10 Scientfic Evidence In Support Of Airborne Transmission of SAR-CoV-2 Virus

The ridiculous battle during the pandemic on wearing masks, social distancing, and other restrictions reveals the lack of understanding among many in the general public on how science works, on what is considered as valid scientific evidence, and how our knowledge progresses as more and more evidence and data accumulates. I continue to be amazed at the reasons why some people still resist wearing proper face masks. I can understand if they find it uncomfortable (who does?) and that it is inconvenient (who thinks otherwise?). However, if the reason given is that masks doesn't do anything or isn't effective in reducing the chances of the virus being spread, then I want evidence to back that up.

This is where the public lack the understanding of (i) the nature of valid, scientific evidence, versus simply something you read on Facebook, news websites, or even from talking heads on TV, (ii) where to find such evidence or what should you pay more serious attention to versus those other sources that I mentioned. Here, I want to contrast the type of information that is contained in a scientific paper versus what you find in news article or many public online websites.

(1) When you read something in the news on a typical mass media source, you are told the content, but very seldom are you given proper, exact citation. At best, the type of citation that would be mentioned would be something to the effect that this was published in such-and-such journal or book, etc. Worse still, often times the sources are not even cited, so many of these things are stated as if they are facts, and facts that many of us are unable to verify on our own, if we wish to.

In contrast, scientific publications require exact citation. If you say that this result is in agreement or support by recent discoveries, you must give bibliographical references to those sources, i.e. name of author/s, name of journal where it was published, what page/volume number, date it was published, etc. These details are crucial in someone else verifying the sources of the claim. This is what is often missing in many general public articles, and unfortunately, this is often the source of Fake News, because exact evidence and sources to back the claims are either bogus, unreported, or unrevealed, which prevented anyone from double-checking their validity.

(2) News report and online articles often ignore contradicting evidence. When someone claims that he/she got sick after receiving a vaccine shot, why doesn't he/she consider why a lot of other people didn't get sick? Of if receiving a vaccine shot makes one "magnetic", how come other people aren't? This can also be applied to a lot of "news" programs that reports on certain occurrences that was due to something, but ignore other instances where those occurrences do not happen.

In scientific papers, this is a no-no. In fact, as a referee for several physics journals, I often will check if the authors are ignoring contradicting experimental evidence, or other papers that may be in the opposite to what the authors observed or claiming. These contradictions MUST BE ADDRESSED, i.e. they are not swept under the carpet or just ignored. And they must be addressed in terms of scientific reason, not simply by claiming that the contradicting results were made by Democrats, Republicans, Muslims, Jews, liberals, conservatives, etc. Look at how many so-called discussions or reports attached labels as a means to dismiss something. Such flimsy tactics do not wash in scientific papers.

(3) General public articles and news lacks details and clarity. I read a news article last year where a family decided to go to Walt Disney World in Orlando, FL, and when they got home, they tested positive for COVID-19 and immediately blamed their presence at the theme park for being infected. The news article didn't mentioned any other details about their trip. It did not say if they took a plane, didn't not say how long they stayed, whether they only went to the Disney theme park or did they also went elsewhere, and if they drove there, did they stop anywhere along the way, etc. There was a huge amount of information here that was missing even for a casual reader to be able to clearly analyze the validity of what the family was claiming.

If this claim is to be analyzed scientifically, then an epidemiologist would need to do really detailed tracing of every activity that the family did. Casual and speculative connection between A and B are usually insufficient to draw up valid conclusions.

In a scientific publication, every detailed of a calculation, every detail of the experiment, and every detail of how the analysis was done, must be clearly revealed. Often times, the experimental setup and equipment may had already been published elsewhere, and those will be cited as a reference. Similarly with the calculation and analysis. These details allow for an independent investigator to not only double-check what was done, but also to duplicate the experiment if necessary to see if the results are reproducible, which is a pillar of all scientific experiments (and why the Fleishmann and Pons cold fusion claim failed).

(4) Scientific papers are permanently recorded. They are not like Twitter feed that can be deleted, or news article that may be difficult to find anymore, or Facebook postings that have disappeared. This allows for future citations by other papers, and allows for continuing evaluations, advancements, refinements, rebuttals, contradictions, etc. There is a clear paper trail of who said what and when, which means that it is hard to deny or lie about something, or claim that someone didn't say that or didn't do that.

