A study that followed the evolution of Pluto’s atmosphere for fourteen years shows the seasonal nature of its tenuous envelope of gas produced by the periodical sublimation of nitrogen ices. The study predicts that this will now start to disappear as it condensates as frost. Continue reading
The building blocks for astronomically literate citizens
The first global document that proposes a definition for Astronomy Literacy, “Big Ideas in Astronomy: A Proposed Definition of Astronomy Literacy”, was published in open-access by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Continue reading
35th PubhD de Lisboa happening this April
It takes place this Wednesday, 10th of April, the 35th PubhD de Lisboa, another session of an initiative I launched in Lisbon in October 2015, following the format of PubhD Nottingham. This month, Manuel Valença, of ISTE-IUL will explain his … Continue reading
Destination Pluto: new horizons in engineering
Reply
Diversity is key in a team operating a mission as challenging as New Horizons, said Alice Bowman, the Mission Operations Manager of the first spacecraft to travel to Pluto. At her talk at the Institute of Technology of the University of Lisbon, on October 7th, Bowman told the story of an exciting journey to the far reaches of our solar system, but also described the difficulties of aiming at a planetary body that is unlike any of the other worlds explored so far. Continue reading
Computers are learning our language
Between September 19th and 21st, Lisbon welcomed researchers from all over the world who are pushing at the boundaries of how we can use computers to process text and speech. At the conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP 2015), the range of topics covered included automated translation, the use of computers to extract information from documents or sentiments from social media content, and the generation of text and speech in natural language. Continue reading
‘Blood-tests’ for mental illnesses
Brain scans may be used in biological tests of mental illnesses Computer vision is looking into the brain images of unquiet minds in search for an objective assessment of mental illnesses. Unlike other areas of medicine, psychiatry doesn’t yet have … Continue reading
Giving Application Developers Access to Telco Networks Will Create Business Opportunities
One-to-one communication is moving to the internet, and telecommunications and the web platform are converging. If telecom companies allow internet applications to be built on top of their infrastructure, they will open a wealth of opportunities, not only for developers, but for the whole telecom ecosystem. Continue reading
Back to the Present (on Mindfulness for students)
Taking some time to focus on ourselves allows us to reduce the levels of anxiety. And it’s something we can do anytime really. University students, especially in their first year, may experience some distress in their academic life. Living for the first time on their own or with other students, together with the workload of the course, can sometimes cause feelings of anxiety that interfere with their goals. Continue reading
Café Scientifique – Nanotechnology
‘Nano’ has become a fancy word to sell miniaturised devices, and some science-fiction filmmakers used it to name the ‘magical’ technology that moves the plot on. In the laboratory, working at the nanoscale means moving atoms around with useful effects on our scale, said Michael Fay, the invited speaker in this year’s first Nottingham Café Scientifique and a researcher at the Nottingham Nanotechnology and Nanoscience Centre. Continue reading
Cross-cultural issues in Mental Health: a conversation with a survivor at Making Waves.
Jeremy K.* , a survivor at Making Waves, advocates that mental health care professionals should be open to learn about the cultural background of their patients.
Jeremy is surprised at the lack of ethnic minority psychiatrists, nurses and other health care providers that have an important role in mental health care. When presenting his observations as a consultant to the Implementing Recovery through Organisational Change (ImROC) initiative, Jeremy received a honest reply from one psychiatrist. The clinician said he was treating mainly minority patients, but he didn’t know how an African-Caribbean person is like when he is not unwell. Continue reading