September 23, 2008Virgo gravity wave experiment stigmied by vacuum failure
Nature News: The Virgo gravity-wave interferometer, an €80-million (US$114-million) experiment located near Pisa, Italy, has been incapacitated by a vacuum failure for most of the summer and is expected to stay out of commission for another few months.
September 14, 2008Hackers attack Large Hadron Collider
The Daily Telegraph: The scientists behind the £4.4bn atom smasher had already received threatening emails and been besieged by telephone calls from worried members of the public concerned by speculation that the machine could trigger a black hole to swallow the earth, or earthquakes and tsunamis, despite endless reassurances to the contrary from the likes of Prof Stephen Hawking.
Now it has emerged that, as the first particles were circulating in the machine near Geneva, a Greek group had hacked into the facility and displayed a page with the headline "GST: Greek Security Team." The people responsible signed off: "We are 2600 - dont mess with us. (sic)" The website - cmsmon.cern.ch - can no longer be accessed by the public as a result of the attack. August 15, 2008UK scientists unveil a Mars rover called BradleyThe Guardian: The rover – the most sophisticated ever built – is due to explore Mars in 2015 as part of the European Space Agency's ExoMars mission, but there are fears funding cuts will kill off Britain's contribution August 1, 2008In controversial move, Italy picks businessman to head space agencyNature News: Italian scientists are worried that a shake-up of the nation’s space agency will put commercial and defence interests ahead of research. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is in the process of replacing the president of the Italian Space Agency. He is removing the agency’s current head, astrophysicist Giovanni Bignami, and installing business executive Enrico Saggese, who heads the space division at Finmeccanica, Italy’s largest aerospace firm. July 31, 2008Visions of ChinaNature News: Can the Chinese government meet its ambitious targets on space, the environment, research, energy and health? David Cyranoski takes a look at China today and what it hopes to be tomorrow. July 25, 2008China finishes retooling BEPCIIPeople's Daily Online: A Beijing-based electron-positron accelerator -- China's biggest scientific experimental device -- called BEPCII has been retooled successfully for trial operation, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) said here on Tuesday. July 7, 2008What will the LHC tell us about physics?Nature News: The physics that the Large Hadron Collider will explore has tentative philosophical foundations. But that’s a good thing, says Philip Ball. Two different paths to the next generation colliderScience: To make a new collider, physicists in Japan plan to push an existing machine to its limits. Others in Italy hope to cobble one together from old parts and a bright idea June 23, 2008CERN report confirms Earth will not be destroyed by a LHC-produced black holeThe New York Times: A new particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider scheduled to go into operation this fall outside Geneva, is no threat to the Earth or the universe, according to a new safety review approved Friday by the governing council of the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or Cern, which is building the collider. June 18, 2008China's elite universities eye alumni wallets
Forbes.com: A decade ago, then-President Jiang Zemin said he wanted to transform China's top universities into world-class institutions fit for the 21st century. But attracting the world's best faculty, funding top-notch research and expanding campuses doesn't come cheap.
Since Chinese universities receive the bulk of their funding from tuition and the government--income sources that remain flat from year to year--they must turn elsewhere for the extra cash. So the elite ones are now focused on developing the kind of powerful private fund-raising machines that have made top U.S. universities so rich. June 13, 2008Berlin aims to be a research mecca
ScienceNOW: Berlin's mayor, Klaus Wowereit, likes to joke that the city is "poor but sexy." He may now want to add "and smart." Despite chronic budget shortfalls, Berlin's city government has pledged €160 million ($250 million) over the next 4 years to attract top researchers to the city's four main universities as well as its research institutes.
The impetus for the "Berlin International Forum for Excellence" came from Jürgen Zöllner, the city's senator for science and education. He initially proposed a new "superuniversity," but the city's existing universities feared that the new institution would lure away their best talent. Instead, the city will set up a foundation that will identify existing "areas of excellence" and distribute funds to top up salaries of world-class researchers, set up graduate schools, and attract visiting scholars to the city. June 3, 2008Poland joins scandinavian European spallation source proposalPhysics Today: Poland has become the third country to formally support the ESS Scandinavia proposal to build the European Spallation Source research centre in Lund in southern Sweden. A memorandum of understanding between the Polish and Swedish governments was signed last week. Poland will join the Nordic‑Baltic Platform that ESS Scandinavia is currently assembling. Poland and Sweden will now try to set up joint technological and training opportunities for future cooperations, and explore funding opportunities for the construction and operation of the ESS, which will be the world’s most powerful neutron source for materials science. "We are delighted over the support from the Polish Government," says Colin Carlile, director of the ESS Scandinavia Secretariat at the Lund University. "Poland is a large country at the heart of Europe, and its support will further strengthen the case for ESS being built in Scandinavia." Related News Picks May 29, 2008Mixed review for Australia's new science budget
Science: Two of Australia's science agencies are shedding jobs and trimming programs to comply with a new national budget that's both praised and criticized by research leaders. The spending plan announced by the Labor government last week--its first since coming to power in 2007--provides more money for education initiatives, including a $10.5 billion trust fund for higher education infrastructure, but less for two key players, the nation's premier science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), and the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO). The cuts are troubling, some say, because the government expects to reap a $20.7 billion surplus over Australia's next annual budget cycle, which starts 1 July.
France's research agency CNRS splits up
Nature News: France’s CNRS, the largest fundamental science agency in Europe, is to be reorganized into six quasi-autonomous national institutes by the end of the year. In essence, the move amounts to a dismantling of the CNRS, commentators say, replacing it with a UK-style system, which is organized by major discipline.
May 21, 2008Price for los alamos nuclear materials lab climbs
Las Cruces Sun-News: The cost of a planned new nuclear materials lab at Los Alamos National Laboratory is climbing.
A U.S. Senate report estimates the cost at $2.6 billion—more than four times the initial estimate in 2003. The new number was included in the Senate Armed Services Committee's report on the fiscal year 2009 budget. The committee recommended cutting funding for the project because of uncertainty of what it will cost to meet safety requirements for the project proposed by the lab and the National Nuclear Security Administration. The committee's action to oppose funding for the new lab is the first of four key congressional committee votes that will determine the fate of the project. |
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