Annual Report 2010
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Investigating Cosmic Snowballs
Investigating Cosmic Snowballs Professor David Jewitt CREDIT: NASA INVESTIGATING COSMIC SNOWBALLS Professor David Jewitt and his team at UCLA explore the nature of comets. These fleeting visitors to our cosmic shore are important sources of information, and can help to reveal the origin and evolution of the solar system. Most recently, Professor Jewitt’s team have explained the unusual activity of some of the most distant comets in the solar system. Comets play a vivid historical role in the orbital periods of less than 200 years), human psyche, often being interpreted and the other supplying long-period as portents of impending doom. In the objects (greater than 200 years). The era of modern science, we realise that nearest store of cometary precursors, comets are simply icy leftovers, frozen in containing billions of nuclei larger time since the solar system’s formation than a kilometre across, is called the about 4.6 billion years ago. Kuiper Belt. This is a fat disk of objects encircling the Sun with an inner edge Far from bringing us doom and disaster, at Neptune’s orbit – approximately 7.5 comets offer scientists unparalleled billion kilometres from the Sun, or 30 opportunities to learn about the earliest AU – and reaching out to at least several periods of the solar system’s evolution. thousand AU. Pluto resides in this region At the same time, they are some of and is now recognised as large Kuiper the most challenging objects to Belt object. study and remain some of the least well understood. The Kuiper belt was discovered by Professor David Jewitt and his former What Are Comets and Where Do student Jane Luu in 1992. -
Editorial What the Nose Knows, What The
Neuroscience 190 (2011) 1–11 EDITORIAL WHAT THE NOSE KNOWS, WHAT THE EYES SEE, HOW WE FEEL, HOW WE LEARN, HOW WE UNDERSTAND MOTOR ACTS, WHY “YY” IS ESSENTIAL FOR ION TRANSPORT, HOW EPIGENETICS MEET NEUROBIOLOGY IN RETT SYNDROME: SEVEN TOPICS AT THE 2010 KAVLI PRIZE SYMPOSIUM ON NEUROSCIENCE L. H. BERGERSEN,a M. SANDERb AND Symposium included lectures by: Richard Axel of Colum- J. STORM-MATHISENa* bia University, New York, USA; Tobias Bonhoeffer of Max aDepartment of Anatomy, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences and Planck Institute of Neurobiology, Martinsried, Germany; Centre for Molecular Biology and Neuroscience, University of Oslo, Michael E. Goldberg of Columbia University, New York, PO Box 1105 Blindern, 0317 Oslo, Norway USA; Poul Nissen of Aarhus University, Denmark; Gia- b Page One Editorial Services, 685 Poplar Avenue, Boulder, CO como Rizzolatti of the University of Parma, Italy; and Huda 80304, USA Y Zoghbi of Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA. The seven symposium lectures described the most The Kavli Prizes were awarded for the second time in recent advances in understanding emotion, olfaction, vi- Oslo, Norway on 7 September, 2010 to eight of the sual information processing, synaptic plasticity, ion flux in world’s most prominent scientists in astrophysics, nano- neurons, perception of self and other, and the conse- science, and neuroscience. Jerry Nelson, of the Univer- quences of epigenetic dysregulation in the human brain. sity of California, Santa Cruz, USA, Ray Wilson, formerly The Kavli Prize Symposium on Neuroscience was or- of Imperial College London and the European Southern ganized by Linda H. Bergersen, Edvard Moser, May-Britt Observatory, and Roger Angel, of the University of Ari- Moser, and Jon Storm-Mathisen, and was made possible zona, Tucson, USA, shared the astrophysics prize for by the combined support of The Kavli Foundation, the their innovative contributions in the field of telescope Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, and the Nor- design. -
Alector Strengthens Board of Directors with Appointments of David Wehner, Richard Scheller and Louis Lavigne
Alector Strengthens Board of Directors with Appointments of David Wehner, Richard Scheller and Louis Lavigne November 16, 2018 SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Alector, a privately held biotechnology company pioneering immuno-neurology, a novel therapeutic approach for the treatment of neurodegeneration, today announced the following additions to its board as independent directors: David Wehner, Chief Financial Officer of Facebook Richard Scheller, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of 23andMe Louis J. Lavigne, Jr. former Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Genentech “David, Richard and Lou bring extensive technical and operational expertise to our team, as we continue our progress towards becoming a fully integrated biotechnology company,” said Arnon Rosenthal, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of Alector. “We look forward to leveraging their insights in drug development, strategic financial management, business operations and corporate growth strategies in order to accelerate transformative medicines with the goal of curing neurodegenerative diseases.” Mr. Wehner brings extensive financial and operational experience to Alector. Prior to his current position as chief financial officer of Facebook, Mr. Wehner served as vice president of corporate finance and business planning at Facebook. Before that, he was the chief financial officer of Zynga and served in various positions at Allen & Company for nine years, where he ultimately served as a managing director. Earlier in his career, Mr. Wehner was an equity analyst at Hambrecht & Quist. Mr. Wehner holds an M.S. in applied physics from Stanford University and a B.S. in chemistry from Georgetown University. Dr. Scheller is a preeminent neuroscientist and experienced drug development leader. -
