We learn how our world works by observing the frequency of events: if (almost) every time I press a button a light comes on, by repeating the same experience over and over again I will learn that to turn on the light I need to press that button. In addition to this sort of “statistical evaluation” of observed events, there is another very powerful instrument that the brain uses for learning and that sometimes clashes with the former: communication.
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Il giornalismo digitale richiede competenze specifiche. La SISSA propone un intervento di Paolo Omero, docente di Tecnologie web all’Università di Udine, che approfondirà i vari aspetti di questo ambito in continua mutazione, utili a tutti i giornalisti, non solo a coloro che già lavorano nelle redazioni online.
The School aims to provide practical and theoretical training on the application of a large spectrum of techniques to neuroscience. The course will have sessions with tutorial lectures and sessions with hands-on practicals.
Fare il giornalista oggi significa anche saper maneggiare (e raccontare) dati: cercare le fonti giuste, destreggiarsi con le statistiche, creare infografiche, ma non solo. Anche quest’anno il Master in Comunicazione della Scienza “Franco Prattico” della SISSA propone una scuola dedicata al data journalism.
Designed to detect the fossil radiation of the Universe, the Planck satellite, working in tandem with Herschel, can also help to understand the macrostructure of the Universe. A just-published experimental study, carried out with the participation of SISSA, has detected astronomical sources that may be precursors to galaxy clusters, the largest dynamically stable structures existing in the Universe. These primitive elements have long been sought by astrophysicists since they are crucial for tracing the development of the Universe’s macrostructures.
The hope is to be able, one day, to fight the pathogenic action of the amyloid-beta protein, whose build-up is associated with Alzheimer’s disease. In the meantime, scientists (including a group from the International School for Advanced Studies, SISSA, in Trieste) have synthesised the knowledge acquired about this protein over the last few decades in a review paper that is destined to become a milestone for future research.
By using an innovative yet simple technique, a team of Italian research scientists (from SISSA in Trieste, the University of Trieste and IIT in Genova) have managed to obtain an in vitro culture of primary neurons (and astrocytes) that is genuinely three-dimensional. The neural network showed a more complex function than its two-dimensional counterparts. The structure is also the first to incorporate carbon nanotubes, which promote the formation of synapses among the neurons in the culture. The study has been published in Scientific Reports.
Guido Martinelli, Director of the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) of Trieste, has been appointed to the Scientific Policy Committee of CERN in Geneva, a prestigious appointment given solely on the basis of scientific competence. The appointment of the School’s Director confirms once again the high international standing of SISSA’s scientific personnel.
SISSA has received European Community funding equivalent to 18 million hours of supercomputing, corresponding to almost half the hours that the SISSA supercomputer, inaugurated last September, can provide in a whole year. The grant was awarded thanks to a research project in particle physics. SISSA is placing high stakes on high performance computing, as also confirmed by the second edition of the Master in High Performance Computing (MHPC) which has just opened enrolments.
Trefoil, Savoy, or simple … how do you fashion a “molecular” knot that has one of these shapes? Or better still, what are the most suitable “building blocks” for enabling the knot to assemble itself? A team of scientists coordinated by the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) of Trieste has studied and catalogued the shapes that molecular building blocks should have so as to be able to assemble spontaneously into knots having specific forms, each with a possible utility in nanotechnology. The study has been published in Nature Communications.
At the origin of the properties of high-temperature superconductors lies a phenomenon that is too fast to be observed experimentally with conventional methods.
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.
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.