All written up and cunningly disguised as a paper, this appeared on arXiv a few days ago. It's a write-up of a lecture given at a recent summer school in Italy, by Dr. Christian Iliadis (Uni. North Carolina), covering some astrophysics essentials.

Introduction to nuclear astrophysics

I haven't had a chance to look through it properly yet, but it seems to be quite a nice introduction to nuclear astrophysics. Essentially, stellar fusion, nucleosynthesis within stars and how that accounts for cosmic abundance of the chemical elements.
(Read: Why we're made from carbon and oxygen, and not boron and phosphorus.)

As it describes it as the "first lecture of this volume," I'm curious to see the rest of the topics covered -- which should hopefully be written up in due course!

Those who hold the purse strings for science funding in the UK aren't doing any favours to anyone recently. Not to themselves and certainly not to researchers early in their careers like me. The minutes from a recent meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) made their way to my desk this morning. Their contents? Most troubling.

"Things are bad - but are going to get worse."

A lot of people will probably know about the ongoing saga of the STFC. The STFC (Science and Technology Funding Council), as has been noted in the past, formed from a merger of two previously existing research councils. Upon their formation, they promptly slashed the budget from physics and astronomy -- apparently to cover the funding deficit incurred by other areas. This prompted much furore and a few official investigations. Seemingly, things aren't set to change much any time soon.

Very simply, there's more talk of planned budgetary reductions on top of the shortfall from previously (which is still taking its toll on UK astronomy). The RAS, understandably, are greatly concerned about all of this and how it might affect the future of astronomy in the UK. The biggest concern is that while the UK is currently one of the world leaders in astronomy research (in some areas, we are the world leader), uncertainty over funds could be highly damaging. The worst part is that the STFC themselves seem to be under the impression that they're already spending plenty (if not too much) on astronomy. Which... is frankly rather a ridiculous assertion. While some people might study purely to get qualifications which will afford them a better salary in industry, others amongst us are doing what we're doing because we enjoy doing active research, and wish to carry on as academics. Unfortunately, we're the ones who might well suffer as a result of this if postdoctoral jobs start to dry up. Some of us are here because we don't want to take our transferrable skills and work in industry. That's why we're happy to take already low salaries and a lack of immediate job stability to do what it is we want to do. The STFC speak of minimising the flow of talent to academic careers in astronomy overseas, but in all fairness, they're not giving us much of an incentive to remain here. Ironically, those in charge of these research councils should be well aware of this, having been though much the same situation earlier in their careers!

Members of the RAS council are also seemingly concerned that leading figures in the STFC are starting to believe that the UK astronomical community has grown too large. Which seems strange to me. We're not exactly the largest of scientific fields by a long shot. Indeed, it's a relatively small scientific community, split into even smaller sub-communities. Which is part of why I like it, to be honest.

Long story short, the RAS are unhappy about the arrangements of the research councils. Not surprisingly. It's times like this when I'm glad I'm interdisciplinary and get my funding from the EPSRC instead...


With thanks to fellow twitterers, @astromeg and @StephenSerjeant for the heads up!

Now this looks exciting! An IAU conference all about public outreach. I'm really liking the sound of this!

"The ‘Communicating Astronomy with the Public 2010’ (CAP2010) conference will take place in Cape Town, South Africa, from 15 to 19 March, 2010. Following the previous conferences in this series, it aims to address the modern challenges in astronomy communication through a global perspective. Major themes of CAP2010 will be the outcome and legacy of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009) as well as techniques for how to make public astronomical knowledge global and accessible to everyone across national, language, political, social and cultural borders and to those with impairment limitations."

IAU Commission 55 conference:

Communicating Astronomy with the Public 2010 (CAP 2010)

Building on the International Year of Astronomy 2009
March 15 - March 19, 2010
Ritz Hotel, Sea Point, Cape Town, South Africa

So far this year, I'm already hoping to head to two conferences and one observing run. I suspect I should start looking into funding applications...