Nanoscience Prize 2020 Explanatory Notes
NANOSCIENCE PRIZE 2020 EXPLANATORY NOTES Looking inside matter atom by atom Manipulating matter at very small scales — even as precisely as moving single atoms — to create particles and devices with new functionalities is the ultimate ambition of nanoscience and nanotechnol- ogy. None of this could be achieved with- out an imaging technique that allows materials and devices to be studied with atomic resolution. In making their award, the Kavli Prize in Nanoscience committee has selected four scientists who contributed to the develop- ment and use of two types of instrument, generally known collectively as aberration- corrected transmission electron micro- scopes, which can provide information about the structure and other properties of materials with sub-ångström resolution, hence allowing individual atoms to be distinguished. Figure 1. The schematic for an aberration corrector in the 1990 paper by Harald Rose. Optik 85, 19–24 (1990); © Elsevier GmbH Optical microscopes can at best resolve and additional lenses form a magnified analyse the energy lost by electrons when features a few hundred nanometres image which is recorded with a CCD or a the beam scatters from atoms in the across, so a different approach is neces- CMOS camera. Ruska’s design is today material. This technique, known as elec- sary to distinguish single atoms. The scan- called CTEM, for conventional transmis- tron energy loss spectroscopy, or EELS, ning tunnelling microscope and the atomic sion electron microscope. Conventional” can provide information on the atomic force microscope, invented in the 1980s, means that, apart from employing elec- composition and electronic states inside achieved atomic resolution. However, they tron radiation, CTEM follows the design of the material. -
Cfa in the News ~ Week Ending 3 January 2010
Wolbach Library: CfA in the News ~ Week ending 3 January 2010 1. New social science research from G. Sonnert and co-researchers described, Science Letter, p40, Tuesday, January 5, 2010 2. 2009 in science and medicine, ROGER SCHLUETER, Belleville News Democrat (IL), Sunday, January 3, 2010 3. 'Science, celestial bodies have always inspired humankind', Staff Correspondent, Hindu (India), Tuesday, December 29, 2009 4. Why is Carpenter defending scientists?, The Morning Call, Morning Call (Allentown, PA), FIRST ed, pA25, Sunday, December 27, 2009 5. CORRECTIONS, OPINION BY RYAN FINLEY, ARIZONA DAILY STAR, Arizona Daily Star (AZ), FINAL ed, pA2, Saturday, December 19, 2009 6. We see a 'Super-Earth', TOM BEAL; TOM BEAL, ARIZONA DAILY STAR, Arizona Daily Star, (AZ), FINAL ed, pA1, Thursday, December 17, 2009 Record - 1 DIALOG(R) New social science research from G. Sonnert and co-researchers described, Science Letter, p40, Tuesday, January 5, 2010 TEXT: "In this paper we report on testing the 'rolen model' and 'opportunity-structure' hypotheses about the parents whom scientists mentioned as career influencers. According to the role-model hypothesis, the gender match between scientist and influencer is paramount (for example, women scientists would disproportionately often mention their mothers as career influencers)," scientists writing in the journal Social Studies of Science report (see also ). "According to the opportunity-structure hypothesis, the parent's educational level predicts his/her probability of being mentioned as a career influencer (that ism parents with higher educational levels would be more likely to be named). The examination of a sample of American scientists who had received prestigious postdoctoral fellowships resulted in rejecting the role-model hypothesis and corroborating the opportunity-structure hypothesis. -
VITA David Jewitt Address Dept. Earth, Planetary and Space
VITA David Jewitt Address Dept. Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences, UCLA 595 Charles Young Drive East, Box 951567 Los Angeles, CA 90095-1567 [email protected], http://www2.ess.ucla.edu/~jewitt/ Education B. Sc. University College London 1979 M. S. California Institute of Technology 1980 Ph. D. California Institute of Technology 1983 Professional Experience Summer Student Royal Greenwich Observatory 1978 Anthony Fellowship California Institute of Technology 1979-1980 Research Assistant California Institute of Technology 1980-1983 Assistant Professor Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1983-1988 Associate Professor and Astronomer University of Hawaii 1988-1993 Professor and Astronomer University of Hawaii 1993-2009 Professor Dept. Earth, Planetary & Space Sciences, UCLA 2009- Inst. of Geophys & Planetary Physics, UCLA 2009-2011 Dept. Physics & Astronomy, UCLA 2010- Director Institute for Planets & Exoplanets, UCLA, 2011- Honors Regent's Medal, University of Hawaii 1994 Scientist of the Year, ARCS 1996 Exceptional Scientific Achievement Award, NASA 1996 Fellow of University College London 1998 Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 2005 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 2005 Member of the National Academy of Sciences 2005 National Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Honorary Professor 2006-2011 National Central University, Taiwan, Adjunct Professor 2007 The Shaw Prize for Astronomy 2012 The Kavli Prize for Astrophysics 2012 Foreign Member, Norwegian Academy of Sciences & Letters 2012 Research -