The whole point in all of this is not to force you to read scientific papers. It is ridiculous to insist that because many of them are not easy to read and are written for other experts. Rather, it is to distinguish on the nature of the evidence, and that if something is backed by proper scientific sources, then the evidence has a greater degree of validity and support than something that someone just rattled off on a TV talk show or on some Facebook post. It is unfortunate that many people, especially politicians, give equal credence to someone testifying that their bodies became magnetized without bothering to invite an expert to debunk such silliness. It seems that whole topics in physics, biology, and physiology were ignored to give air to this craziness.

It is the inability to evaluate the validity of the so-called evidence is one of the fundamental reasons why we are in the state that we are in today.

"But ZapperZ, the topic is about the scientific evidence for airborne transmission of the COVID virus.  Where is it?", you asked.

Good question. I guess this is the long, circuital route to point you to this Lancet article that contains the evidence, and the references to the scientific papers, that support the claim. Compare the types of research that were done, the analysis that were performed, and how the conclusions were drawn, and compare that with the types of "evidence" presented in the popular media and TV news programs.

Have fun reading!

Zz.

Scanning Probe Microscopy

The Physical Review is marking the 35th Anniversary of Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) and 30 years of Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) with free access to notable papers from the Physical Review journals in these two experimental techniques.

So check them out!

Zz.

Did Physicists Failed To Explain Clearly To The Public About The LIGO Discovery?

OK, this came out of left-field, because I didn't read the Nature Physics editorial.

This is a Physics Today comment on an editorial that appeared in Nature Physics regarding the recent LIGO discovery of gravitational wave. In it, the Nature Physics editors seem to indicate that physicists have failed to clearly convey to the public what gravitational wave is and how the discovery was made.

In “a triumph of ingenuity and perseverance,” exulted the thumbnail summary atop a 1 March Nature Physics editorial, physicists “have finally detected gravitational waves.” The summary continued: “And now we need to explain them to the general public.” The editors charged that the public’s response was largely summed up in this Daily Mash satire headline: “Scientists completely fail to explain ‘gravitational waves.’” The editorial declared that physicists “should learn to explain the physics of these spectacular events to non-physicists.”

But that is where things get rather interesting and puzzling at the same time. You see, as the Physics Today comment indicated, there has been NO evidence that physicists have failed to clearly convey this discovery to the public. What Nature Physics editors have used as their "evidence", which is from the Daily Mash, is actually a satirical piece, very much like The Onion here in the US. The Physics Today comment brought up its own evidence on how this discovery has been covered and explained many different times and many different ways by a number of prominent physicists appearing in several media forms.

So, not only did Nature Physics editorial not able cite a single, valid evidence to back their claim, but there are clearly evidence to the contrary! For a "science" journal, this is a serious lapse, because the very basic method of having evidence to support one's claim is fundamental to having a valid idea or conclusion.

I'd like to hear Nature Physics response to this charge.

Zz.

Physical Review Letters Tightening Its Standards

If you have submitted a manuscript to Phys. Rev. Lett (PRL) lately, or have been asked to referee a paper for the journal, you would have noticed an additional emphasis on the nature of the material that PRL considers to be "publishable":

To be publishable in PRL a paper must do at least one of the following: Substantially advance a particular field; open a significant new area of research; solve a critical outstanding problem and therefore pave the way for notable progress in an existing field; be of singular appeal to all physicists.

While this guideline isn't new (I kinda assumed that this is the standard that PRL had been adhering to all along), it is rather interesting that this is now clearly and explicitly emphasized. And, I must add, enforced, because I think I am an unfortunate recipient of the enforcement of this policy when one of our submission was rejected by the PRL editors.

Now, of course I'm biased since I was a coauthor, but before this, the manuscript would have been strong enough to have made it to the referees. After all, the original theory was published in PRL, and an experimental paper that partially tried to show a proof-of-principal demonstration also made it into PRL. Our paper showed not only a demonstration of a very critical aspect of the theory, but also where it deviated from our measurement. So we thought it was important enough, and certainly, important enough to make  it to the PRL referees.

But nooooooo.....

