Dal 16 al 21 marzo 2015, appuntamento a Trieste con la “Settimana del Cervello”, l’evento mondiale che racconta al pubblico la ricerca scientifica sul cervello.
News
Wednesday February 25th the elections of the new Director of the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Trieste were held on the School premises. Stefano Ruffo, professor of Structure of Matter at the University of Florence will be replacing Guido Martinelli, who has led the School for the past five years, and will take up office at SISSA on November 1st 2015.
25 marzo 2015, 14.30
SISSA, aula 128-129
Via Bonomea 265, Trieste
Gian Italo Bischi
24 febbraio, ore 18.00
SISSA, Aula 128-129
Via Bonomea 265, Trieste
Corannulene is a carbon molecule with a unique shape (similar to the better known fullerene) and promising properties. A team of scientists from SISSA and the University of Zurich carried out computer simulations of the molecule’s properties and discovered that it might help overcome the difficulties building molecular circuits (i.e., of the size of molecules). The study has just been published in Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics.
23 febbraio, 17.30
SISSA, aula 128-129
Via Bonomea 265, Trieste
19 febbraio, ore 18.00
Circolo della Stampa, sala “Paolo Alessi”
Corso Italia 13, Trieste
The latest data release from the ESA satellite Planck consortium – just published in Astronomy and Astrophysics – reveals a surprise: star formation in the Universe may be more recent than previously indicated by the analysis of Planck’s predecessor, the NASA WMAP satellite. The observation was made possible by the new maps of Planck’s low-frequency instrument (LFI), produced by the Trieste Data Processing Centre run by INAF-OATS in collaboration with the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) and the LFI Consortium.
Human beings are born with a visual system already predisposed to see (and mentally representing) objects as discrete perceptual units. Movement is an important visual feature, but how early in a child’s development is it represented independently from the object itself? And what function does this skill serve in the development of cognitive abilities? Research conducted with the collaboration of SISSA, and published in Cognition, shows that this skill develops very early in infancy. Not only: its presence in mice suggests a genetic basis for it.
It had never been verified before: unlike other biopolymers, RNA, the long strand that is “cousin” to DNA, tends not to form knots. The observation has been published in the journal PNAS by a research team of the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) of Trieste and the CEA of Saclay (Francia).
Circa cinquecento ragazzi delle scuole superiori del Friuli Venezia Giulia (e dal Veneto) si ritroveranno alla Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA) di Trieste l’11 febbraio 2015, per una mattinata di seminari, conferenze, laboratori interattivi, incontri con i ricercatori e molto altro ancora. L’evento, che vedrà coinvolta tutta la SISSA, nasce per offrire un’immagine più autentica e seducente della Scuola e della ricerca scientifica ai ragazzi che presto dovranno decidere il futuro dei loro studi. L’evento diventerà un appuntamento fisso negli anni a venire.
In March last year the BICEP2 team (the Antarctic observatory) claimed to have observed, for the first time, the effects of gravitational waves in cosmic background radiation. In September Planck demonstrated that the signal observed might be the result of “contaminants” due to the polarised radiation produced by our Galaxy. The Planck and BICEP2 teams therefore joined forces to better investigate the problem, and will publish a paper in Physical Review Letters (announced by an ESA press release).
Stuart Firestein
28 January, 3.00 pm
SISSA, “P. Budinich” Main Lecture Hall
Via Bonomea 265, Trieste
It wasn’t the successes that allowed science to progress. To the contrary, it was the failures that made it so important and influential in human society. This is the view held by Stuart Firestein, biologist at Columbia University, who will be discussing this topic at the next appointment with the SISSA Colloquia. The meeting, open to the public and held in English, is scheduled for 28 January 2015, at 3.00 pm in the “P. Budinich” Main Lecture Hall of SISSA.
Giuseppe O. Longo
29 gennaio, ore 18.00
Caffè San Marco
Via Cesare Battisti 18, Trieste
Giuseppe O. Longo parlerà del rapporto di Carlo Emilio Gadda con la scienza in un incontro pubblico, nell’ambito del ciclo “Scienza, letteratura e impegno civile” organizzato dal Laboratorio Interdisciplinare della SISSA di Trieste. L’evento si terrà al Caffè San Marco giovedì 29 gennaio alle 18 e sarà moderato da Giuseppe Mussardo, direttore del Laboratorio Interdisciplinare della SISSA.
The brain’s alphabet is a mix of rate and precise timing of electrical pulses: the observation was made by researchers at the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) of Trieste and the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) of Rovereto, and has been published in the international journal Current Biology. The study shows that the nervous system features a “multichannel” language that makes up the neural code, or the alphabet that processes information in the brain.
For human beings, implementing and having others implement social equity is important, so much so that we are prepared to forego a sure advantage if this derives from an unfair distribution of resources, regardless of whether we ourselves or others are the target of the unfairness.
Based on the latest evidence and theories our galaxy could be a huge wormhole (or space-time tunnel, have you seen “Interstellar?”) and, if that were true, it would be “stable and navigable”. This is the hypothesis put forward in a study published in Annals of Physics and conducted with the participation of SISSA in Trieste. The paper, the result of a collaboration between Indian, Italian and North American researchers, prompts scientists to re-think dark matter more accurately.
Gaspare Polizzi
15 gennaio, ore 18.00
Circolo della Stampa
Corso Italia 13, Trieste
Smiles are contagious, even when we’re trying to remember them. A study carried out by a research team of the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) of Trieste shows that in order to recall an emotion (positive or negative) we “re-enact” the motor sequence of the facial expression corresponding to that emotion. In other words: when remembering a smile, we smile.
A study, in which the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) collaborated with the Josef Stefan Institute of Ljubljana, analysed how genome mutations of RNA viruses tend to be lethal for these infectious agents. It takes very little to make the RNA too messy and bulky to fit into the capsid - the shell that contains the viral genome – and by doing so disrupt the reproductive process.