21 September 2016, 3:00pm
SISSA, Aula Magna
Paolo Rossi, Physicist at the University of Pisa, whose eclectic interests range from particle physics to translating early medieval texts, will be the first speaker in this season’s SISSA colloquium series. His talk will focus on the study of surnames through statistical mechanics, a useful approach for investigating population genetics.
La Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA) di Trieste ha raggiunto il 100% degli obiettivi legati alla programmazione triennale su tutte e tre le linee strategiche indicate nel 2013 dal Ministero dell’Istruzione, Università e Ricerca (MIUR). La Scuola risulta al top per l'offerta formativa e i suoi risultati, la ricerca scientifica e le sedi didattiche.
Si comunica che sul sito del MIUR sono stati pubblicati i due Decreti Direttoriali che danno l’avvio alle procedure per il conseguimento dell’Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale. I Decreti sono reperibili sul sito dell’ASN.
Anche quest’anno la Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA) di Trieste, partecipa alla manifestazione Fin da Piccoli, per la diffusione della buone pratiche a sostegno dell’infanzia e di una genitorialità più consapevole, che quest’anno è dedicata alla matematica e alle scienze.
Well before starting to speak, children from a very young age pay higher attention to the information received from native speakers of their language compared to the information received from “foreigners”. A new study shows that this behaviour, replicated already at the age of five months, might be the foundation of acquiring culture specific knowledge. The research coordinated by SISSA was published in the Frontiers in Psychology magazine.
“Womath 2016 - Women and Research in Mathematics: the Contribution of SISSA”, to be held at SISSA from September 7th to September 9th, is a conference organized with the collaboration of the University of Udine, the University of Turin and of ERC Advanced Grant of Susanna Terracini, under the patronage of the Region Friuli Venezia-Giulia, of the Regional Commission for Equal Opportunities and of the Association of Journalists of Friuli Venezia-Giulia.
Una mostra e una serie di eventi per ricordare Paolo Budinich nel centenario della nascita. Uomo di scienza e cultura, Budinich ha forgiato la Trieste di oggi, conosciuta nel mondo come la città della scienza. Dopo la Seconda guerra mondiale, Trieste si ritrova una piccola città ai margini di un paese da ricostruire. Senza una precisa vocazione. Budinich sceglie la scienza: internazionale, solidale, capace di rompere e superare le barriere. Principi che sono oggi più necessari che mai.
Thanks to a reaction that resembles a sort of proton pinball game, a thin layer of moisture on the surface of a catalysts can improve the efficiency of fuel cells, devices used to transform chemical energy (a fuel like hydrogen, for example) directly into electricity without releasing greenhouse gases in emissions. The study was coordinated by IOM CNR/ SISSA.
Massimiliano Di Ventra, Physicist at the University of California San Diego, will explain the basics of memcomputing, a new computational approach that uses memory for information processing and storage using the human brain as an analogy. The talk will be held in English and is open to the public.
The International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA, Trieste), in agreement with the position undertaken by the European University Association, strongly and unconditionally condemns the measures adopted by the Turkish Government following the recent coup attempt.
È pubblico il nuovo bando del premio SISSA/INFN in memoria di Romeo Bassoli, inserito nell’iniziativa “Memorie di scienza”. Il premio finanzia con 3mila euro il miglior progetto di collezione di interviste e testimonianze orali del mondo della ricerca scientifica. L’argomento di questa edizione sarà la prospettiva femminile nella ricerca scientifica in Italia, con cui si vuole verificare, a quasi settant’anni dalla promulgazione della Costituzione della Repubblica, lo stato di salute dell’articolo 9 sulla promozione della ricerca dal punto di vista delle donne.
SISSA has just launched a new program for faster access to a PhD in condensed matter physics. The best students will be able to attend lectures at SISSA while still attending their last year of the Master course in Physics at the University of Trieste.
A complex study, lasting several years and involving work groups with specialties in various fields, has shown that a new material (a three-dimensional sponge made of carbon nanotubes) supports the growth of nerve fibers, bridging segregated neural explants and providing a functional re-connection.
RNA is a fundamental molecule that codes for protein and controls gene expression, playing a part in regulating many cell responses and vital processes. The genetic information contained in premature messenger RNA (mRNA), before being converted to proteins, needs to be processed and cleared of its non-coding sections, known as introns.
A new study led by the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) of Trieste and published in PLOS Computational Biology adds detail to the theoretical models used in chromatin simulations and demonstrates that even when made up of a mixture of fibres with different properties chromatin does not alter its three-dimensional structure above a certain spatial resolution. This finding points to a need to improve on current techniques for experimental observation, which are characterized by a resolution that is still too low.
Despite the central role of food in our lives, research has done little to discover how food concepts are organized in our brain. A review carried out at the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) of Trieste sorts out the knowledge gained so far, relating it to the current theories of semantic categorization. This in-depth analysis provides a useful conceptual framework for future research and for putting the different theories to the test. The paper has just been published in Psychonomic Bulletin Review.
Frontotemporal dementia is associated with a wide variety of abnormal eating behaviors such as hyperphagia, fixations on one kind of food, even ingestion of inanimate objects, making an already-difficult situation even worse. A review by SISSA researchers gathers together the state of the art of what is known in this field, paying particular attention to the brain mechanisms involved. The information may be used for understanding eating disorders in healthy people. The review was published in the magazine Neurocase.
Studies have demonstrated that oxytocin (which acts as an hormone and also as a neurotransmitter in the brain) plays a role in facilitating the perception of emotions in other people’s facial expressions. An international study conducted by Sebastian Korb (researcher in the SISSA’s Neurosciences area) and colleagues has tested the idea that this phenomenon is related to facial mimicry. According to embodied cognition theory, in fact, the recognition of others’ emotions is facilitated by their imitation and reproduction with our own face.
15 June 2016, 3 pm
SISSA, Main Lecture Hall
The shape of a leaf, the pattern on a viper’s skin, a mollusc’s shell: Nature knows how to create accurate patterns. Alberto Bressan, mathematician at Penn State University (Pennsylvania, USA) will give a talk (for the SISSA Colloquia series) on the mathematics governing the growth of biological forms. The event, to be held in English, is free and open to the public
Using an “intuitive” approach, a SISSA study confirms a recent hypothesis on the formation of galaxies, according to which the larger elliptical galaxies formed in very ancient times through a process of local (in situ) star formation. This contradicts the current paradigm that they formed through the merging of spiral galaxies, a view which, despite being generally accepted by most of the scientific community, has been a source of theoretical inconsistencies.