The rejection from the editors basically said that the content was not up to standard or not suitable. I know they are busy and inundated with tons of these stuff, but these are the times where you wish they could be specific and tell you exactly what they mean and what they were referring to rather than just some standard response. But of course, all of us listed on the paper were surprised that it didn't even make it past the editors. Usually, unless your manuscript is badly written, is clearly out of whack, or it can be seen that it is of a rather obscure topic, it will make it to the referees. But with their new policy, and also trying to lighten the burden on the referees, the editors have become a more significant gatekeepers.

So essentially, PRL is slowly becoming Nature and Science. :)

Now, don't get me wrong. It is not a criticism. I'm all for raising the standards, and the submission rate to PRL is  huge. Keeping things they way they were is simply not sustainable and they will run out of referees who would be willing to perform the review. Still, I wish the editor would briefly provide a reason why, because I'm sure we could easily provide a counter argument; or maybe that is why no reason was provided.

In any case, rather than continuing on to purse this with PRL, we sent it to another publication.

Ironically, a couple of weeks after the PRL rejection, I was contacted by PRL to referee a paper! :)

Zz.

Record Number of Authors In Physics Paper - Follow Up

Remember just barely a couple of months ago, I mentioned about the brouhaha regarding the record number of authors in a combined CMS/ATLAS paper out of the LHC/CERN? In a Physics Today article, there's a bit more on this, especially on the possibly "light-hearted" nature of the Wall Street Journal article that first mentioned this.

As I've mentioned in the earlier entry, I don't quite know why this is such a freaking big deal. The experiments are getting to be more and more difficult, it requires a more complex instrument, and thus, require a lot more people. The fact that this paper actually combined the results from two HUGE collaboration should, as expected, results in a lengthy authors list. What is the big issue here?

Unfortunately, it gives the wrong impression to the rest of the public. The fact that areas such as condensed matter physics, which produces way, WAY more papers than high energy physics and usually tend to have a significantly small number of authors, somehow has been ignored (Phys. Rev. B, for example, which publishes papers in condensed matter/material  science, is produced TWICE a month, and each edition contains TWO volumes!). And yet, the exception here has been used as a rule for the entire field of physics! Where is the logic in that?

And for the record, I had published a paper in PRL, on an experimental work, no less, and the paper only had THREE authors. Count em'!

Zz.

A Co-Author That Never Existed?

I don't know what to make of this. One one hand, these are adults and, presumably, responsible physicists. Yet, on the other, this is the type of practical joke pulled by a juvenile.

Someone found a paper with a coauthor by the name of "Stronzo Bestiale", which, supposedly, in Italian means "Total Asshole". The author doesn't exist, the coauthor gave him/her/it an affiliation at Institute of Experimental Physics, University of Vienna. Of course, there's no one there by that name. The paper with all 3 authors, including this non-existent person, was published in the Journal of Statistical Physics back in 1987 (it took that long to discover this?).

One of the coauthors was contacted, and this is the story that was given:

At that time," he says, "we were very active in the development of a new computational technique, non-equilibrium molecular dynamics, connecting fractal geometry, irreversibility and the second law of thermodynamics. The idea was born during meetings at CECAM (Centre Européen de Calcul Atomique et Moléculaire) in Lausanne,Switzerland, and the Enrico Fermi summer school organized at Lake Como with Giovanni Ciccotti, professor of condensed matter physics at the University La Sapienza University in Rome. In these meetings, the theoretical picture of this technique was clear to me, so I wrote several papers on the subject along with some colleagues. But the reviewers of Physical Review Letters and the Journal of Statistical Physics refused to publish my texts: they contained too innovative ideas

"Meanwhile", Hoover continues, "while I was traveling on a flight to Paris, next to me were two Italian women who spoke among themselves, saying continually: "Che stronzo (what an asshole)!", "Stronzo bestiale (total asshole)". Those phrases had stuck in my mind. So, during a CECAM meeting, I asked Ciccotti what they meant. When he explained it to me, I thought that Stronzo Bestiale would have been the perfect co-author for a refused publication. So I decided to submit my papers again, simply by changing the title and adding the name of that author. And the research was published.

