The funding woes of physics and astronomy in the UK, in particular those fields covered by the Science and Technologies Facilities Council, still appear to be unresolved, at least in the eyes of UK physicists themselves.
Read Pallab Ghosh's article "Future of physics 'under threat'" at the BBC (the article was published online on 11/03/08).
Now that the election is out of the way, lets get back to astrophysics. Here is another set of recent papers and preprints that I consider interesting, arranged into rough categories.
"An historic night" as Steven Colbert said repeatedly said last night. Barack Obama won the Presidency of the USA in something very close to a landslide, winning states that have not gone Democratic since the party realignment of the 1960's.
Although to me it felt less like history and more like the entire future realigning itself into something more hopeful.
The last time I felt that everything had suddenly changed was the dark day of September 11th, 2001.
Before that the more hopeful, if now tarnished, night of May 2nd, 1997, when the Labour Party swept to power in the UK after 18 years of Conservative mis-rule.
McCain's concession speech was remarkably gracious and non-partisan, especially considering the remarkably ungracious, bigoted and partisan campaign he ran. Unfortunately the small (and almost uniformly white) crowd of McCain supporters who heard him were less gracious, booing mentions of Obama's name.
Obama's victory speech was also impressive, and surprisingly cerebral. I caught some of the Lincoln riffs and the obvious MLK Jr references, but I'm sure I missed some clever stuff. And as usual, it presented a remarkably calm and considered point of view.
Of the two candidates there is no doubt that it is Obama who genuinely wishes to heal the partisan and ideological rifts than wound this country. The difference in the diversity and behavior of the pro-Obama crowd at Grant Park only served to emphasize the essential rightness of the Obama election.
I often doubt that any politician can truly be the transformative figure that many believe Obama to be - is he not just yet another centrist Democrat (obviously better for the US than any Republican, but still far from perfect)? But the more I see and hear him speak the more I begin to think that there is something really different about him from other centrist Democrats. That he does actually believe in change, that people can make a positive difference. I can't imagine Hilliary, or Kerry, or even Gore giving the speech Obama gave last night, or giving me reason to hope that the future will be a better place.
We drove by the school hosting the poll in out area at 7:40am, 40 minutes after the poll had opened, to see a line stretching outside the school entrance and all the way along the side of the building. Parking lot full, neighboring streets full of parked cars. Without the time to spend an hour or two in line before work it appears like we'll have to come back after work.
Rain is predicted here all afternoon and up to poll closing time at 8pm.
The highways were surprising free of cars, no stop and go traffic, haven't driven to work this quickly in months. A lot of people must have changed their schedules, or be stuck in lines at the polling booths.
Maryland is very much a blue state, so that Obama (or pretty much any Democrat) winning this state is inevitable. Yet it appears that voter turnout here will be historic.
[Update @ 6pm: Got out of work early, drove the polling place through heavy and intermittent showers arriving there at ~5pm. Essentially no queue, in and out within 10 minutes. Now the wait begins...]
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here. Full version in this http URL False color pictures of the galaxies can be found in this http URL