Steinn Sigurðsson
Professor of Astrophysics at Pennsylvania State University. Science Editor at Astrophysical Journal. Icelandic. Herder of Cats.
catdynamics
Posts by this author
October 30, 2012
Schrödinger's Qu'ran - a 2012 thought experiment - in The Conversation, Matthew Bailes updates a classic paradox...
"...a physicist could extend this thought experiment to write a php script that would randomly download one of the Bible, Qur’an or even a classical quantum mechanics textbook to the…
October 16, 2012
Given ηEarth=1
Find more terrestrial exoplanets.
Find habitable terrestrial exoplanets.
Find inhabited terrestrial exoplanets.
Go visit.
Consider the following snippets:
Kepler discover 5 planets orbiting inside 0.1 AUKepler: A Transiting Circumbinary Planet in a Quadruple Star SystemTerrestrial…
October 16, 2012
α Centauri B, a mere 4 lightyears away has a terrestrial planet orbiting it.
α Cen B b
The most interesting aspect of the discovery may be the inferences we can make rather than the planet itself.
The discovery by the Geneva Observatory team using the
HARPS spectrograph is a wonderful example of…
October 13, 2012
Continued slow liveblog of the New Frontiers in Astronomy and Cosmology Conference at the Franklin Institute.
Lunch is almost over and we are headed into the final session of research presentations, clearly saving the best for last...
I am also reminded why we have these meetings, in person, the…
October 13, 2012
Continued slow liveblog of the New Frontiers in Astronomy and Cosmology Conference at the Franklin Institute.
We have had coffee and we are rested and ready after yesterdays 14 hour marathon session (graduate students please note - though it did include breakfast, lunch, dinner and two coffee…
October 13, 2012
The second session of the New Frontiers in Astronomy and Cosmology conference was friday afternoon.
The plan was to do a leisurely liveblog of the talks.
However, during lunch, there were some interesting developments, which I can hopefully tell you about next week some time, and in the middle of…
October 12, 2012
A slow liveblog of the conference.
The New Frontiers in Astronomy and Comsology is having its awards conference at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.
The 20 odd winning researchers and research groups are presenting summaries of their proposed research, to be followed in a couple of years…
October 11, 2012
Or, how may hours should graduate students work?
Well, depends...
However Many You Like
As Many As They Can
As Many As Are Needed
All Of Them
The answer may sometimes lie in the above range, sometimes may be somewhat less, and occasionally even more.
We've all been there, and all suffer from…
October 5, 2012
In which we win an award from the New Frontiers in Astronomy Program.
The New Frontiers in Astronomy and Cosmology program announced its research grant award winners yesterday.
The last, but not least of the Big Questions solicited in the Call for Proposals, was:Are we alone in the universe? Or,…
October 4, 2012
another selection of random snippets from the intertoobz
We are Number One! - and 8!
Wait, didn't I blog this one already?
Ah well, truth can never be told too often...
Forget PowerPoint: It turns out the secret to improving productivity at your job might be puppieskittens!
Win friends and…
October 4, 2012
The New Frontiers in Astronomy and Cosmology program included 20 awards for 2 year research projects on Big Questions.
The winners are:
Big Question IWhat was the earliest state of the universe?
Detecting Cosmic Superstrings
David Chernoff, Cornell University
Co-Investigator: Henry Tye, Hong Kong…
October 4, 2012
The New Frontiers in Astronomy and Cosmology program included 21 awards for essays by high school and university students on the Big Questions.
The winners are:
Student Essay Competition
College Essay Winners
First Prize
Yong Wei Chong Gabrielle, Wellesley College,
"A Letter to My Dearest Newborn…
October 4, 2012
The New Frontiers in Astronomy and Cosmology program hasannounced its Award winners!
The $4+ million in awards went to 20 scientists studying Big Questions on fundamental issues and 21 high school and university student essay prize winners.