Let's start with the misleading title of this article. To claim that this non-existent author has "...
published research in some of the world's most esteemed physics journals,... " is a stretch by any imagination. I did a Google Scholar search on that name, and non appeared linking this person to any paper published in Nature, Science, PRL, Phys. Rev. journals, etc. And these are "some of the world's most esteemed physics journals" in anyone's book!

Secondly, I don't quite get the point in all of this. The refereeing process is focused on the content of the work, not who or what sent it in. In fact, we certainly don't want a referee to have any bias for or against an author, and so, should not pay attention on who wrote the manuscript. In fact, there is a movement to make the authors to be anonymous to the referees the same way the referees are anonymous to the authors. So inserting such a name into the authors list has no bearing, and should have no bearing on evaluating the work.

After this, I wouldn't be surprised if Journals still start to vet out the credentials of the authors submitting anything to them.

Zz.

The New Physical Review Journals Website - It Sucks!

Yeah, so from the title, you can already tell how I feel about it.

I look at the Physical Review Journals webpage quite often, at least a few times a week. After all, PRL is a journal that I scan pretty often, and I'm sure most physicists do as well. They changed the look and feel of the webpage several months ago, and right off the bat, there were a few annoying things.

First of all, one used to be able to see immediately the current list new papers appearing that week (for PRL, for example). Now, you need to click a few links to find it.

The page is heavily emphasized on "highlighted" papers, as if they are desperately trying to push to everyone how important these are. I don't mind reading them, but I'd like to see the entire listing of papers that week first and foremost. This somehow has been pushed back.

Lastly, and this is what is annoying the most, they seemed to not be optimized for tablet viewing, at least, not for me. I often read these journals on my iPad. I have iPad3, and I use the Safari browser that came with it. Had no problem with the old webpage, and other journals' webpages. But the new Phys. Rev. webpage is downright annoying! Part of the table of content "floats" with the page as one is scrolling down! I've uploaded a video of what I'm seeing so that you can see it for yourself.

I've e-mailed my complaints to the Feedback link. I had given it a few months in case this was a glitch or if they were still trying to sort out the kinks. But this seems to have persisted. I can't believe I'm the only one having this problem.

It is too bad. They had a nice, simple design before, and I could find things very quickly. Now, in trying to make it more sophisticated and more slick, they've ruined the usability for us who care more about getting the information than the bells and whistles.

Zz.

The Problem With Doing Science Via Public Media

OK, so it is not really doing science via public media, but we all should have learned our lessons already by now when new results are announced via press conference AHEAD of it being scrutinized by experts in the field. We could go back, way back, to the Fleshmann and Pons "cold fusion" debacle. But people young enough to not be aware of that still have no excuses, because the recent "fast than light" neutrinos measured by OPERA should also be a major lesson.

But I guess some people, especially the PR departments at major institutions, just never learn. The same embarrassing fate may befallen on the recent BICEP2 results. After much media publicity of the implications of the results, the media are now touting how it could be wrong, which is a claim that needs to also be verified.

I can certainly understand how "big discoveries" of this magnitude can being a spotlight to science, especially in physics. I definitely see the advantage of that. However, and this is especially true for something that is so dependent on many factors and many ways to analyze, we need to lean on the conservative side and let the process takes its course before touting the results. I am certain that if the BICEP2 result was simply submitted for publication, and then it appears in print, no one in the media would somehow recognize the profound implication of its results. So why not wait until sufficient scrutiny has been done before we approach the media and then tell them that, hey, we have published this paper and this is the big implication of the result?

This is where the news embargo that Science and Nature impose on submission inadvertently helps in this process. Unlike PRL and many journals that do not have such restrictions, Nature and Science forces the authors to "keep it down" while the manuscript undergoes its rounds of scrutiny and refereeing, no press releases, no public announcement, etc., until after it has been accepted. Then, even the PR people at these journals will try to trumpet the results as much as they can!

You do science via public media, you sometime die via the same public media.

Zz.

PhysicsWorld Special Edition On Physics Education

The March 2014 issue of Physics World focuses on physics education. It can be downloaded for free (with registration). The blurb on this says:

In the March 2014 issue of Physics World – a PDF copy of which you can download free of charge – we offer a snapshot of just some of the many innovative ideas that exist for learning and teaching physics. It’s not an exhaustive selection, but includes topics that we felt were interesting or novel.

