A very interesting article in the June issue of Atlantic Magazine is focusing on the Conficker worm – The Enemy Within

This article reads like Dan Brown’s novel…

You can also find more academic research about Conficker in our computer sciences databases, e.g. IEEE Xplore Digital Library or ACM Digital Library

As recent article in NYT discusses new findings in the FermiLab – http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/science/space/18cosmos.html?src=me&ref=general

The new effect hinges on the behavior of particularly strange particles called neutral B-mesons, which are famous for not being able to make up their minds. They oscillate back and forth trillions of times a second between their regular state and their antimatter state. As it happens, the mesons, created in the proton-antiproton collisions, seem to go from their antimatter state to their matter state more rapidly than they go the other way around, leading to an eventual preponderance of matter over antimatter of about 1 percent, when they decay to muons.

I could not find the relevant papers (that NYT referred to)  in arxiv.org but many of the relevant papers are in the Web of Science database

** photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/berkeleylab/

The newest crop of 2010 Earth and Ocean Science Undergraduate Honours Theses and Reports are now available online on cIRcle, the UBC Library’s Digital Repository.

Below is a list of 2010 submissions.

Waste Solutions for Metro Vancouver
Ho, Anthony; MacDonald, Jessica; Lam, Clement; Dean, Monika; Lai, Joseph; Lu, Nan; Sim, Nari (2010-05-07)

Effects of Triclosan on a Detrital-Based, Aquatic Food Web
Chan, Carita (2010-05-07)

Ecosystem Services of the British Columbia Coast: Modeling the Impacts of Agriculture on the Provision of Shellfish
Solomon, Cody; Thompson, Allison (2010-05-05)

Slope Stability Analysis of Fly Ash Containment Dyke
Brisbin, Aaron (2010-04-27)

Mechanical strength of Anhydrite and its Role in the Seismicity of the Duke River Fault, Yukon Territory
Sampaleanu, Christian (2010-04-22)

Delineation of Groundwater Capture Zone for the Grum Pit, Faro Mine Complex, Yukon Territory
Yungyoo, Thiyapa (2010-04-19)

The Classification and Analysis of 300 Cycling Crashes that Resulted in Visits to Hospital Emergency Departments in Toronto and Vancouver. Frendo, Theresa (2010-04-15)

Sensitivity Analysis of UBCDFLOW and Debris Flow Travel Distance in Mountainous Forested Terrain around the Kootenay, British Columbia Region. Kurylo, John Bohdan (2010-04-13)

Investigation of Liquid Limit of Kamloops Silt by Soft-base Casagrande Apparatus and British Drop-Cone Penetrometer.
Lu, Alan Zhong (2010-04-12)

Identifying Landscapes and their Formation Timescales: Comparing Knowledge and Confidence of Beginner and Advanced Geoscience Undergraduate Students. Jolley, Alison Rae (2010-04-07)

Stability and Seepage Analysis of the Bralorne Gold Mines Tailings Dam Following a Change in Usage from Tailings Dam to Water Reservoir Dam. Lefrancois, Anne-Marie (2010-04-01)

An Assessment of the Greywater and Composting Toilet Tea Leach Field Geochemistry at the C.K. Choi Building, University of British Columbia Vancouver Campus. Larson, Leila (2010-02-17)

Submitted by Kevin Lindstrom Liaison Librarian for Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of British Columbia.

The contest, introduced this year by Dean Tyseer Aboulnasr, challenged Engineering students to share their sense of pride in their UBC experience and reflect the fun they have here.

Here is the winning video, by Paul Milaire (3rd year MECH) –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szGMS6LIbkM

See all UBC engineering videos here – https://www.youtube.com/ubcengineering

UBC Computer Science Professor Uri Ascher was recently elected as SIAM Fellow. You can see many of his publications on his CS homepage.

Our congrats to Prof. Ascher!

Newsmaker Interview:
Imponderables Complicate Hunt For Intelligent Life Beyond Earth

Dr. Paul Davies a professor at Arizona State University, Tempe discusses his role in the search for intelligent life beyond Earth.

Read the full interview here.

Other articles published by Dr. Davies include Are ALIENS among Us? Davies, Paul, Scientific American, Dec2007, Vol. 297, Issue 6, p62-69.

Submitted by Kevin Lindstrom Liaison Librarian for Physics and Astronomy at the University of British Columbia

The American Mathematical Society, the American Statistical Association, the Mathematical Association of America, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics have announced that the theme for Mathematics Awareness Month, April 2010, is Mathematics and Sports.

http://www.mathaware.org/mam/2010/

There are some interesting articles related to math and sports made available here – http://www.mathaware.org/mam/2010/essays/

Moreover, try the math super-database – MathSciNet for further research on sports applications in mathematics…

** Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/celinesphotographer/

According to its press release, the LHC started smashing particles today. See also the story in NYT – http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/science/31collider.html?bl

I have a personal interest in geoengineering and I tend to read many publications that discuss these topics. Lat week Science had a short article about geoengineering that I found interesting:

The Latest on Geoengineering. Eli Kintisch (26 February 2010). Science 327 (5969), 1070-b. [DOI: 10.1126/science.327.5969.1070-b]

Moreover, here is a short list of books we have in UBC Library about environmental engineering

** photos by http://www.flickr.com/photos/courambel

This is a very interesting list showing the the top 20 institutions which attracted the highest total citations to their papers published in Thomson Reuters-indexed Engineering journals. These institutions are the top 20 out of a pool of 1,084 institutions comprising the top 1% ranked by total citation count in this field.

Must read – http://sciencewatch.com/inter/ins/10/10febTOP20ENG/

No Canadian institutions in the top twenty list…