A suspected sighting of dark matter initially attracted much excitement. Alas, the claim is not strong; the results came from an experiment where detectors half a mile underground look for faint telltale signs of dark matter particles. Newly analysed data contained two events with the predicted features. But there’s a one in four chance that they were caused by ordinary particles like neutrons or gamma rays. The search continues.
As false advertising goes, the “super-Earth” planets are on a par with the naming of Greenland. One might expect a super-Earth covered with water to be a nice place to live. But they only have a mass—not an environment—similar to Earth’s. Take the planet GJ 1214b: six times heavier than Earth with a very deep, hot (at least 120C) pole-to-pole ocean. Life may not be impossible there, but it would be rather different from ours—most proteins turn to scrambled egg at that temperature. Expect more strange worlds to appear soon, however. Nasa’s Kepler satellite has begun to bring in its first harvest: five new planets were announced in early January.
One of Britain’s top female scientists plans to accuse one of its oldest scientific institutions of sexual discrimination. It seems that her ambitious £22m revamp of the Royal Institution cost former director Susan Greenfield her job: she was made redundant in January. Greenfield consistently ruffled feathers during her ten-year tenure; yet while her vision of a swish “scientific salon,” complete with restaurant and bar, collided with the RI’s tradition of sober science, there’s no denying the freshness of the new building, where at last one can get a drink after events. But will a £3m funding shortfall force the RI to call last orders?
As false advertising goes, the “super-Earth” planets are on a par with the naming of Greenland. One might expect a super-Earth covered with water to be a nice place to live. But they only have a mass—not an environment—similar to Earth’s. Take the planet GJ 1214b: six times heavier than Earth with a very deep, hot (at least 120C) pole-to-pole ocean. Life may not be impossible there, but it would be rather different from ours—most proteins turn to scrambled egg at that temperature. Expect more strange worlds to appear soon, however. Nasa’s Kepler satellite has begun to bring in its first harvest: five new planets were announced in early January.
One of Britain’s top female scientists plans to accuse one of its oldest scientific institutions of sexual discrimination. It seems that her ambitious £22m revamp of the Royal Institution cost former director Susan Greenfield her job: she was made redundant in January. Greenfield consistently ruffled feathers during her ten-year tenure; yet while her vision of a swish “scientific salon,” complete with restaurant and bar, collided with the RI’s tradition of sober science, there’s no denying the freshness of the new building, where at last one can get a drink after events. But will a £3m funding shortfall force the RI to call last orders?