So I'm looking forward to going observing at some point in the near future. There was a trip to La Palma in the pipeline, but unfortunately that fell through. The upside to that is that I'll likely be going to South Africa instead. Which is rather exciting for a multitude of reasons. For a start, there are some very interesting things in the skies of the southern hemisphere. For another, apparently the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) are rather keen on outreach lately. I seem to be building something of a track record myself, in that respect. This could be rather convenient. If there's the potential for me to get involved while I'm there, giving an outreach talk while in South Africa would likely be an amazing experience!

The SAAO is based in Cape Town. In fact, it's based in a suburb of Cape Town known as Observatory! As you might gather, it got it's name by being the former site of an actual observatory. South Africa's first Royal Observatory, to be precise. The same site is still home to the SAAO's headquarters, but the actual telescopes have moved to a better location. They're located on a mountaintop near Sutherland. Home to some of the darkest skies on the planet, and just over 1500 metres above sea level, the majority of people who go to Sutherland fall into three categories. Sheep farmers, tourists and astronomers.

The SAAO is home to a multitude of telescopes, but the most notable one has to be SALT (which, fingers crossed, I might get to use). An abbreviation for South African Large Telescope, SALT is currently about the 5th largest optical telescope in the world and hosts some of the worlds best astronomical spectroscopic tools. It also holds the accolade that when it was built, particular concern was given to internet connectivity. As a result, the telescope has a 1.5 Mbit internet connection for downloading and uploading data. If I remember rightly, it also has full Wi Fi connectivity (although I could be mistaken about that part).

All the same, even if I don't get to use SALT and have to use the 1.9m Radcliffe Telescope instead, I'm not going to complain. I'm still eagerly looking forward to South Africa and some truly dark night skies. And although English is the language of choice in academic circles, the country actually has 11 official languages. Perhaps I should learn some Xhosa or Afrikaans...

Well this is atypical. Me being in for 9am? Most people don't seem to even be here yet. Another reminder that no matter how much we all grumbled about early morning starts as undergrads, the lecturers were doubtless equally disenamoured with the whole affair.

I'm actually here to sort out my lab demonstration training. Due to communication mix ups a couple of weeks back I wasn't actually able to attend the proper training session last week. But there's not an awful lot to go over, to be honest. The bulk of it is going to be tomorrow. Tomorrow afternoon is a free block in the lab schedule, which is my chance to run amok and get the hang of all the lovely pieces of equipment like isoteniscopes and cannisters of helium gas. Delicious.

Bizarrely, looking over these first year lab manuals and first year experiments rather brings back some nostalgia of being an undergrad. This should be interesting. Teaching is fun!

So it's back to work for me after a blissful three weeks off, with someone wonderful. Amusingly, back to work involved going to the cinema (and it's not often you can say that), for a brief introductory talk to the film, Solaris -- part of the Stars on Screen IYA event at the Broadway Cinema here in Nottingham. Hey, outreach is still work, right?

The film, Solaris, was directed in 1972 by Andrei Tarkovsky, and is a classic. In terms of visionary status and imagination, it's been compared to 2001: A Space Oddyssey by film critics. Based on a novel published in 1961 by Stanislaw Lem, it concerns the abortive attempts of a group of scientists to make contact with an alien intelligence on a planet named Solaris. Their attempts seem to only serve to cause them psychological anguish and distress.

Stanislaw Lem liked to emphasise the alienness of aliens in his works, deriding depictions of humanoid aliens as unimaginative. Despite the fact that Lem wasn't entirely pleased with the adaption (which missed out a lot of his ideas of alien life), the film raises a host of fascinating (and rather philosophical) questions concerning the nature of life, alien intelligence and even artificial intelligence. Well worth a watch, despite being nearly 3 hours long.

The first in a series of films, the others showing being Sunshine, Apollo 13, Hitchhiker's Guide and Forbidden Planet.



In other news, I have much to do. A fistful of papers to write, another talk to prepare, undergraduate labs to demonstrate, a couple of fourth year project students to help with stuff... And I should probably think about doing some research at some point, too!

Well it's not often you get told about a symposium that's 100% relevant to your research interests! I'm posting this almost entirely to remind myself to look into it. Seriously, I'd love to go along. Even if it means grovelling to someone to get the funding. It seems like most of the biggest names in my field of research will be there!

