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Hiding Higgs, Fracking Up The Water, Science 8-Ball, PTSD Shot, Spider Science, Chest Waxers Beware, Ant Warfare, Sheep Politics, Tetrapod Trickiness, A Mini Stirling, And Much More…
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Look! at the world we live in
Consider the history of human advancement across the ages,
Tremendous progress over thousands of years, against great odds and overwhelming opposition
Progress which pales in comparison to the drastic changes over the last hundred years, over the last ten years, or
sometimes the great changes can even take place between episodes of this show….
Ask yourself,
In a world like this, with people like us, is anything impossible?
Nothing can be unachievable by a people who have achieved such greatness over and over again.
Yes there are politics, yes there is a recession, yes mans inhumanity to man continues…
Times are tough, but they’ve been tougher.
The road ahead looks rough, but it’s looked rougher
And with our look back in time,
We can see what mysterious force of in history unlocked in the modern age
that put such distance between the promise of the present and the struggles of the past…
We can see it then and watch it now,
as it continues to shape the future civilization here on…
This week in science… coming up next
Still no Higgs…
New research tool to accelerate correlative data studies
A PTSD shot???
Get a free audiobook at Audible.com!
Democracy for the Sheeple, by the Sheeple
Protect against bedbugs… grow hair!
Chemical warfare in Antville!
Tracks of tetrapods
Shrinking the Stirling engine
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I'm the host of this little science show. 
TWIS should be renamed TWIMUO, or “this weak in my uninformed opinion”.
I stopped listening after Kirsten badmouthed CERN for the Higgs Search Status seminar.
Kirsten, did you even read the press release?
http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2011/PR25.11E.html
It was submitted to the media AFTER the full science seminar.
Comparing this seminar to the NASA/Arsenic debacle is unfair and offensive.
If you’ll recall, NASA put out a misleading press release BEFORE the seminar!
Did you watch the December 2011 Higgs Update seminar?
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1406786
Both Fabiola Gianotti (ATLAS) and Guido Tornelli (CMS) were great!
They exaggerated nothing, and presented the science without a trace of bias.
I ask that you apologize, on air, for this insensitive and ignorant insult.
Gendou, I’m sorry you stopped listening because you obviously didn’t hear our entire discussion. Yes, I read the press release. It warned the press not to expect anything earth-shattering. Quoting from it (bold is my emphasis): “Tantalising hints have been seen by both experiments in this mass region, but these are not yet strong enough to claim a discovery. ” In fact, the press release was actually released prior to the presentation as most press releases are… to give the press time to prepare for an event. I’m guessing that they updated the release after the fact rather than have two almost identical versions floating around.
I also read a lot of other related material to inform myself and reach my opinion, which, to make it succinct, was that this whole thing wasn’t newsworthy. The press releases, the presentations… much ado about a little bit of progress. I don’t think I was insensitive. I called it like I saw it: a physics dog and pony show. That doesn’t mean that the scientists didn’t present well. They did. It just means the content wasn’t worth all the hubbub.
Content wasn’t on display.
The results of tireless work by hundreds of physicists was.
The dog and pony show is all in your head.
After a year of LHC collisions, a summary of the status of the project (namely, to find the Higgs Boson) is expected.
I understand what hubbub you’re objecting to.
It’s bad news articles (mainly the headlines!) in the media.
This is [b]not[/b] CERN’s fault, contrary to your on-air remarks.
[CERN/Higgs Status] is the same thing as [NASA/Arsenic Bacteria], but even worse, because they don’t have anything yet.
While I understand how you’ve arrived at this view point, it is false.
POINT 1: Have Something?
Does CERN Have something? Yes.
They have something momentous and exciting: a years worth of physics!
This fabulous work by hundreds of scientists is worthy of our applause.
It is also worth a moment of air time to share the results.
But, they didn’t discover the Higgs Boson, right?
Well, in science, a null result is JUST AS IMPORTANT as a positive result!
POINT 2: Miscommunication.
The news media was invited to a NASA “exobiology event” that was not properly described.
The topic and contents of the lecture were not disclosed before hand.
This appears to have been a dishonest ploy to spice up the audience.
CERN did not do this.
POINT 3. Prematurity.
Wolf-Simon’s research was in the preliminary stage:
– The experiment was not reproduced by an independent party/lab.
This is no problem for the LHC, which has two labs, run by independent groups: ATLAS and CMS.
– The results were not put up for peer review prior to the press conference.
Compare this to CERN, a fountainhead of peer reviewed papers.
Every day I scroll through the long list of new, high energy physics papers pregnant with LHC data.
POINT 4. The word “Discovery”.
Incorrect use: We report the discovery of an unusual microbe [that] can vary the elemental composition of its basic biomolecules
Correct use: these are not yet strong enough to claim a discovery.
How is using a word correctly “even worse” than using it incorrectly?
the press release was actually released prior to the presentation as most press releases are
No. The document released prior to the presentation is called a “media invitation”:
(December 6th) http://www.interactions.org/cms/?pid=1031281
The document I referred to, and assumed you were referring to on-air is a “press release”:
(December 13th) http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2011/PR25.11E.html
This argument over the publication dates of documents is silly!
CERN public relations can’t get away with, and has no reason to be dishonest or flamboyant.
… this whole thing wasn’t newsworthy.
If you define newsworthy as interesting enough to the general public to warrant reporting, then you may be right.
The first-year run of the LHC may be entirely uninteresting to the general public…
But, isn’t the whole purpose of TWIS to MAKE SCIENCE FUN AND INTERESTING?
Isn’t TWIS supposed to be the one place I go to find the knowledge I seek?
I want to know, what’s happening, I WANT TO HEAR ABOUT THE LHC!!!!
How can you sweep this opportunity to celebrate of the cutting edge of particle physics under the rug?!
Talk about CMS and ATLAS, what they look for, how they work, how they are different.
Talk about how high the energy levels are, why that matters for looking for heavier particles.
Talk about why they turned the LHC off for the winter, when it will be coming back online.
Talk about how they look for the Higgs, the unique signature events studied by CMS and ATLAS.
Talk about something, anything, but don’t pretend the whole year can be summed up as a dog and pony show.
You are poisoning your listeners with wrought pessimism and disdain for the scientific process!