science mourns physicist Peter Higgs

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Professor Peter Higgs poses for a portrait at an Edinburgh University press conference in 2012.

Colleagues keep in mind Peter Higgs as an inspirational scientist, who remained humble regardless of his fame.Credit score: Graham Clark/Alamy

Theoretical physicist Peter Higgs, the namesake of the boson that was found in 2012, died on Monday, aged 94. Six a long time in the past, Higgs first urged how an elementary particle of bizarre properties may pervade the universe within the type of an invisible area, giving different elementary particles their lots. Half a century later, experiments confirmed the prediction and Higgs shared the Nobel prize for the invention. Notoriously self-deprecating, Higgs was uncomfortable with fame and shunned the highlight: he was inaccessible by e-mail or cell phone. “Peter was a really particular individual, an immensely inspiring determine for physicists world wide, a person of uncommon modesty, an amazing instructor and somebody who defined physics in a quite simple but profound manner,” says Fabiola Gianotti, director-general of CERN.

Nature | 4 min learn

On 4 July 2012, researchers at CERN’s Giant Hadron Collider declared success of their lengthy seek for the Higgs boson. The elusive particle’s discovery crammed within the final hole in the usual mannequin — physicists’ greatest description of particles and forces — and opened a brand new window onto physics by offering a option to be taught in regards to the Higgs area and the way it provides particles their lots. However lots of the properties of the Higgs boson stay mysterious.

Nature | 8 min learn (from 2022)

On this podcast from 2022, two Nature physics gurus — senior reporter Lizzie Gibney and Federico Levi, a senior physics editor for the journal — regarded again to the invention of the Higgs boson ten years earlier. They reminisce about their experiences of its discovery, what the most recent run of the Giant Hadron Collider may reveal in regards to the particle’s properties and what position it may have in science past the usual mannequin of particle physics.

Nature Podcast | 22 min hear (from 2022)

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In 2013, Higgs informed The Guardian that it’s unlikely he would have finished his groundbreaking work below at present’s ‘publish or perish’ tradition. (5 min learn)

In a shock transfer, Iran has pardoned and launched the final 4 members of a wildlife conservation group that have been imprisoned since 2018. The 4 are a part of a gaggle of 9 arrested and charged with espionage whereas finishing up analysis on Iran’s endangered Asiatic cheetah and Persian leopard. The group’s chief, sociologist Kavous Seyed-Emami, died in jail. The discharge is “excellent information. However nothing can restore the misplaced years of life and the lack of Emami,” says Kaveh Madani, who was deputy head of Iran’s Division of Surroundings when he was arrested as a part of the identical operation.

Nature | 4 min learn

Avi Wigderson has received what is taken into account the ‘Nobel Prize’ of laptop science for his work on randomness in algorithms. With a sequence of groundbreaking research within the Nineteen Nineties, Wigderson helped to verify that algorithms that make random decisions to realize their aims are as correct as standard, deterministic algorithms. “I used to be extraordinarily pleased, and I didn’t count on this in any respect,” Wigderson says. “I’m getting a lot love and appreciation from my neighborhood that I don’t want prizes.”

Nature | 4 min learn

In 2019, conservationist Ripi Yanuar Fajar and 4 others noticed what might need been a Javan tiger (Panthera tigris sondaica), that are thought to have gone extinct within the Nineteen Eighties. Now it appears a strand of hair recovered by researcher Kalih Raksasewu from the placement of the sighting 10 days later is a genetic match with a Javan tiger pelt held in a museum. “I wished to emphasise that this wasn’t nearly discovering a strand of hair, however an encounter with the Javan tiger by which 5 individuals noticed it,” says Kalih.

Mongabay | 6 min learn

Reference: Oryx paper

A black-and-white photo of a Javanese tiger walking across a clearing in a forest.

Options & opinion

Synthetic intelligence (AI) techniques may also help researchers to know how genetic variations have an effect on individuals’s responses to medicine. But most genetic and scientific knowledge comes from the worldwide north, which may put the well being of Africans in danger, writes a gaggle of drug-discovery researchers. They counsel that AI fashions skilled on large quantities of knowledge will be fine-tuned with data particular to African populations — an strategy referred to as switch studying. The necessary factor is that scientists in Africa cleared the path on these efforts, the group says.

Nature | 10 min learn

Media engagement can open up surprising alternatives for collaborations and abilities improvement, says physical-activity researcher Ben Singh. Though scientists ought to courtroom media consideration responsibly — the final word objective is to tell the general public — he suggests pitching revealed papers to related journalists and retailers, writing for web sites equivalent to The Dialog or utilizing social media to attach with friends and the general public. To keep away from overly simplified protection or misinterpretation of his work, he learnt to “articulate the precise aims and limitations clearly up entrance throughout interviews, conferences and seminars”.

Nature | 5 min learn

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Amongst these paying tribute to Peter Higgs, I loved this gem from science-mad comic Dara Ó Briain: he obtained Higgs to log out on a enjoyable joke involving a boson in a jar.

Tonight, I’ll be elevating a glass of London Delight, which I’m reliably knowledgeable was Higgs’s favorite tipple (and is fortunately my favorite beer, too). Tomorrow I hope I return to an inbox crammed together with your suggestions on this text: please e-mail us at briefing@nature.com.

Thanks for studying,

Flora Graham, senior editor, Nature Briefing

With contributions by Katrina Krämer

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