Science mourns Peter Higgs
The Higgs boson and the Standard Model of Particles and Fields: 60 years after the discovery of the Nobel Prize in Edinburgh
Physicists at the University of Edinburgh say that the work of the god hippy is still of fundamental importance. “We’re still on an exciting journey to figure out whether some further predictions are true, namely whether the Higgs boson interacts with itself in the predicted way, and whether it might decay to other beyond the Standard Model particles,” she told the Science Media Centre.
“He disliked the limelight but was comfortable with friends and colleagues,” Frank Close, a physicist at the University of Oxford, UK, and author of the book Elusive: How Peter Higgs Solved the Mystery of Mass (2022), said in a statement to the UK Science Media Centre. “His boson took 48 years to appear, and when the Nobel was announced, he had disappeared to his favourite sea food bar in Leith.”
“A career highlight was helping Peter into a cab after the Collider exhibition launch @sciencemuseum in 2013 with a carrier bag of special-edition beer marking his recent Nobel,” posted Harry Cliff, a physicist at the University of Cambridge, UK.
It was 60 years ago when Higgs first suggested how an elementary particle of unusual properties could pervade the universe in the form of an invisible field, giving other elementary particles their masses. Several other physicists independently thought of this mechanism around the same time, including François Englert, now at the Free University of Brussels. The particle was a crucial component in the model of particles and fields, which became known as the standard model of particles and fields.
Making the Most Out of the Sun: Science mourns physicist Peter Higgs in the aftermath of the 2004 Solar Eclipse Observed by a Crowdsourced Solar Media Campaign
For those who were lucky enough to be in its path and for scientists who were watching it, the solar eclipse was very exciting. Thank you to everyone who’s shared their images with us!
Media engagement can open up unexpected opportunities for collaborations and skills development, says physical-activity researcher Ben Singh. Although scientists should court media attention responsibly — the ultimate goal is to inform the public — he suggests pitching published papers to relevant journalists and outlets, writing for websites such as The Conversation or using social media to connect with peers and the public. To avoid overly simplified coverage or misinterpretation of his work, he learnt to “articulate the actual objectives and limitations clearly up front during interviews, conferences and seminars”.
Artificial intelligence (AI) systems can help researchers to understand how genetic differences affect people’s responses to drugs. Yet most genetic and clinical data comes from the global north, which can put the health of Africans at risk, writes a group of drug-discovery researchers. They suggest that AI models trained on huge amounts of data can be fine-tuned with information specific to African populations — an approach called transfer learning. The group says that African scientists lead the way on these efforts.
Source: Daily briefing: science mourns physicist Peter Higgs
The Javan Tiger, Penguin, and Penguin: Congratulations to the Nobel Prize Winner, Kalih Raksasewu, and a Wildlife Conservation Group in Iran
The Javan tiger, also known as the panther, is thought to have gone extinct in the 1980s. Now it seems a strand of hair recovered by researcher Kalih Raksasewu from the location of the sighting 10 days later is a genetic match with a Javan tiger pelt held in a museum. “I wanted to emphasize that this wasn’t just about finding a strand of hair, but an encounter with the Javan tiger in which five people saw it,” says Kalih.
The Nobel Prize is considered to be the computer science equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. Wigderson helped to confirm that random choice-based programs are the same as deterministic ones when it comes to achieving objectives. “I was extremely happy, and I didn’t expect this at all,” Wigderson says. “I’m getting so much love and appreciation from my community that I don’t need prizes.”
In a surprise move, Iran has pardoned and released the last four members of a wildlife conservation group that were imprisoned since 2018. The four are part of a group of nine arrested and charged with espionage while carrying out research on Iran’s endangered Asiatic cheetah and Persian leopard. The group’s leader, sociologist Kavous Seyed-Emami, died in prison. The release is “very good news. The deputy head of Iran’s Department of Environment, who was arrested during the same operation, says nothing can bring back the years of life that have been lost.
