Pierre-Sofiane Kadri Pierre-Sofiane Kadri

MyScienceWeek : "You look charming, Rosetta"

The Friday confessional of MyScienceWork’s news team: August 4 - 8, 2014

Last post before our week-long summer break : it's incredible how so much can happen in one week. Working at MyScienceWork truly provides you with a daily dose of a nearly erotical exaltation, actually effective even on the worst cynics out there. Love is in the air, smell the sweet wind of peace that softly blows on our hearts. Rosetta, how beautiful you look tonight, go and meet your sweet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, draped in her ethereal magnetic field, invisible to the naked eye. Let us meet in London, where the fabled wikipedians gather every year, continuously telling of their love for sharing and knowledge. Let us dance until dawn, and, under the gaze of passers-by, let us embrace the quantic magic of spintronics.

Last post before our week-long summer break : it's incredible how so much can happen in one week. Working at MyScienceWork truly provides you with a daily dose of a nearly erotical exaltation, actually effective even on the worst cynics out there. Love is in the air, smell the sweet wind of peace that softly blows on our hearts. Rosetta, how beautiful you look tonight, go and meet your sweet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, draped in her ethereal magnetic field, invisible to the naked eye. Let us meet in London, where the fabled wikipedians gather every year, continuously telling of their love for sharing and knowledge. Let us dance until dawn, and, under the gaze of passers-by, let us embrace the quantic magic of spintronics.


Rosetta looks pretty tonight

 

Rosetta

Afer ten years of deep sleep, Rosetta the space probe finally woke up from her slumber. Back in April, we were wondering if she had got up on the right foot :

Is Rosetta ready to reveal the comet’s secrets?

That was confirmed by CNES (French space agency) : « Rosetta is well on her way to meet the comet » (article in French)

Rosetta : en bon chemin pour son rendez-vous avec la comète

On August 6th, big Rosetta (yes, 6,400 lb is big) eventually reached her target after a 6 months manœuvre (we know, cosmic hangover) : comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The next step will be dropping a robotic-spacelab-lander on the comet. Rosetta listens to her heart, but not only, since it's the comet's that shes wants to probe. Rosetta risks all. After this bold but successful approach, the French president's office couldn't help a sudden heat of passion before such technical bravery : « This achievement is a testimonial to Man's ability to keep pushing back the boundaries of knowledge, for a better understanding of the universe. »

 

Wikimania

The annual conference for Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects is happening now and until sunday in London (UK's capital city). A swarm of wikiphiles are there to listen to talks and take part in workshops. The turmoil in this major wikism gathering is observable from Twitter with #wikimania2014.


Wikimania is all about knowledgeable people talking about various subjects like democratic media and open access, introducing speakers such as Elizabeth Marincola, CEO of PLoS (Public Library of Science) or Jack Andraka, the teenage kid who invented a cheap method to detect pancreatic cancer at age 15, back in 2012 (thanks to open access articles).

We figured this was a good time for an English translation of Laurence Bianchini's article about Wikipedia and the open source movement :


 

Spintronics

Attention, this is some serious August teaser : now is the time to finalize our report on spintronics that was filmed at ENS Cachan in Paris, where we met a bunch of researchers to talk about this article, that was published in Science last June.


So there you go, here's a screenshot that will tell you nothing about what you'll be able to see in this video. It's supposed to be mysterious, so you'll want to get your hands on this as soon as the Kraken is released (« But what exactly is this wonderous picture about ? Will I get an insight of this incredible microscope that the whole bar has been talking about ? »)


A shocking image from our report on Spintronics, coming soon at MyScienceWork

 

Serotonin

We now know more about the serotonin receptors in the brain than we did before, and Abby explains it all to you in this article :

Score One for Crystallography: Structure of a Mammalian Serotonin Receptor Revealed


 

Adopt a pot

Last but not least, this is a call for charity : Abby used to own this pot, but now Abby needs to depart from it. Left on the sidewalk, abandoned, with its sullen face and sad ears, it couldn't win the love of our coworkers. Abby must now swiftly drop this loyal tool at the nearest charity, but not without a heavy heart. So if this pot ever appealed to you in any way, you'll now where to find it.

 

All right, that's enough for one week, mostly spent on eating vegan burgers thanks to Audrey (not bad actually, not bad at all), and that's also enough for the week after : we're leaving for a few days of vacation. However, this does not mean that the sweet madness is coming to an end, it's simply going to happen elsewhere. Far away. Somewhere sunny maybe. YAAAAAAAAAH !