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.
Black holes are still very mysterious celestial bodies which, according to the majority of physicists, do not, however, escape the laws of thermodynamics. As a result, these physical systems possess an entropy though no real agreement has been reached about the microscopic origin of this propriety and how it should be calculated. A SISSA/Max Planck Institute (Potsdam) group has achieved important results in this calculation by applying a new formalism (Group Field Theory) of Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG), a very popular approach in the area of quantum gravity.
30 May 2016, 2.30 pm
SISSA, room 128
Michele Parrinello, a former SISSA professor, has remained a model for the school and a mentor for some of the scientists who work here. On May 30th, the physicist who was awarded the Dirac Medal, amongst others, will be at SISSA for a conference where he will explain his method for the simulation of “rare events”, a major challenge in the multifaceted world of computer simulations.
A protein of the ISWI family (Imitation Switch, or nucleosome remodelling motors) is endowed with a special property: despite having no organ of sense it is nonetheless able to assess the length of DNA strands. A study just published in the Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment and carried out by SISSA, the MAX Planck Institute and the NIH has discovered how it works.
Picking out single words in a flow of speech is no easy task and, according to linguists, to succeed in doing it the brain might use statistical methods. A group of SISSA scientists has applied a statistics-based method for word segmentation and measured its efficacy on natural language, in 9 different languages, to discover that linguistic rhythm plays an important role. The study has just been published in the Journal of Developmental Science.
Registration is officially open for the 2016/2017 edition of the SISSA/ICTP Master in High Performance Computing. Applications can be completed online until July 6, 2016 at http://mhpc.it/how-apply. Now in its third edition, this exclusive Master’s program selects 15 high-profile participants from a large pool of applicants.
Come ogni anno si aprono le iscrizioni per le selezioni al Master in Comunicazione della Scienza “Franco Prattico” (MCS) della SISSA di Trieste, valide per l’accesso al biennio 2016-2018. La scuola si conferma la migliore in Italia in questo campo, oltre che quella di più lunga tradizione, con dati occupazionali sempre molto positivi e un’offerta formativa di massima qualità. Le iscrizioni alle selezioni per il biennio resteranno aperte fino al 27 settembre 2016, alle 12.00.
25 May 2016, 3:30p.m.
SISSA, Room 128
Via Bonomea 265, Trieste
The newest appointment in the SISSA colloquia calendar features Mathematics. Claudio Bartocci, mathematician at the Università di Genova, will give a talk intertwining mathematics and philosophy, specifically addressing the question of what role creativity, and, more generally, freedom play in the study of mathematics.
A team from the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Trieste has obtained very promising results by applying gene therapy to glioblastoma. Tests in vitro and in vivo on mice provided very clear-cut results, and modelling demonstrates that the treatment targets at least six different points of tumour metabolism. Gene therapy, a technique that selectively attacks a tumour, might provide hope in the fight against this type of deadly cancer, for which surgery is practically impossible and chemo- and radiotherapy are ineffective against very aggressive recurrences.
Botulin injections in the facial muscles, which relax expression lines and make one’s skin appear younger as a result of a mild paralysis, have another, not easily predictable effect: they undermine the ability to understand the facial expressions of other people. This consequence, as SISSA scientists explain in a new research study, depends on a temporary block of proprioceptive feedback, a process that helps us understand other people’s emotions by reproducing them on our own bodies.
Innovative graphene technology to buffer the activity of synapses-- this is the idea behind a recently-published study in the journal ACS Nano coordinated by the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste (SISSA) and the University of Trieste. In particular, the study showed how effective graphene oxide flakes are at interfering with excitatory synapses, an effect that could prove useful in new treatments for diseases like epilepsy.
27 maggio 2016, dalle 14.30 alle 23
SISSA, via Bonomea 265, Trieste
The recent round of funding by the European Research Council (ERC) – the prestigious “Advanced Grants” – features the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) of Trieste among the grant awardees. Michele Fabrizio, SISSA physicist has won a substantial new grant, which will allow him and his group to study “first-order Mott transitions” for the next five years.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) can have a strong impact on the life of patients. Not only must they address the unpleasant symptoms, they are also subject to unpredictable relapses after more or less long periods of remission (which are irregular in duration), a condition that can cause anxiety and stress.
In quantum gravity, classical physics and quantum mechanics are at odds: scientists are still uncertain how to reconcile the quantum “granularity” of space-time at the Planck scale with the theory of special relativity. In their attempts to identify possible tests of the physics associated with this difficult union, the most commonly studied scenario is the one that implies violations of “Lorentz invariance”, the principle underlying special relativity.
If a person pushes a broken-down car alone, there is a certain effect. If another person helps, the result is the sum of their efforts. If two micro-particles are pushing a third microparticle, however, the resulting effect may not necessarily be the sum their efforts. A recent study SISSA contributed to, published in Nature Communications, measured this odd effect that scientists call “many body.”
Anche la Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA) di Trieste propone due interventi nell’ambito dell’Internet Day 2016, l’evento organizzato da Insiel e dalla Regione Friuli Venezia Giulia. Alle 11 del 29 aprile è previsto un seminario per le scuole dedicato ai supercomputer (con Stefano Cozzini), mentre alle 14.30 Loriano Bonora parla di editoria scientifica con il pubblico della SISSA.
4-7 maggio 2016, alle 17.30 e alle 20
Antico Caffè e Libreria San Marco, Libreria Lovat,
Libreria Minerva, Libreria Ubik, Trieste
Gli insegnati e gli educatori della provincia di Trieste che vogliono utilizzare il computer a scuola in modo creativo e innovativo hanno ora la possibilità di partecipare a Teacher Coderdojo, un corso organizzato dalla SISSA in collaborazione con la famosa iniziativa internazionale Coderdojo (in particolare Coderdojo Trieste), pensata dal MIT di Boston e che da anni insegna ai bambini a programmare in modo semplice e divertente. Il corso si terrà il 28 aprile, è gratuito e aperto a insegnati ed educatori di Trieste e provincia.
