from pigs to humans but had mild symptoms and did not cause any victim, with only very few patients that needed hospitalization. The more recent cases appear to have spread from
Paolo Rossi, the historian of ideas who passed away at the beginning of the year, claimed that modern science began in the 17th century when a paradigm was broken down: the «paradigm of secrecy». Communicate everything to everyone. Thus enabling everyone to criticize everyone.
Which is
the highest resolution that can be obtained for colour printing?
It is
determined by the diffraction limit of visible light, and it requires colour
elements (pixels) with a pitch of 250 nm. That is, a resolution of
~100,000 dots per inch (d.p.i.). For a comparison, inkjet and laserjet printers
have a 10,000 d.p.i. resolution. The highest
resolution limit was recently achieved by a research group from the Agency for
Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) in Singapore.
Over the last months some epistemologically worrying events have occurred in the scientific community. The first concerns the prohibition to publish the experimental methods concerning how the virus N5H1 has been modified; the second regards published scientific papers with totally or partially non-disclosed data; and the third a potential step back with open access policies for scientific publishing.
According to the State of the Climate Global Analysis recently published by NOAA- the National Atmosphere and Ocean Administration -, the globally-averaged land surface temperature for May 2012 was the all-time warmest on record, at 1.21°C (2.18°F) above average (fig.1). It also broke a record as the warmest May in the Northern hemisphere, closely following the global record of May 2010. The consequences are evident all across the Northern hemisphere.
Chris Mullin, a retired American basketball player, teams up with Vaccine for Teens to help educate parents and their teenager children about the need to get vaccinated. In a video recently released on Youtube, the NBA Hall of Famer and member of the 1992 Dream Team stressed the importance of vaccination as the best defence against serious and life-threatening diseases like influenza, pertussis and meningitis.
