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Science spending in the UK: where the money goes A number of top scientists are poised to quit Britain for better-funded jobs abroad, as the heads of several prestigious universities warn that proposed budget cuts threaten the UK's research community. Just how much does the UK spend on science research? guardian.co.uk |
Doing it for the thrill Lily Asquith: The LHC has had a great couple of weeks, hugely stepping up its rate of data production and passing the target for the year, which was set back in March. And Lily is learning to drive.This week I have been trying in vain to garner an interest in frequentist confidence levels. To be honest, I'm doing it (high energy physics) for the thrill.We just got two picobarns of data in a day, which has excited me immensely. I have only just realised that I have been standing in the same position in my kitchen for two hours submitting jobs to the grid and my feet are completely numb. When I have finished writing this I will simply allow myself to fall to the floor and then drag my lifeless body to the bedroom for a couple of hours sleep.ATLAS is lapping up the dataWhat the hell is a picobarn, though? Before you google it, I will try to explain. First of all, ATLAS has now taken 16.72 inverse picobarns of data in total since startup. A picobarn is 10-12 (0.000000000001) of a barn, and a barn is a measure of area.Amusingly, this is named for the phrase "as big as barn", but a barn in particle physics is not particularly big. It is 10-28 square metres. In English, a barn is vanishingly small. You could fit about a zillion barns in a pinprick. So what 16.72 inverse picobarns actually means is that we have recorded 16.72 hits in a vanishingly small area. Sort of.A barnA dartboard is something like 0.7 square metres in area, and if you throw a dart at it you have made data, or a hit, which would cover about 1/700 of the board. We are covering that dartboard with miniscule pinpricks, and we now have made 16.72*1040 (1672 followed by thirty-eight zeroes) hits on that board, with a lot of them (an eighth) being this week.I almost committed the ultimate driving faux pas this morning. Hurtling down 75th street listening to La Roux on the radio, I was about 15 feet (I'm not going to convert that into barns) off the back of a school bus when I had a flash back to my driving theory test.Thou shalt not ever overtake a school bus when it is picking up kids with its arm out. Punishable by huge fine, loss of license and immediate lynching from aforementioned arm. I stopped just in time. Probably a bit late if I'm honest, but nobody attacked me so I may be okay. Or I may be arrested tomorrow morning.Do not mess with these buses.I find myself continually practising what I will say, in my finest English accent, when I am arrested. I don't know where my terror of police comes from. I am also scared of nuns for no apparent reason. Anyway, the accent didn't help Hugh Grant much, so I should really try and avoid getting nicked in the first place.Back to the point - In theory I am completely able to pass the test, but in practise I am a thrill-seeking idiot.I got as far as printing the paper on frequentist confidence levels, but I know in my heart that pressing "print" means I will never read it. Thank god there are stronger souls than mine in this field, or we would never get anywhere.Jon Butterworthguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Pouched killers 'a diverse group' A study of marsupial carnivores' skulls from the past 40 million years shows they rose to the challenge of evolution just like their placental cousins. bbc.co.uk |