Events at Physics |
Events on Tuesday, November 15th, 2016
- Chaos & Complex Systems Seminar
- Macro-evolution: A new model emerging from modern genome data
- Time: 12:05 pm - 1:00 pm
- Place: 4274 Chamberlin (refreshments will be served)
- Speaker: Periannan Senapathy, Genome International Corporation
- Abstract: Origin of life is an unsolved phenomenon. Charles Darwin’s mechanism assumes a universal ancestor, and elaborates the natural selection model to show how this ancestor could have evolved into all other organisms on earth, thus leaving the question open. While it has been known that natural selection mechanisms are able to clearly explain the “micro-evolution" of an organism into its varieties (for example, a crab into many different crab varieties), natural selection is unable to explain how an organism, such as a worm, could evolve into an entirely distinct organism such as a crab (termed "macro-evolution"). In this context, a theory formulated by Senapathy, that complex organisms could arise directly in prebiotic chemistry based on the easy origin of split genes in prebiotic random DNA, offers an explanation for macroevolution. This model shows that the genomes of complex organisms based on split genes are easy to arise from prebiotic chemistry, whereas the genomes of the apparently "simple" bacterial organisms could not. The implications of this model contrasting the conventional model will be discussed.
- Host: Clint Sprott
- Council Meeting
- Time: 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
- Place: 5290 Chamberlin hall
- Speaker: Albrecht Karle
- Theory Seminar (High Energy/Cosmology)
- Lighting Up Collider Searches for Electroweak States
- Time: 3:30 pm
- Place: 5280 Chamberlin
- Speaker: Ahmed Ismail, University of Pittsburgh
- Abstract: Despite appearing in many extensions of the Standard Model, uncolored electroweak particles face limited collider search prospects. For nearly degenerate electroweak multiplets where the lightest state is electrically neutral, searches typically rely on pair production of the new states in association with visible radiation, e.g. the mono-X final state. We show that for such new particles, considering final state photon radiation can provide increased sensitivity. The additional kinematical information provided by including final state electromagnetic radiation more than compensates for the reduced statistics.
- Host: Joshua Berger