Seemingly this has been announced so recently that there's scarcely anything on the website just yet... But I'll be keeping an eye on it.

PAHs and the Universe

A symposium to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the PAH hypothesis
May 31st - June 4th 2010
Toulouse, France

Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate.
(Plurality is not to be posited without necessity.)



There are a number of principles in modern science which are quite pivotal for how science itself works. Principles which can often be used to distinguish the scientific from the psuedoscientific. Principles with which sound theories can be constructed and tested. One of the most pivotal of these is surely Occam's razor.

Attributed to an English friar and philosopher, William of Ockham, the strict translation above might not be the most intuitive. All the same, the bottom line is simple. A good theory or hypothesis will be the one which requires the least assumptions. If you require the existence of some additional, hitherto unknown, entity to make your theory work, you'd better have an exceptionally good reason for doing so. Simplest is best. It's been found time and again that the Universe has a tendancy to work that way, which is why many theories in physics are elegantly simple. Describe the most data with the simplest explanation possible. Hence, it's referred to as a "razor" -- for cutting away any unnecessary material.

Newtonian mechanics is quite a good example. More commonly known as classical mechanics, it's simple enough that you were probably taught some principles of it in primary school, Newton's laws are, to all intents and purposes, an ideal description of the world around us. Simple, however, does not mean simplistic. Classical mechanics are still widely used in the world today.

Newton's laws, however, failed to describe everything. In particular, they didn't perfectly account for the orbit of Mercury around the Sun. Nor could they -- this required information that Newton never had. Mercury's orbit was only properly explained by an equally elegant theory. General Relativity. As anyone who's studied it will attest, relativity can become exceedingly complex. The genius of it though, is that this manifold complexity stems from what is, in essence, a beautifully simple concept. Einstein's own philosophy was to view the Universe as "made from marble." Pure and pristine. He believed the true nature of the universe to be a beautiful thing. Simple and smooth. Not like the coarse and discordent theories employed in some areas of science, which he referred to as "wooden."

Thus, Occam's razor allows for an evolution of ideas. Any given theory is eventually superceded by another, explaining the shortcomings of the first in as simple a manner as possible. It's certainly true in physics that many fervently believe the simplest theory to be the best. And therein lies the rub.

The so-called "standard model" of particle physics is arguably the most successful theory of all time. Describing the quantum world with precision and consistency, the standard model is our best description of the bizarre world of quantum mechanics. But by all standards, it's gut wrenchingly ugly. By Einstein's definitions, the standard model is very definitely made of wood, with all of its lumps, bumps and knots clearly on display. No matter how carefully you sand down a wooden theory to smooth it's edges, the knots will still remain. The quest for a marble theory is one of the driving factors behind the search for grand unified theories -- but thus far, few can fully withstand the test of Occam's dreaded razor. All must posit new entities or realities, many of which are simply untestable.

Another interesting thing is that Occam's razor is the main armament of any theorist who's critical of dark matter. Dark matter was proposed to explain why galaxies don't simply fling themselves apart. They rotate far faster than they theoretically should unless they're significantly more massive than they appear to be. The idea of dark matter, then, is simply that they are significantly more massive than they appear to be! Dark matter is, arguably, a quick fix. Not enough matter? No problem! Let's just assume that there's a lot more matter there. We just can't see it. Not an unreasonable suggestion in all fairness. Those critics, however, prefer to believe that we simply don't understand gravity as well as we could. Theories like Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) have been proposed as a result, which don't require the presence of dark matter. It has to be said, applying Occam's razor, such theories should be favourable -- they require fewer assumptions.

No one theory has yet been universally accepted (neither to solve both the galaxy rotation problem, nor to supercede the standard model), and many of the most widely used have difficulties. It's been said that physics is overdue for a major breakthrough. A Richard Feynman for the 21st century, perhaps. For the meantime, we just have to sit back and wait for some plucky theorist to find the shoe that fits best.

So I'm working on some slides for that public lecture I'm giving next week. I think things are looking good. I know plenty about all of the topics I'm planning on covering. Just a couple of things to brush up on. It's always a good idea to make sure that you know what you know. You know?

