S.O.S. (Save Austrian Science)

Just in case you missed it: Austria is planning on pulling out of CERN after 50 years involvement. The claim is that they can use the money (about $21M) elsewhere in the EU.

Anyway, don't think that the Austrian scientific community is taking the news well. They are getting organized and already have a petition online. Please take a minute and sign it:

http://sos.teilchen.at/petition/

It came as a surprise when Federal Minister Hahn announced that he wanted to discontinue Austria's membership in CERN.

This "wrong historic decision" (quoting Prof. Dr. Herbert Pietschmann) must be stopped before Austria's reputation as a nation of high-tech and modern research suffers irreparable damage and our country excludes itself from future developments.

CERN - this is research in elementary particle physics and comology. CERN is a brilliant example of excellence by European cooperation. CERN is the vision of our young scientists.

By signing this petition I urge the Austrian parliament not to agree to this proposition of minister Hahn.

(And I hope no-one missed that ATLAS slide in the AP article!)

(Thanks, Heinz and Paul!)

Redesign

Not like I have time to fiddle around and redesign things just for the heck of it but, well, I fiddled around and made the design a little cleaner, and even cleaner still with some help from my wife.

So just in case people are reading this via an RSS reader, have a look at the new version and let me know what you think. But if you're from the Kazimir Malevich estate, I'm not home right now -- of course, if you leave your name and number, I'll be sure get back to you right away.

Tesla in Shoreham

Tesla's lab was located in Shoreham, New York (yes, that Shoreham - but a lovely place I used to live in when I first moved to BNL) in Long Island, just north of Brookhaven. The Times reports on the battle brewing over what to do with the site, which locals and Tesla enthusiasts want landmarked, and which Agfa, the current owner, just wants to jettison. Neat article, and a reminder of how big a presence Tesla was in his time, and how hard he fell.