Representatives of ICAM branches from sixty-odd countries converged on the University of California at Davis January 10-13, 2010, to attend the 11th annual ICAM conference. They listened to lectures, took part in discussions—both formal and informal—browsed a poster session presented by Junior Fellows and recipients of exchange awards, met with committees, and enjoyed the mild weather and good food laid on in their honor. The gathering took place at the Buehler Alumni Center on the UC-Davis campus. Webcasts of most events are available at the password-protected ICAM site http://www.icam-i2cam.org/?page_id=570. Read more »
West Lake Pagodas.
Hangzhou, China has been selected as the site for the next ICAM annual conference. Hangzhou is a city of about six million people, 112 miles south of Shanghai, at the southern edge of the Yangtze River Delta. It is the home of Zhejiang University, one of China’s oldest and most prestigious universities, which recently became an ICAM branch. The meeting is planned for April 7-10, 2011, with Professor Hong Ding, Institute of Physics, serving as Chair of the national organizing committee. Read more »
On December 8 through 10, 2009, a remarkable workshop was held at the Institute for Advanced Study at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). This workshop’s mission was, first, to examine the foundations and consequences of evolution, with a critical eye towards what is wrong, right and incomplete with the theory of evolution 150 years after the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species, and second, to explore the impact of evolution on the propagation of disease, in particular cancer and the adaptation of bacteria. Read more »
ICAM is pleased to welcome the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS), which is the international research center of the Albert- Ludwigs-University of Freiburg. Established in 2007, this Institute comprises four Schools—History, Language and Literature, Life Sciences, and Soft Matter Research—of which the last is the School that will interface most directly with ICAM’s programs. Read more »
The ICAM Fellows Selection Committee, chaired by Khandker Quader in the absence of Ka Yee Lee, met during the ICAM annual meeting and awarded six new fellowships: one Senior Fellowship, one individual Junior Felowship (Track I), and four institutional Junior Fellowships (Track II). These awards are intended to encourage research collaboration across discipines and institutions and are funded by ICAM branch member institutional supporting costs. Read more »
Dr. Sairam Swaroop Mallajosyula, a recent Ph.D. of JNCASR in Bangalore, has been awarded the Best Thesis Medal in Physical Sciences for the year 2008-2009 by JNCASR, for his thesis entitled “Theoretical Investigations of Electronic Structure and Charge Transfer Properties of DNA and Modified DNA.” An integral part of the thesis was work carried out on an ICAM Junior Exchange with Daniel Cox and Rajiv Singh at UC-Davis. They used a combination of molecular dynamics simulations and density-functional theory to study electron transport in DNA. Read more »
To a physicist the initials APS signify the American Physical Society. There is, however, an older APS, founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1743, which counts among its members Thomas Jefferson, John James Audubon, and John Bardeen. The American Philosophical Society is an honorary society that recognizes extraordinary accomplishment in the sciences, the humanities, and the arts, as well as leadership in public affairs. It elects new members to its ranks each April by nominations from the membership and provides a venue—at Philosophical Hall in Philadelphia—for the best minds of the day to meet and interact. Although most of those elected are U.S. citizens, about sixteen percent are from other countries. Early international members included Charles Darwin, Louis Pasteur, and Marie Curie. Read more »
Tomi Pierce, a long-time ICAM adviser on science education and outreach and a member of ICAM’s Board of Governors, succumbed to ALS on February 1, 2010. A legend in the software industry and among her myriad friends, she brought to ICAM twenty-plus years of experience in writing software and scenarios for video games with Sensei Software and Broderbund Software, and advising Applied Minds and Metaweb. For a detailed account of her life and accomplishments, see the obit prepared by her family on the blog by her long-time collaborator and close friend, Jordan Mechner, at http://jordanmechner.com/blog/2010/02/tp/. Read more »
Attendees at the 2009 ICAM annual conference in Cambridge, UK, will remember the talk of David MacKay, “Sustainable Energy—without the Hot Air,” based on his book of the same name, which had just appeared. He surveyed the alternatives for governments and individuals who seek to reduce their carbon footprints, combining an array of data, cartoons, and a few misleading advertisements with a witty and incisive style relying on “numbers, not adjectives.” Read more »
Many of the articles in this newsletter were written for the January 2010 or April 2010 issues, but their posting was delayed until June by work on a new website for ICAM and I2CAM. In the interim, additional news came in, which we added to the lineup. Our apologies to those who had to wait longer than foreseen to see themselves in print.
Karie Friedman, Editor, ICAMNews
David Pines and Daniel Cox, Co-Directors, ICAM-I2CAM