The awards will be presented at a conference at the…
October 3, 2012
“If... then my old theory is completely toast,” says astrophysicist Steinn Sigurdsson of Pennsylvania State University. “This is a really nice piece of work.”
Nice Nature paper coming out tomorrow by Jay Strader et al
on a pair of flat spectrum ultra-faint radio sources in the core of M22.
The…
October 3, 2012
Postdoctoral Scholar, Stellar and Exoplanetary Astrophysics and SETI
"Applications are invited for a postdoctoral research associate position to work with Prof. Jason Wright and collaborators.
The ideal applicant will have some combination of:
• experience working with large photometric datasets,…
October 2, 2012
fitbit
The fitbit is a high end pedometer, with extra fun play functions.
It talks to your iThings, sends you cute little messages of encouragement, and, of course, there is an App for all that.
(You can also obsessively enter all your food intake for that extra encouragement).
The interesting…
October 2, 2012
Applications are invited for a postdoctoral scholar position to work with Prof. Mike Eracleous and collaborators. The successful applicant will join a team working to identify close, supermassive binary black holes through a combination of observational tests. The postdoctoral scholar will be…
September 29, 2012
more random tidbits worth a peek, including a new Henri le Chat video...
New coronavirus from bats - related to SARS seen in several cases from Middle East. Looks nasty.
Producing Ethylene via Photosynthesis - surpringly efficient, and easily capturably hydrocarbon ready from some petrochemistry.…
September 14, 2012
The OMB has reported on the effects of sequestration that will be triggered Jan 2013 unless Congress proactively changes the law before then.
Some time ago, Congress set itself a trap: in an attempt to look like they were dealing with government spending and the deficit, they passed a law that…
September 11, 2012
a few years ago, during a particularly busy period, I found myself putting "take a shower" on my To Do Lists...
not so much because I needed the reminder, though people may differ on that point, but more for the temporary morale boost of being able to cross at least one point off the To Do List (…
September 1, 2012
Ah, semester has started, and with it comes the grind of studying for the big test, where callow highschoolers finally get to see if they can make it in the big leagues.
Here we see them in lecture:
One of the 30 or so in class lectures before the test
Yes, football players go to lectures.
About…
August 31, 2012
Anyone want to buy some telescopes?
Heavily used.
Free to a good home.
The NSF has issued a preliminary response to the NSF Astronomy Portfolio Review.
Game on.
NSF MPS/AST Response to Portfolio Review Report (pdf)
This is a 4 page response from NSF Astronomy Division Director Ulvestad to the…
August 29, 2012
Meet Henri...
he is a cat.
Part deux is a masterpiece.
Silly, but excellent.
August 29, 2012
a video by John Cleese:
I'm pretty sure that is what it is...
August 28, 2012
catching up on random snippets:
How the American University was Killed - a guide in 5 Easy Steps
Sterrekundig Instituut Utrecht: The Last Years
"The Rhine, the Rhine, the German Rhine!
Who guards to-day my stream divine?"
Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist
How do Science Blogs Change the…
August 16, 2012
Heads up, peeps.NSF Portfolio Review is out
Mayall, WIYN, 2.1m KPNO, GBT and VLBA are out in recommended scenarios.
Shit.
Portfolio Review - full text 170 pp (pdf)
To summarise: Kitt Peak telescopes cut; Green Bank Radio Telescope and Very Large Baseline Array cut; McM-P Solar Telescope cut before…
August 16, 2012
Continuing slow live blog of the “New Particle Physics at the LHC and Its Connection to Dark Matter” workshop at the Aspen Center for Physics.
Series of short talks this morning:
"A WIMPy Baryogenesis Miracle" by
Yanou Cui, Lisa Randall, Brian Shuve (arXiv:1112.2704) interesting and possibly useful…
August 15, 2012
Mining the Astronomical Literature - yes, just ADS not the Asteroids, yet.
Shamelessly cribbed from a thread on the fb Astronomers group
In defence of string theory - rather good post by Matt Strassler
Claim that founding node of networks can be efficiently localized by sparse sampling
Don't…