Interest of the day

Researchers studied 560 breast cancers and learned that mutations of 93 genes caused these breast cancers. With this gene list, the work to develop therapies for breast cancer can begin. For more information, see the Nature paper Landscape of somatic mutations in 560 breast cancer whole-genome sequences

The Computers is a short film about the women that programmed the ENIAC computer in 1946.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter images were used to recreate how the Apollo astronauts photographed Earthrise in short video that shows a simulation of the event.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has published the 2014 Renewable Energy Databook that contains many plots and charts on the energy production and consumption in the United States. Energy consumption, electrical power production and renewable electricity generation all grew in 2014 with renewable electricity generation capacity growing by 50%.

Symmetry Magazine has posted a short article describing the possible composition of Dark Mater. The candidates include:

• WIMPs
• Sterile neutrinos
• Neutralinos
• Asymmetric dark matter
• Axions
• Mirror world dark matter
• Extra dimensional dark matter
• SIMPs
• Composite dark matter

This will be a fascinating subject to follow.

The spacecraft Hayabusa2 captured this wonderful photo of the moon and Earth in the same frame on November 26, 2015.

Physicist Sean Carrol gave a talk on Particles, Fields and The Future of Physics at Fermilab in July 2013. In his talk, he describes that particles are actual energy vibrations in the field corresponding to the particle. An electron is actually a energy vibration in the electric field, for example. In the LHC when to protons collide, they generate enough energy in near by fields to cause a vibration in the Higgs field which in turn causes a Higgs boson particle to form. The Higgs boson is detected by looking for its energy as it decays into other particles as it excites other field to produce the decay particles.

Math with Bad Drawing has posted a series of neat drawings on What Does Probability Mean in Your Profession? The reference probability and the investment banker interpretation of probability are shown below. To see the probability interpretations in other professions, please check out the website if interested.

It's pretty amazing to find that there is water on Mars today. This Astronomy Photo of the Day (APOD) from NASA/JPL/UofA shows dark streaks on hills that is thought to be water.

The solution Project has created a website that show the 100% renewable energy vision for each state in the US. The image below shows an example vision for the state of NJ. The goal of the project is to accelerate the transition to all renewable energy for all purposes.