Hello readers,
quick note: I’m experiencing issues with WordPress and I couldn’t publish new posts lately.It’s likely I’ll have to do a complete overhaul, so it may take a little while to get back on track.Stay tuned!
I stumbled upon the The State of the Science Address from Marcia McNutt, the President of the National Academy of Science, through the always very interesting AIP FYI weekly newsletter.
Here’s a tl;dr version:Concluding slide from from Marcia McNutt’s State of the Science Address (full talk)
Five years ago, I had a chance to meet Dr. McNutt at Berkeley Lab. She was seeking input from postdocs on how the envisioned science.
An old picture from 2019 with the President of the National Academy of Science Marcia McNutt and the Berkeley Lab postdocs (my besties Sinead, Valentine, Fadji, Maria and I)
I told her that I really enjoyed being a scientist in federal lab (i.e. not a professor on campus), but I bluntly put that in my opinion academia (on campuses) is increasingly becoming a ponzi scheme – the PI recruits postdocs who take care of grad student who supervise intern. I guess she doesn’t disagree.
All the conclusion slides:Opportunity slides from from Marcia McNutt’s State of the Science Address (full talk)
My partner is co-founder of a company named EcoTrove, whose goal is to replace your utility bills with a fixed-price, clean energy subscription up to 10% cheaper.
Last week I hosted Leo Violini, the founder of the Centro Internacional de Física in Bogotà (Columbia), and a proponent of the the Greater Caribbean Light Source
Big science in Latin America: accelerate particles and progress – Nature (March 2024)
Here is a video of his talk on the proposal for Greater Caribbean Light Source:
And a video of his second talk on science diplomacy:My last internal combustion engine died on me, and I bought a new car. That was the plan all along – I wanted to keep my convertible as long as possible for I really enjoyed driving with the roof down, and get an electric car as a replacement– but the engine failure came as a surprise.
In a sense, it came at just about the right time. I don’t have a garage, so I need to rely on the public charging infrastructure. I decided to buy a Ioniq 5, for its has an intriguing design, a very decent range (300 miles), and it has fast charging capabilities, an interesting feature when fast charger are starting to materialize all over California. The best thing is that I get 2 years of free charging – so I drive essentially for free.The various steps of making a new material (from Szymanski et al.)
Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future– Niels Bohr
Actibus immensis urbs fulget masiliensis“The city of Marseille shines through his great achievements”
The issue of Synchrotron Radiation News I had the honor to co-edit with my colleagues Lucia Alianelli from Diamond Light Source is out – hot off the press!
Table of Content – Synchrotron Radiation News 36-5 issue on New Developments in Beamline Design Tools (2024)Guest Editorial – Antoine Wojdyla and Lucia Alianelli
https://doi.org/10.1080/08940886.2023.2274751
A lot has been said on the death of Twitter, a medium I enjoyed.
But Twitter was always more than a news source, or a conduit for information. It was a place where a sense of goofiness and comfort allowed communities to form—Weird Twitter, Philosophy Twitter, BTS Twitter. Such communities allowed users to find the platform endearing, even as they called it the “hellsite.”
What We Lost When Twitter Became X – Sheon Han, The New Yorker
You can now follow me on Threads, at @anto_nymous.