Physics Buzz

Harvard’s Center for Astrophysics hosts the world’s largest collection of glass photographic plates, and thanks to the efforts of DASCH — which stands for Digital Access to a Sky Century @ Harvard — all of the information they contain will soon be at your fingertips. We caught up with Principal Investigator Dr. Josh Grindlay to find out how the digitization project works and what they hope to accomplish by making all of the data available to the public.

Nothing puts a skip in your brisk autumnal step like the the announcement of the 2012 MacArthur 'genius' Fellows , which provides an inspiring and concise account of twenty-three veritably brilliant individuals working on daring and creative projects from filmmaking to neurobiology to instrument bow-making. In the excitement of the moment, I'd like to highlight one of this year's MacArthur Fellows, Olivier Guyon, an astronomer and optical physicist who has proposed a cool investment of some of his no-strings-attached MacArthur grant: crowdsourcing the planet hunt. Olivier Guyon-- Planet Hunter. Image courtesy of The John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.