News

One of the major challenges of astrophysics today is to trace the origin and earliest development of the Universe. Planck is one of the most important missions in this respect. Today about one hundred scientists are busy analyzing the picture of fossil radiation "taken" by the ESA Planck satellite.

Many of these researchers will be meeting on May 12 at SISSA in Trieste for the "Planck Joint Core Team" conference, to assess what has been discovered so far. The conference is organized by SISSA and INAF-OATS.

On May 6, the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) of Trieste will be paying tribute to the physicist and SISSA founder Paolo Budinich, who died last November, by dedicating the School's Main Lecture Hall to him. The ceremony will take place at 12 noon.

If spacetime were a fluid, it would have very low viscosity, just like a "superfluid". A study carried out jointly by the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) of Trieste and the Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich shows how the "atoms" making up the fluid of spacetime should behave, according to models of quantum gravity.

Vincenzo Barone

8 May 2014, 3pm

SISSA, Main Lecture Hall

Via Bonomea 265 - Trieste

In order to study complex systems and compare the work of those who carry out empirical observations and those who do research using simulations we need new instruments.

Movement and the ability to divide are two fundamental traits of living cells. The origin of these abilities could rely on very simple physical mechanisms, which have been simulated by scientists of the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) of Trieste in a study just published in Physical Review Letters.

Elliot Lieb

June 17, 2014 - 3 pm

SISSA, Main Lecture Hall

Via Bonomea, 265 - Trieste

A public lecture at SISSA provides Elliott Lieb, professor of Mathematics and Physics at Princeton University, the opportunity to review the foundations of the second law of thermodynamics.

This is the physical law which introduces the concept of entropy of the Universe and establishes the direction of the flow of time. Lieb will offer the public his innovative point of view on this fundamental principle.

A team of physicists from SISSA and the Polytechnic University of Turin has developed and analysed a model that simulates the effect of migration on the genetic biodiversity of populations, and discovered that the effect is all but trivial.

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Enrico Alleva

April 9, 2014 - 3 pm

SISSA, Main Lecture Hall

Via Bonomea, 265 - Trieste

Languages are learned, it's true, but are there also innate bases in the structure of language that precede experience? Linguists have noticed that, despite the huge variability of human languages, there are some preferences in the sound of words that can be found across languages.

So they wonder whether this reflects the existence of a universal, innate biological basis of language. A SISSA study provides evidence to support to this hypothesis, demonstrating that certain preferences in the sound of words are already active in newborn infants.

A map of how genes vary in biological tissues: a huge project that required the collaboration of dozens of laboratories worldwide, including the Neurogenomics Laboratory of the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Trieste.

This is the result of a study just published in Nature by the FANTOM consortium (and signed by over two hundred authors). It is only the first of a series of more specific papers that will focus on how the single genes work in each type of tissue.

For astrophysicists neutron stars are extremely complex astronomical objects. Research conducted with the collaboration of SISSA and published in the journal Physical Review Letters demonstrates that in certain respects these stars can instead be described very simply and that they show similarities with black holes.

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What happens to hydrogen when it is subjected to the same pressures as reached inside a planet? Scientists from SISSA simulated this situation to verify if and when hydrogen becomes "metallic". The paper has been published in the journal Nature Communications.

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Researchers at SISSA are developing fast and efficient numerical methods to study the behaviour of molecules and materials. The latest work by Angelo Rosa, published in the journal Physical Review Letters, simulated the behaviour of concentrated solutions of "circular" polymers, providing a far more accurate description of the behaviour of these materials than available in the past.

Small changes in a population may lead to dramatic consequences, like the disappearance of the migratory route of a species. A study carried out in collaboration with the SISSA has created a model of the behaviour of a group of individuals on the move (like a school of fish, a herd of sheep or a flock of birds, etc.) which, by changing a few simple parameters, reproduces the collective behaviour patterns observed in the wild.

Stressed males tend to become more self-centred and less able to distinguish their own emotions and intentions from those of other people. For women the exact opposite is true. This is the main finding of a study just published in Psychoneuroendocrinology, carried out with the collaboration of SISSA in Trieste.

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Nachum Ulanovsky

March 31, 2014 - 12 am

SISSA, Main Lecture Hall

Via Bonomea, 265 - Trieste

Studying the echolocation mechanisms of bats, scientists have discovered how two- and three-dimensional spatial maps are formed in their brain.

SFT2014 Conference

July 28 - August 1,2014

SISSA - Room 128

Via Bonomea 265, Trieste

The conference was devoted to the latest results in SFT as well as in related fields, such as higher spin theories and double field theory. It was the sixth in the series.

For more information > CLICK HERE

Previous SFT conferences:

July 21- August 1, 2014

SISSA, Big Meeting Room (7th floor)

Via Bonomea 265, Trieste

Social Cognitive Neuroscience is an emerging field with an interdisciplinary vision on human behavior in a social context. This perspective, built on the confluence of neurological, cognitive, and social sciences, addresses fundamental questions about the interaction between the mind/brain and the social world.

The distress caused by social stimuli (e.g., losing a friend, experiencing an injustice or more in general when a social bond is threatened) activates brain circuits related to physical pain: as observed in a study conducted by SISSA, this also applies when we experience this type of pain vicariously as an empathic response (when we see somebody else experiencing it).

July 14-25, 2014

SISSA, Via Bonomea 265, Trieste

The School aims to provide practical and theoretical training on the application of a large spectrum of techniques to neurobiology. The course will be divided into 2 sessions: a morning session with tutorial lectures and afternoon sessions with hands-on practicals.

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