News

28 October, 6.30 pm

SISSA, “P. Budinich” Main Lecture Hall

Via Bonomea 265, Trieste

Second appointment with the Trieste University Theatre Centre (CUT) at the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) of Trieste. Following the success of the “Merry Wives of Windsor”, now it’s the turn of “Marat Sade”, a play loosely based on the text by Peter Weiss “The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade”. Admission is free and open to the public.

Marcello Costa

29 October, 3pm

SISSA, “P. Budinich” Main Lecture Hall

Via Bonomea 265, Trieste

The physical mechanism that generates superconductivity in materials at high critical temperature (like cuprates, which appear to be among the most promising materials for technological applications) remains a mystery.

Synapses are “dynamic” things: they can regulate their action in neural processes related to learning, for example, but also as a consequence of diseases. A research team – led by SISSA – has demonstrated the role of a small enzyme (Pin1) in synaptic plasticity. The study has just been published in the journal Nature Communications

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The call for applications is now open to this year’s Master in Complex Actions at SISSA (MCA), the course that trains students to face up to the challenges of the global markets by combining management skills with leading-edge science. This year’s challenge is the ageing of the world population: how best to deal with this new global scenario and turn a problem into a resource?

“Nano–machines” (around one billionth of a metre in size) of the future will need tiny devices to reduce friction and make movement possible. The C60 molecule, also known as fullerene or buckyball, seemed to many an excellent candidate for nano-bearings. Unfortunately, the results so far have been conflicting, calling for further studies, like the one carried out by a theoretical team involving SISSA, ICTP, CNR and EMPA. Through a series of computer simulations the scientists uncovered the reason for the experimental discrepancies and shed light on the true potential of this material.

October 9, 6.30 pm

SISSA, “P. Budinich” Main Lecture Hall 

Via Bonomea 265, Trieste

The Trieste University Theatre Centre (CUT) will be at SISSA to perform William Shakespeare’s comedy “The Merry Wives of Windsor”. The appointment is for Thursday 9 October at 6.30 pm in the “P. Budinich” Main Lecture Hall; the event is free and open to the public. The show is the first of a short series of theatrical events offered by SISSA to its students, teachers, and staff as well as to the general public, all of which will take place at SISSA during the autumn. 

La SISSA di Trieste, insieme al Registro Nazionale Gemelli dell’ISS di Roma, sta conducendo una ricerca sulle basi genetiche del pregiudizio. Lo studio ha bisogno di coppie di gemelli tra i 18 e i 40 anni e viene condotto nella sede della SISSA. C’è bisogno di nuovi volontari e tutti i gemelli che rispondono ai requisiti e residenti nella zone di Trieste/Gorizia sono invitati a partecipare chiamando lo 06.49904154, o mandando una e-mail a registro.nazionale.gemelli@iss.it. È previsto un rimborso spese.

Scientists of the Planck collaboration, and in particular the Trieste team, have conducted a series of in-depth checks on the discovery recently publicised by the BICEP2 project (the Antarctic observatory), which announced last spring that it had detected some direct effects of gravitational waves on cosmic microwave background radiation, a (potentially) groundbreaking discovery in the field of cosmology. Many scientists raised doubts: could the signal observed be the result of contaminants?

26-28 settembre 2014,

Piazza Unità d’Italia e Sala Auditorium del Museo Revoltella, Trieste

24 settembre 2014, dalle ore 9.30

SISSA, Sede di Via Beirut 2-4 (Aula Magna), Trieste

17 settembre 2014, 11.30-13.00

SISSA, Aula 4, piano terra

Via Bonomea 265, Trieste

Un incontro con esperti di supercalcolo ripercorre la storia e presenta le potenzialità applicative dell’High Performance Computing, dagli albori alle nuove frontiere di questa disciplina, approfondendo il suo uso in vari settori della ricerca. L’evento è organizzato dal Master in Comunicazione della Scienza “Franco Prattico” della SISSA di Trieste in collaborazione con NÒVA-Il Sole24ore, ed è aperto al pubblico.

Ancora pochi i giorni che rimangono per iscriversi alle selezioni di quest’anno per il Master in Comunicazione della Scienza della SISSA di Trieste. Il termine ultimo infatti è il 30 settembre (alle 12), e nel frattempo si preparano alcune importanti novità per i futuri studenti. Il 15 settembre alle 11 si terrà infatti un incontro presso la sede di TV Koper Capodistria per annunciare la collaborazione tra il Master e la televisione. Le due realtà hanno sottoscritto un accordo che permetterà agli studenti di svolgere degli stage presso la realtà slovena.

Children start to learn the sound of words by remembering the first and last syllables. A SISSA study, published in Child Development, sheds light on the information the infant brain uses during language acquisition and the format in which it stores words in its memory.

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From September 1st to 5th the first of the four JCOM Masterclasses, educational programmes aimed at an international audience and held by international experts took place. For the 20 selected participants the course represented a unique opportunity to better understand the relationship between science and society and learn new methods to promote debate between scientists and the general public, such as discussion games and science cafés.

A simple and effective way of unravelling the often tangled mass of DNA is to “thread” the strand into a nano-channel. A study carried out with the participation of the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Trieste used simulations to measure the characteristics that this channel should have in order to achieve maximum efficiency.

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DNA is an electrically charged molecule, and for this reason the knots that form spontaneously along the strand can be manipulated by applying electric fields, as done by Cristian Micheletti, professor at SISSA, and his team. The research paper has just been published in Soft Matter and is the first example of a technique allowing DNA knots to be driven from the outside.

Scade il 20 ottobre 2014 il termine entro cui inviare domanda di partecipazione al bando del “Premio Bassoli”, istitutito dalla Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA) di Trieste e dall'Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), per il miglior progetto di “raccolta di testimonianze orali” in ambito scientifico. Il premio è dedicato a Romeo Bassoli, giornalista scientifico, a capo dell’Ufficio Comunicazione dell’INFN e docente del Master in Comunicazione della Scienza “Franco Prattico” della SISSA, scomparso l’anno scorso.

Un progetto miliardario con un obiettivo ambizioso: riprodurre il funzionamento dell’intero cervello umano. Ma qualcosa non quadra e la comunità dei neuroscienziati europei ha inviato una lettera di protesta ufficiale alla Commissione Europea, chiedendo criteri più rigorosi per la valutazione del progetto e minacciando di boicottarlo massicciamente se le richieste non verranno accolte.

A study just published in Nature Communications and carried out by a collaboration of several Italian and international centres, including SISSA, used a technique based on applying short flashes of light to observe and analyse the features of a superconductor at high critical temperature, a material with major prospects for technological applications. In addition to providing an explanation for the peculiar behaviour of the material, the study also opens to the possibility of controlling its characteristics by means of laser pulses.