LOVING THE COLLIDER

The discovery of the Higgs is more than a profound vindication of advanced mathematics and its application in theoretical physics. It is also a surprising engineering and political achievement. No single nation is prepared to invest in a project as technically difficult and high-risk as the Large Hadron Collider. The machine itself is 27 kilometres in circumference and is constructed from 9,300 superconducting electromagnets operating at -271.3°C. There is no known place in the universe that cold outside laboratories on earth; in the 13.75 billion years since the Big Bang occurred, the universe is still roughly 1° warmer than the LHC. This makes it by far the largest refrigerator in the world; it contains almost 120 tonnes of liquid helium. Buried inside the magnets are two beam pipes, which, at ultra-high vacuum, contain circulating beams of protons travelling at 99.9999991 per cent the speed of light, circumnavigating the ring 11,245 times every second. Up to 600 million protons are brought into collision every second, and in each of these tiny explosions, the conditions that were present less than a billionth of a second after the Big Bang are re-created.

more from Brian Cox at The New Statesman here.

THE FUTURE OF MEDICINE IS NOW

From The Wall Street Journal:

Here are six of today's potentially transformative trends.

DNA SEQUENCING FOR ROUTINE CHECKUPS

At a genetics conference in November, Oxford Nanopore Technologies unveiled the first of a generation of tiny DNA sequencing devices that many predict will eventually be as ubiquitous as cellphones—it's already the size of one. Since the first sequencing of the human genome was completed in 2003 at a price tag of over $2 billion, the speed, price and accuracy of the technology have all improved. Illumina Inc. has dropped its price for individual readouts to $5,000; earlier this year, Life Technologies introduced a sequencer it says can map the human genome for $1,000. The smallest machine is now desktop-size. But nanopore sequencing devices, which are designed to be even smaller and more affordable, could speed efforts to make gene sequencing a routine part of a visit to the doctor's office. DNA molecules are exceedingly long and complicated; that makes them hard to read. Nanopore technology measures changes in the molecules' electrical current as the DNA is threaded in a single strand through tiny holes called "nanopores" created in a membrane.

LETTING YOUR BODY FIGHT CANCER

Few advances in cancer care are generating more enthusiasm than harnessing the power of the immune system to fight the disease. Tom Stutz is one reason why. Last April, the 72-year-old retired lawyer was confined to a wheelchair, struggling for every breath, and required help with simple tasks such as eating, all because of a previously diagnosed skin cancer that had spread to his lungs and liver. "I was ready to check out, to be honest," he says. That month, he began taking an experimental drug known as MK3475. Six weeks later, he started feeling better. Today, Mr. Stutz has jettisoned the wheelchair and regularly walks a 3.5-mile loop near his home in Los Angeles. "I feel terrific," says Mr. Stutz, who learned after a checkup in the fall that his tumors had shrunk by about 65% so far. For decades, cancer researchers have wondered why the immune system typically doesn't treat tumor cells as invaders and target them. Part of the mystery was recently solved: Tumors protect themselves by hijacking the body's natural brake for the immune system. MK3475, being developed by Merck & Co., is among a new category of drugs that release the brake, unleashing an army of immune cells to hunt down the cancer. A recent report from a trial in which Mr. Stutz participated said that of 85 patients who took the drug, 51% saw their tumors significantly shrink; in eight cases, the tumors couldn't be detected on imaging tests.

More here.

INVENTING ABSTRACTION

What possessed a generation of young European artists, and a few Americans, to suddenly suppress recognizable imagery in pictures and sculptures? Unthinkable at one moment, the strategy became practically compulsory in the next. Many of the artists had answers—or, at least, they cooked them up. The trailblazing Wassily Kandinsky and the bulletproof masters of abstraction, Piet Mondrian and Kazimir Malevich, doubled, tortuously, as theorists. They initiated what would become a common feature of determinedly innovative art culture to this day: the simpler the art, the more elaborate the rationale. That’s easily understood. We need stories. When they are banished within art, they re-form around and about it. But most interesting to me are the early abstract artists’ personal motives. The Swiss Taeuber-Arp and her husband, Hans Arp, from Alsace, were Dadaists in Zurich during the First World War. They seem to have been excited by the prospect of a passably pure, toughly modest aestheticism that jettisoned the traditions of a Europe gone mad with slaughter. Arp was making sprightly geometric and free-form collages and reliefs, often composed by games of chance—for example, shapes in colored paper dropped onto sheets of white paper and glued down more or less where they fell.

more from Peter Schjeldahl at The New Yorker here.

希格斯批评道金斯是科学原教旨主义者

英国理论物理学家希格斯(Peter Higgs)批评演化论生物学家道金斯（Richard Dawkins）是科学原教旨主义者。在CERN发现希格斯玻色子（又名上帝粒子）后，希格斯便成为诺贝尔奖热门候选人。他批评道金斯对待宗教信徒的方法是原教旨主义。

道金斯最近评论说，儿童在天主教家庭长大所受到的长期精神创伤比遭到神父虐待更糟糕。希格斯在接受采访时认为，道金斯对宗教信徒的攻击过多集中于原教旨主义，但大多数信徒并非是原教旨主义者，他认为道金斯本人就是另一类的“原教旨主义者”。阅读更多...

FT社评：2013年世界经济的亮点

放眼西方世界之外，发展中世界将带来最喜人的经济消息。中国未发生硬着陆，印尼将取代印度跻身金砖国家俱乐部，非洲增长速度几乎无人能及。

FT社评：2013年世界经济的亮点

纽约时报中文网2012年点击排行榜

纽约时报中文网编辑部 19:17

此份榜单根据纽约时报中文网上线半年来的实际访问量数据制成，分为全网站点击量排名和各版块排名。全网排名前五位的均为中国相关文章，多为有关薄熙来和王立军的报道.

纽约时报中文网2012年点击排行榜

阅读中的2012：纽约时报中文网年度书评精选

纽约时报中文网编辑部 20:10

这是今年与阅读有关的文章精选名单。我们不可避免受到年度热门事件影响，我们也关注中美关系，尤其关注与前独裁政权有关的历史著作和民主启蒙读物，我们也从未忘记文学.

阅读中的2012：纽约时报中文网年度书评精选