I am presently into the second week of my lessons of Subnuclear Physics for the 2nd year of specialization in Physics, and I have just finished a lesson discussing the current searches for the Higgs boson at the Tevatron collider. Since the course has a focus on experimental techniques, I found it useful today to give as an exercise the determination of an order-of-magnitude estimate of cross section limits that the CDF experiments can set on a 160 GeV Higgs boson, with the data so far analyzed. It is an exercise I worked out by heart during my walk to the Physics Department: this should tell you it is not of overpowering difficulty.

Hormones called androgens are considered important in the development of masculine characteristics like aggression and strength and some believe that prenatal androgens affect finger length during development in the womb.

High levels of androgens, such as testosterone, increase the length of the fourth finger in comparison to the second finger. Some archaeologists and anthropologists are using finger ratios as an indicator of the levels of exposure to the hormone and recently compared this data with social behavior in primate groups. 

While more than half the academic life science researchers responding to a 2007 survey indicated having some relationship with private industry, the prevalence of such relationships – particularly direct funding for research studies – appears to be dropping.

The Results of a survey, appearing in the November/December 2009 issue of Health Affairs,
also suggest that interest in commercial applications of research appears to be growing, even among investigators without industry funding. The new study is a follow-up to 1985 and 1995 surveys by members of the same team.

Capitalism isn't perfect.  Because business, like science, is about excellence and not fairness some people are going to make more money than other people.  Some are going to be better at marketing and some are even going to cheat.

A professor in chemical engineering with no private sector experience has figured out how to redo capitalism so it works great - in a numerical model.

The details of your personal life, such as grocery purchases, pizza topping preferences and Amazon wish lists, are collected every day ― by both websites and traditional retailers. Though
this data seems fairly innocuous, when it's put together it can tell whoever is gathering it a
whole lot about your health, finances and behavior; and that means it can easily be used against you.

Dr. Michael Birnhack of Tel Aviv University's Faculty of Law and Prof. Niva Elkin-Koren from the University of Haifa recently completed a comprehensive study on information privacy laws in Israel and found compelling reasons for lawmakers everywhere to take notice.

Scientists used a pair of gravity-measuring satellites, GRACE, to look at Amazon river basin water levels and, hopefully, better predict future water storage and runoff.  The twin GRACE satellites measure the mass distribution of the Earth between the two satellites, and accumulating these measurements over time lets us know how the Earth's mass shifts around.  A team led by Shin-Chan Han compared this data with simulations to look at, basically, how water is stored, released, and sloshes about within the Amazon river basin.  They compared the data with simulations.

Why is the Fourier Transform so useful both in theoretical and applied science and engineering?  In short, often it is more convenient to solve a problem in Fourier space than the space of the problem's original formulation.  In this case, one prescription to attack the problem is to convert the representation of the problem to Fourier space, solve the problem in Fourier space (where presumably it is simpler to solve) and then convert back to the original basis. The Fourier Transform may be expressed as:

With the publication of a paper in the upcoming issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, science has finally confirmed what most people have long thought. According to the study, physical appearance says a lot when seeing someone for the first time. What most people likely don't know, however, is that first impressions based solely on appearance are actually fairly accurate.

With the help of inebriated fruit flies, scientists have discovered an entire network of genes the tiny creatures share with humans that help explain why some people tolerate alcohol better than others and may one day lead to a cure for alcoholism. Their findings also yield more information about the negative side effects of excessive drinking, like liver damage. The study appears in the October issue of the Genetics.

Patients with early stage, non-small cell lung cancer who are not able to undergo surgery, now have a highly effective treatment option. Physicians say that option, radical stereotactic radiosurgery performed with CyberKnife, leads to a 100 percent overall survival after three
years in patients with good lung function before treatment. These results were presented today at the annual CHEST meeting in San Diego.

For patients with small tumors characterized as early-stage disease, surgical removal of the affected lobe (lobectomy) is the standard of care. However, surgery is sometimes not an option because of other pre-existing medical conditions such as emphysema or heart disease.