Issue 1, 2014
Issue 4, 2008
Nordita in April
The establishment of Nordita in Stockholm is now near-complete with almost full scientific staff and a vigorous programme of scientific activities already in place. To celebrate this, and to give our Nordic friends and colleagues an opportunity to view Nordita in its new environment, a one-day event is planned for Friday April 24, 2009 in Stockholm. Nordita staff members will give lectures on current scientific activities, followed by overview talks on the history and future role of a Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics.
All the presentations will be in the main auditorium at AlbaNova, the Oskar Klein lecture hall. The scientific talks start at 10:30. The overview talks will be between 14:15 and 15:45. There will also be a reception from 16:00 to 18:00, followed by a cruise and banquet in the Stockholm archipelago in the evening.
The Nordita Day is a celebration of Nordita and the Nordic physics community. The presentations and reception are open to all and we have some places available on the banquet cruise, which will be given out on a first come first serve basis. Please contact Laila Leidersten at Nordita if you are interested in attending.
Journalists from the Japanese science magazine Newton made the trip from their Tokyo and New York offices to Stockholm to interview Visiting Professor John Wettlaufer at Nordita on December 1 in connection with a feature article on the science of ice and snow. Newton has the largest circulation of all Japanese magazines. It is popular among young readers, some of whom will be considering a career in science. In addition to explaining how water ice is an ideal test material for studying the interplay of hydrodynamics and solidification, with the advantage that it is both transparent and birefringent, and discussing related nonlinear field equations, Professor Wettlaufer fielded questions about how ice in the universe and life in the universe are connected. Recent experiments on ice formation in space, carried out inside the Japanese module of the International Space Station (ISS), have piqued Japanese interest in these matters. The accompanying picture (courtesy of Y. Furukawa) is of a snowflake grown onboard the ISS in an experiment led by Professor Yoshinori Furukawa of Hokkaido University, who participated in the recent Nordita Program on Ice and Water in the Universe: From Astrobiology to Terrestrial Bodies.
This NordForsk seminar was hosted by NordForsk Director Liisa Hakamies-Blomqvist on 2 December 2008. It was noted that the Nordic success rate, particularly that of Denmark and Norway, was not as good as could be expected.
Presenting the overall results from the ERC?s first calls, Peter Maassen judged that, relative to size, number of researchers and research investments, Finland is performing best, Norway weakest.
Having been head of one of the Starting Grant panel for Applied life sciences, biotechnology and bioengineering, Professor Lars Walløe emphasised the importance of a well-written application. He also stressed that the proposal needs to include a general introduction which will be accessible to all the members of a given evaluation panel. The scientists who make up the panels in general have different areas of expertise. The issue of support by host institutions for potential applicants was emphasized.
Five ERC Starting Grant holders (Johan Elf, Taneli Kukkonen, Stefan Leutgeb, Erik Lindahl, and Tapio Lokki) and four Advcanced Grant holders (Axel Brandenburg, Kristen Hastrup, Howard Jacobs, and Villy Sundstrøm) gave their views and responded to questions about their experiences.
A detailed report on the NordForsk seminar is available on http://www.nordforsk.org/news.cfm?path=3&id=833.
Nordita announced several new appointments this year. Judging by the number of applicants there is considerable interest in these positions, with 50 applications received for the tenured professorship and 84 for the assistant professorship in high-energy theory. The review process for these positions is underway. Over 140 applications were received for Nordita Fellowships this year and we expect to appoint three new Fellows. In addition, two postdoctoral fellows and up to four PhD students will be recruited into the Astrophysical Dynamos project, supported by Axel Brandenburg's ERC Advanced Grant.
The environmental and health effects of nanomaterials are of global concern, both in view of assessing the impact of nanomaterials discharged into nature and for a safe and transparent development of nanotechnology, especially in relation to novel applications in biomedicine. At present, nanomaterials are already produced at an industrial scale and the number of consumer products featuring nanomaterials is increasing at a rapid pace. At the same time, detailed understanding of the potential biological and ecological effects of nanomaterials and the related legislation are clearly lagging behind. Some of the key questions related to these issues are the transport, uptake and transformation of nanomaterials in air, soil and natural waters, as well as within biological organisms.
The aim of this scientific program is to establish an international think-tank of researchers excelling in state-of-the-art theoretical methods - both computational and analytical - to assess these aforementioned issues. The research will be closely linked to experimental studies through established collaborations with internationally renowned investigators in the field.
The objective of this program is to promote synergy in this field through a forum for fruitful discussions and collaborations, matching theoretical and experimental groups. In this manner, we extend on-going and initiate new collaborations by establishing an international network of researchers in theoretical physics (both analytical and computational), coupling the theoretical work as closely as possible with experiments. The backgrounds of experimental partners range from physics to chemistry, biomedicine, cell biology, and computational and environmental sciences.
The next a Nordita program is on "Astroparticle Physics - A Pathfinder to New Physics" and will run from 30 March 2009 to 30 April 2009. The organizers, Tommy Ohlsson, Joakim Edsjö, Steen Hannestad, and Stefan Hofmann intend to keep the program fairly open regarding seminars, thus giving more time for actual research and discussing future research projects among the participants of the program. The aim is to have a couple of seminars each week during the running time of the program. In addition to the seminars, there will be a number of informal meetings to specifically discuss future progress in the various subtopics covered by the program and to have time to do actual work among the participants. The research topics to be covered at the program are: neutrino physics, dark matter, cosmology, supersymmetry, dark energy, inflation, extra dimensions, ultra-high energy cosmic rays, supernovae, leptogenesis.
The next meeting of the Nordita Board will be in Stockholm on February 5 - 6, 2009.
→ Link to electronic preprints: www.nordita.org/preprints
If you have information about meetings or other items that would be useful to include in Nordita News, please send it to Anne Jifält, Nordita, email: anne@kth.se.