 Zz.

Where To "Apply"?

Last last year, the American Physical Society (the publisher of Phys. Rev. family of journals) announced that they are soliciting submission for a newly-created journal under their wing. Called Physical Review Applied, the call for papers reads:

The editors are encouraging scientists to submit their theoretical or experimental work on materials science, surface and interface physics, device physics, condensed matter physics, optics and any intersection of physics and engineering. The journal will publish both short letters as well as longer journal articles.

Now, of course, those of us who are familiar with the various physics journals will wonder, is this new APS journal competing directly with the American Institute of Physics's family of Applied physics journals? The AIP already has a couple of established applied physics journals, namely Applied Physics Letters, and Journal of Applied Physics. From the description of Physical Review Applied, it looks like they are looking for the same type of papers as APL and JAP.

For those of us (including me) who do work in the applied fields, we certainly won't complain that another journal, especially from the well-established organization such as the APS, providing another avenue for us to consider for publication. We just have to figure out the level of standards that they will adhere to for publication in the new journals.

Zz.

Boycott Elsevier?

I just heard about the movement to Boycott Elsevier journals when reading Sean Carroll's blog.

Certainly the success and failure of a peer-reviewed journal depends very much on the participation of scientists, both in terms of submitting good work for publication, and for refereeing these submissions. So if this movement catches on, Elsevier would certainly be faced with quite a challenge.

In my current position, the only Elsevier journal that would be affected is the Nuclear Instrumentation and Method - A. In my "previous life" as a condensed matter physicist, I would say Physica B and Physica C, but not anymore.

So this "boycott" probably won't be affecting us that much since we can certainly bypass NIM-A for other journals.

But what about you? If you are a practicing scientist and you do send work to be published in an Elsevier journals, would you stop doing that? Would you also stop refereeing for an Elsevier journal?

Zz.

Physics World Invisibility Issue

If you can find it and see it, this month's issue of Physics World is dealing with the whole issue of "Invisibility" or "cloaking" that has been in the news during the recent years. Since the discovery of metamaterials and left-handed material, this phenomenon of cloaking has been a rather "sexy" news item and has frequently garnered a lot of publicity.

You can get a free download of this issue of Physics World (upon registration).

Zz.

Celebrating 100 Years of Superconductivity

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the discovery of superconductivity. The IoP has compiled all superconductivity-related articles published in Reports on Progress in Physics over the last 10 years, and has graciously made them available to read, FOR FREE, till the end of 2011.

Don't miss this opportunity.

Zz.

AIP Advances Journal

The American Institute of Physics (AIP) has announced the release of a new online open access journal called AIP Advances.

AIP is pleased to announce that its new journal, AIP Advances, has now published the initial articles of its debut issue. If you haven't heard about AIP Advances, it's a fast-track, community-based open access journal, focusing on applied research in the physical sciences, and represents a major innovation in physical science publishing.

So if you are not familiar with the applied side of physics, this is the journal you should read regularly and show other people who think that physics only deals with esoteric subjects that have no bearing on their lives.

Zz.

APS Journals Available To US High Schools For Free

The American Physical Society is making their journals available for free to US High Schools.

The American Physical Society (APS) announces a new public access initiative that will give high school students and teachers in the United States full use of all online APS journals, from the most recent articles back to the first issue in 1893, a collection including over 400,000 scientific research papers. APS will provide access to its journals, Physical Review Letters, Physical Review, and Reviews of Modern Physics, at no cost, as a contribution to public engagement with the ongoing development of scientific understanding.

The high school program is a natural follow on to last summer's offering to U.S. public libraries. "When we made our journals freely available to public libraries, we were happily surprised to receive requests for access from high schools as well," said APS Publisher Joseph Serene. "We are now delighted to share our journals and their archive with interested secondary school students and teachers."

While this is a nice gesture, I am not sure to what extent these journals are useful, either to the teachers or the students. I think journals such as Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research, which is already available as an open source, would be more useful to educators/teachers. The AIP could provide journals such as the American Journal of Physics for free, and that would also be useful. But PRL? PRA, PRB, etc.? I don't see how these are useful in general.

If you are a high school student or teachers and have needed to access these journals, I would love to hear what you are doing.

