February 2012

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Yesterday a rumor came out about the possible problems for the instruments used in the Opera experiment and in a few hours they spread around the world just like the result of last September. This morning, CERN issued a press release confirming that an investigation is underway to check if some instruments malfunctioned.

Artistic concept showing the planet GJ 1214b and its star (Image NASA, ESA, and D. Aguilar (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics))

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The planet GJ 1214b was discovered in December 2009 using robotic observatory MEarth Project. Now an international team of astronomers led by Zachory Berta of Harvard’s Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), confirms the theory proposed in 2010 that the planet GJ 1214b is covered by water in its vapor state.

Doctor Who - The Infinite Quest

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“The Infinite Quest” is an animated adventure that is part of the new “Doctor Who” series, where it fits in its third season, aired in 2007 featuring the Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones. It’s written by Alan Barnes and directed by Gary Russell.

Renato Dulbecco in 1966

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Italian biologist, doctor and geneticist Renato Dulbecco died of a heart attack. With Howard Termin and David Baltimore in 1975 he shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries concerning the interaction between tumour viruses and the genetic material of the cell.

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A group of physicists at the Australian University of New South Wales in Sydney and the American University of Purdue in Indiana created a transistor operating as a single phosphorus atom positioned precisely on a silicon crystal.