Topics to brush up on: Extremophiles - check Biomarkers/Planetary Spectra - check Mars/Discovery of Methane - check Venusian cloud decks - check Sagan's Jovian Life - check Europa/Subsurface Ocean - (revise) Titan/Frozen Earth - check Stellar Habitability - (revise) Detecting Alien Vegetation/Oceans - (revise)(revise)

I've already written about most of those topics. You'd be amazed at how well things stick in your mind after you write an article about them. Couple of things to revise. Nothing I can't handle. This should be fun!

Admittedly, I'm also busy writing a paper at the moment. But then, I never had much trouble with multitasking. Actually, I rather enjoy having two things going on at once... Variety. Spice of life, and all of that.

Nope. Not a word. Even though, in a sense, I've already talked about it, albeit briefly. Instead, I'm going to talk about the bafflement that's apparent over press embargoes and what constitutes "public domain". Am I grabbing the wrong end of the stick here? Or are half the science bloggers in the world missing something? Logically, I'd have to believe I'm the one who's mistaken, but... after looking at this in detail I'm at a loss to see the how or why.

The matter of press embargoes seems to be a sticky one, at best. Seeing as I've thus far not had much cause to communicate with the press (at least in a research capacity), it seems wise to understand the situation with embargos. The basic idea is simple. Send out a press release with an embargo until a set date. The media may then have time to prepare a story, but may not publicise it until the given date (and are professionally obliged not to). Simple, right? Well...

This afternoon, the first utterance I heard about this was on Scienceblogs.com's Dynamics of Cats. He wasn't talking about it either. In keeping with the cat-based theme, this piqued my curiosity somewhat, so I followed his link to a post by Cosmic Variance's Julianne. Nor was she talking about it. But she (and a number of commenters) were bemoaning the embargoing system employed by journals like Nature. This eventually led back to Uncertain Principles not talking about it, but rather questioning the whole affair. Sometimes, the science blogosphere is like a big detective story waiting to happen...

(Note, incidentally, that I'm not even referencing specific blog posts here. Not talking about it.)

Personally, the snippets of information I draw from all of this are thus:

...our cardinal rule has always been to promote scientific communication. We have therefore never sought to prevent scientists from presenting their work at conferences, or from depositing first drafts of submitted papers on preprint servers. So if Nature journalists or those from any other publication should hear results presented at a meeting, or find them on a preprint server, the findings are fair game for coverage — even if that coverage is ahead of the paper's publication. This is not considered a breaking of Nature's embargo. Nor is it a violation if scientists respond to journalists' queries in ensuring that the facts are correct — so long as they don't actively promote media coverage.

-- A Nature editorial on science blogging regarding Nature's embargo policy

So Nature themselves are saying that picking something up from a preprint server and discussing it isn't breaking an embargo at all. In fact, seemingly, the only people able to break the embargo are the authors. And even they may speak freely if questioned. The embargo is only considered broken if they actively incite media coverage. That's interesting.

"Anyone who posts to arxiv with a note “under embargo” is mis-informed. It is *not* under embargo any longer — it is legally published and in the public domain. Please inform me (astronomy editor, Nature) immediately if an author posts with a note “under embargo” and I will tell them that it most definitely is not under embargo.

Authors can post to arxiv at any time, at their convenience. I know our “Guide to Authors” is horribly written and confusing — sorry, but I’ve been unable to get it changed. Again, contact me for clarification."

-- Comment from Leslie Sage, Astronomy Editor at Nature (Left on a post on one of the blogs I've linked to above)

In essence, by posting their preprint to arXiv, the authors have actually broken their own embargo. This tends to make me agree with Uncertain Principles. Is it really sensible for scientists to race to arXiv to be the first to post their preprint? It seems a little silly really. Effectively, a preprint is publishing it to the world, after all. Disconcertingly, so is a blog when you actually think about it.

So in other words, I am, in fact, allowed to talk about it. I would be breaking no rules by doing so, even inspite of what the rest of the science blogosphere seems to believe. But now I don't want to. It's not even my sub-field, and I'd rather not accidentally break any embargoes despite the fact that, apparently, I wouldn't be doing so. Would I...?

I'm so confused...