Zz.

CERN Courier Jan/Feb 2011

The Jan/Feb 2011 of CERN Courier is now available. You can always get to this from this Blog's roster of links.

Zz.

APS Announces PRX

The American Physical Society, publisher of the Physical Review journals, announced today of the creation of a new open access journal, Physical Review X.

As broad in scope as physics itself, PRX will publish original, high quality, scientifically sound research that advances physics and will be of value to the global multidisciplinary readership. PRX will provide validation through prompt and rigorous peer review, and an open access venue in accord with the strong reputation of the Physical Review family of publications.

Note that the APS already has two journals that are available online for free. These are the Physical Review Special Topics journal, which covers Accelerator and Beams, and the other on Education Research.

Zz.

AIP Providing All Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov Papers For Free

Here's an announcement from the AIP. And just let me add that both AIP and APS frequently do this, i.e. providing free access to their publications when something like this occurs. This is extremely commendable.

AIP: Applied Physics Letters & Journal of Applied PhysicsAIP journals congratulate Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov on their Nobel Prize. For their groundbreaking work on the two-dimensional material graphene, American Institute of Physics (AIP) has made all articlespublished by these authors freely available. The list below includes four articles from Applied Physics Letters on the properties of graphene,as well as a Feature Article from Physics Today and several articles on their other research.

Visit <http://journals.aip.org/Nobel2010.html?track=APLJAPNP10> to readmore about this year?s prize and for links to other resources from AIP,including the twenty most highly cited AIP journal articles <http://journals.aip.org/Nobel2010.html?track=APLJAPNP10#6> on grapheneto date.We would like to add our congratulations to the winners, and look forward to publishing more exciting work on this topic as the unique properties of graphene are investigated to their full potential.Discover every article that AIP has published from these Nobel Laureates.

Graphene related:

Direct determination of the crystallographic orientation of graphene edges by atomic resolution imagingS. Neubeck, Y. M. You, Z. H. Ni, P. Blake, Z. X. Shen, A. K. Geim, and K. S. NovoselovAppl. Phys. Lett. 97, 053110 (2010)<http://link.aip.org/link/?APPLAB/97/053110/1?track=APLJAPNP10>

Quantum resistance metrology in grapheneA. J. M. Giesbers, G. Rietveld, E. Houtzager, U. Zeitler, R. Yang, K. S. Novoselov, A. K. Geim, and J. C. MaanAppl. Phys. Lett. 93, 222109 (2008)<http://link.aip.org/link/?APPLAB/93/222109/1?track=APLJAPNP10>

Raman fingerprint of charged impurities in grapheneC. Casiraghi, S. Pisana, K. S. Novoselov, A. K. Geim, and A. C. FerrariAppl. Phys. Lett. 91, 233108 (2007)<http://link.aip.org/link/?APPLAB/91/233108/1?track=APLJAPNP10>

Making graphene visibleP. Blake, E. W. Hill, A. H. Castro Neto, K. S. Novoselov, D. Jiang, R. Yang, T. J. Booth, and A. K. GeimAppl. Phys. Lett. 91, 063124 (2007)<http://link.aip.org/link/?APPLAB/91/063124/1?track=APLJAPNP10>

Graphene: Exploring Carbon FlatlandAndrey K. Geim and Allan H. MacDonaldPhys. Today 60, 35 (2007)<http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.2774096?track=APLJAPNP10>

Other research:

Submicron sensors of local electric field with single-electron resolution at room temperatureI. I. Barbolina, K. S. Novoselov, S. V. Morozov, S. V. Dubonos, M. Missous, A. O. Volkov, D. A. Christian, I. V. Grigorieva, and A. K. GeimAppl. Phys. Lett. 88, 013901 (2006)<http://link.aip.org/link/?APPLAB/88/013901/1?track=APLJAPNP10>

Spin-polarized electron tunneling across magnetic dielectricI. V. Shvets, A. N. Grigorenko, K. S. Novoselov, and D. J. MappsAppl. Phys. Lett. 86, 212501 (2005)<http://link.aip.org/link/?APPLAB/86/212501/1?track=APLJAPNP10>