Astronomy and Astrophysics
THE DECADE OF DISCOVERY IN ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS Astronomy and Astrophysics Survey Committee Board on Physics and Astronomy Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Applications National Research Council NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS Washington, D.C. 1991 NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS • 2101 Constitution Avenue, NW • Washington, DC 20418 NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special compe_nces and with regard for appropriate balance. This report has been reviewed by a group other than the authors according to procedures approved by a Report Review Committee consisting of members of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. This project was supported by the Department of Energy under Grant No. DE-FGO5- 89ER40421, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation under Grant No. AST-8901685, the Naval Research Laboratory under Contract No. N00173-90-M-9744, and the Smithsonian Institution under Purchase Order No. SF0022430000. Additional support was provided by the Maurice Ewing Earth and Planetary Sciences Fund of the National Academy of Sciences created through a gift from the Palisades Geophysical Institute, Inc., and an anonymous donor. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data National Research Council (U.S.). Astronomy and Astrophysics Survey Committee. The decade of discovery in astronomy and astrophysics / Astronomy and Astrophysics Survey Committee, Board on Physics and Astronomy, Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Applications, National Research Council. -
By Ardem Patapoutian Mom Was an Elementary School Teacher and Principal and My Dad Was a Writer and Accountant
I was born in Beirut, Lebanon, where my by Ardem Patapoutian mom was an elementary school teacher and principal and my dad was a writer and accountant. The youngest of three kids, I attended small Armenian schools which was eight years old when the Lebanese continued shrinking in class size as more Civil War began. Life was often families escaped the war. By my freshman understandably stressful, with curfews, high school year, we were down to five limited hours of electricity, and the not students, all dear pals, where I was infrequent explosion. As Armenians, we perhaps middle of the pack in my subjects were usually treated as quasi-neutral but definitely the shortest in stature. The parties to the Christian-Muslim strife, and I school closed the next year, and I moved At age 13, front and center with basketball, Beirut, circa 1980 to a multicultural and academically rigorous private high school where I initially flailed but eventually found a knack for math and science classes, a classic late bloomer. I had three havens of childhood I remember with fondness: my sports club where I played basketball (not well, see height above) and table tennis (local champ!), our trips to the Mediterranean Sea and the wooded mountains surrounding Beirut, and the beautiful campus of the American University of Beirut, where I attended one year of undergraduate classes as a pre-med major. However, the conflict continued to At four years old, with older brother and sister next to the Mediterranean Sea in Beirut, Lebanon, ca 1970 escalate, and one fateful and terrifying morning, I was captured and held by armed militants. -
Human GPS” – the 2014 Nobel Prize in Medicine: Great Scientific Fraud?
International Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Journal Review Article Open Access The “human GPS” – the 2014 Nobel prize in medicine: great scientific fraud? Abstract Volume 3 Issue 3 - 2018 The 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to John O’Keefe, David Salinas Flores May-Britt Moser and Edvard I. Moser, researchers for their discoveries of cells that Faculty of Medicine, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, constitute a positioning system in the brain, an “inner GPS” in the brain. The Nobel Peru Foundation affirm that the proof which demonstrate that their researches performed on rats also work on humans, is based on information obtained from brain imaging Correspondence: David Salinas Flores, Faculty of Medicine, techniques and patients who have undergone neurosurgery. It is a mystery why the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Peru, Tel Nobel Foundation promotes with conviction that the 2014 Nobel Prize in Medicine +511996371790, Email [email protected] winners has found the human brain Global Positioning System. Nowadays, recent researches lead to suspicion that many neuroscientists’ researches can be based with Received: April 25, 2018 | Published: May 10, 2018 brain nanobots performed in Latin America, being one of the most suspicious, the BRAIN initiative, this project was promoted by The Klavi Foundation. The 2014 Nobel Prize in medicine winners have close relations with this foundation, Therefore, there is a strong suspicion that illicit human experimentation with brain nanobots would have been the real source of information about 2014 Nobel research. Keywords: Nobel prize, scientific fraud, nanotechnology, hippocampus, latin America, brain, computer interfaces Introduction A scientist from the National Autonomous University of Mexico thinks that it is erroneous to speak about the existence of a “human The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is considered the GPS”, because GPS equipment works receiving signals from satellites highest scientific award in science and it is the award a doctor orbiting the Earth. -