Submicron probes for Hall magnetometry over the extended temperature range from helium to room temperatureK. S. Novoselov, S. V. Morozov, S. V. Dubonos, M. Missous, A. O. Volkov, D. A. Christian, and A. K. GeimJ. Appl. Phys. 93, 10053 (2003)<http://link.aip.org/link/?JAPIAU/93/10053/1?track=APLJAPNP10>

Diamagnetic levitation: Flying frogs and floating magnets (invited)M. D. Simon and A. K. GeimJ. Appl. Phys. 87, 6200 (2000)<http://link.aip.org/link/?JAPIAU/87/6200/1?track=APLJAPNP10>

Tales of Bitter Magnetism: Frog Eggs, Blood Cells, Pigeon Feet, Metal Shreds and a Sore HeadJames M. Valles, Jr, James M. Denegre, Kimberly L. Mowry, David R. Kelland, and Andrey GeimPhys. Today 51, 11 (1998)<http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.882469?track=APLJAPNP10>

Everyone's MagnetismAndrey GeimPhys. Today 51, 36 (1998)<http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.882437?track=APLJAPNP10>

Ballistic Hall micromagnetometryA. K. Geim, S. V. Dubonos, J. G. S. Lok, I. V. Grigorieva, J. C. Maan, L. Theil Hansen, and P. E. LindelofAppl. Phys. Lett. 71, 2379 (1997)<http://link.aip.org/link/?APPLAB/71/2379/1?track=APLJAPNP10>

Zero-dimensional states in macroscopic resonant tunneling devicesSakai, P. C. Main, P. H. Beton, N. La Scala, Jr., A. K. Geim, L. Eaves,and M. HeniniAppl. Phys. Lett. 64, 2563 (1994)<http://link.aip.org/link/?APPLAB/64/2563/1?track=APLJAPNP10>

Optical suppression of ionized impurity scattering in vertical hot-electron transportA. K. Geim, S. J. Bending, P. Gueret, and H. P. MeierAppl. Phys. Lett. 61, 3157 (1992)<http://link.aip.org/link/?APPLAB/61/3157/1?track=APLJAPNP10>

Zz.

APS Journals Available For Free In US Public Libraries

Latest press release from the APS:

Ridge, New York: The American Physical Society (APS) announces a new public access initiative that will give readers and researchers in public libraries in the United States full use of all online APS journals, from the most recent articles back to the first issue in 1893, a collection including over 400,000 scientific research papers. APS will provide this access at no cost to participating public libraries, as a contribution to public engagement with the ongoing development of scientific understanding.

APS Publisher Joseph Serene observed that "public libraries have long played a central role in our country’s intellectual life, and we hope that through this initiative they will become an important avenue for the general public to reach our research journals, which until now have been available only through the subscriptions at research institutions that currently cover the significant costs of peer review and online publication.”

Librarians can obtain access by accepting a simple online site license and providing valid IP addresses of public-use computers in their libraries (http://librarians.aps.org/account/public_access_new). The license requires that public library users must be in the library when they read the APS journals or download articles. Initially the program will be offered to U.S. public libraries, but it may include additional countries in the future.

"The Public Library program is entirely consistent with the APS objective to advance and diffuse the knowledge of physics," said Gene Sprouse, APS Editor in Chief. "Our goal is to provide access to everyone who wants and needs our journals and this shift in policy represents the first of several steps the APS is taking towards that goal."

-Contact: Amy Halsted, Special Assistant to the Editor in Chief, halsted@aps.org, 631-591-4232

-About the APS: The American Physical Society is the world’s largest professional body of physicists, representing close to 48,000 physicists in academia and industry worldwide. It has offices in Ridge, NY; Washington, DC; and College Park, MD. For more information: www.aps.org.

This gives the public, if they so wish to take advantage of it, access to some of the most widely-read and prestigious journals in physics, such as the Physical Review Letters, the Physical Review family of journals, and valuable review articles in Review of Modern Physics.

As a member of the APS, I am proud that the APS is making these journals available to the public via the public libraries. They now have ample access to these journals. Now, the question is, what can they do with such access and such information?

Zz.

Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter - 2009 Highlights

The IoP's Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter has produced its highlight papers from 2009. And the good news is, you get to read all of the highlighted papers for free until end of 2010.

So don't miss it. There are some very good ones here.

Zz.