The Kavli Prize Laureate Lecture
The Kavli Prize Laureate Lecture 24 April 2013, 17:00 – 20:00 The Nordic Embassies in Berlin, Rauchstraße 1, 10787 Berlin-Tiergarten In co-operation with: Berlinffff The Kavli Prize is a partnership between The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, The Kavli Foundation and The Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research Programme: 16:30 Registration Please be seated by 16:55 17:00 Welcome Sven E. Svedman, Norwegian Ambassador to Germany 17:05 ”The Kavli Prize: fostering scientific excellence and international cooperation” Ms Kristin Halvorsen, Norwegian Minister of Education and Research 17:20 „Internationale Herausforderungen – internationale Kooperationen: Der Auftrag der Wissenschaft“ Prof. Dr. Johanna Wanka, Federal Minister of Education and Research 17:35 Short remarks Prof. Dr. Herbert Jäckle, Vice President of the Max Planck Society 17:40 Short remarks Professor Kirsti Strøm Bull President of The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters 17:45 Lecture: “Following the Brain’s Wires” Kavli Prize Laureate Prof. Dr. Winfried Denk Max Planck Institute for Medical Research, Heidelberg 18:10 Lecture: “Towards an Understanding of Neural Codes” Prof. Dr. Gilles Laurent Director of the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt 18:35 Reception Exhibition Hall of the Nordic Embassies in Berlin “Following the Brain’s Wires” Kavli Prize Laureate Prof. Dr. Winfried Denk To understand neural circuits we need to know how neurons are connected. Over the past decade we have developed methods that allow the reconstruction of neural wiring diagrams via the acquisition and analysis of high-resolution three-dimensional electron microscopic data. We have applied these methods to the retina in order to explore, for example, how direction-selective signals are computed. -
By Knut Urban Stuttgart and Director of the Max Planck Stuttgart, Germany
I grew up in the early post-war period in by Knut Urban Stuttgart and Director of the Max Planck Stuttgart, Germany. This city is known for Institute for Metals Research, became its automobile industry and for its large interested in my results on the optical number of small and medium-sized apprenticeship in the field of electrical properties of plastically deformed industrial companies. engineering, which in the sixties, was the germanium at low temperatures and prerequisite for studying physics at the offered me a doctoral thesis. Seeger was My father was an electrical engineer and university. This was an important time for internationally recognized for his he ran a factory for small electric motors. me, because learning the skills of practical pioneering work in the field of crystal Over the decades, he set the main accents electrical engineering, including design defects, and he was one of the most of the company with a whole series of his and working in production with ordinary versatile solid state physicists of his time. own inventions. In my parental home workers not only helped me to acquire Accordingly, the fields dealt with in his there was a lot of thinking, reading and important professional knowledge, but institute and the experimental and discussing about science and technology. also strengthened my social skills. theoretical methods used were many and In addition to parental care, I owe to my Subsequently I enrolled at the Technical varied. father and my mother a critical, open, but University of Stuttgart to study physics. cooperative way of thinking. This was later Inspired by my work in the field of Seeger presented his doctoral students very beneficial to me, not least semiconductors at Bosch company with challenging topics and trusted that professionally. -
Astro2010: the Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey
Astro2010: The Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey Notices of Interest 1. 4 m space telescope for terrestrial planet imaging and wide field astrophysics Point of Contact: Roger Angel, University of Arizona Summary Description: The proposed 4 m telescope combines capabilities for imaging terrestrial exoplanets and for general astrophysics without compromising either. Extremely high contrast imaging at very close inner working angle, as needed for terrestrial planet imaging, is accomplished by the powerful phase induced amplitude apodization method (PIAA) developed by Olivier Guyon. This method promises 10-10 contrast at 2.0 l/D angular separation, i.e. 50 mas for a 4 m telescope at 500 nm wavelength. The telescope primary mirror is unobscured with off-axis figure, as needed to achieve such high contrast. Despite the off-axis primary, the telescope nevertheless provides also a very wide field for general astrophysics. A 3 mirror anastigmat design by Jim Burge delivers a 6 by 24 arcminute field whose mean wavefront error of 12 nm rms, i.e.diffraction limited at 360 nm wavelength. Over the best 10 square arcminutes the rms error is 7 nm, for diffraction limited imaging at 200 nm wavelength. Any of the instruments can be fed by part or all of the field, by means of a flat steering mirror at the exit pupil. To allow for this, the field is curved with a radius equal to the distance from the exit pupil. The entire optical system fits in a 4 m diameter cylinder, 8 m long. Many have considered that only by using two spacecraft, a conventional on-axis telescope and a remote occulter, could high contrast and wide field imaging goals be reconciled.