It's cool, but this is a small piece to a big puzzle. For recent reviews of skyrmion spintronics have a look at Magnetic Skyrmions: Advances in Physics and Potential Applications by Al Fert et al or Perspective: Magnetic Skyrmions.... Potential applications go way beyond magnetic storage btw.

The posted paper isn't from Nature, it's NPG Asia Materials, which is a good journal, but it's not Nature. The difference is that if this were in Nature it would be huge, but when it's in NPG Asia Materials (or Nature Nano or Nature Materials etc), it's one of many many cool papers but not exactly a huge discovery. This is a report of an LLG simulation showing optical control of skyrmion dynamics including the control/switching of both polarity and chirality. Again, this is cool, and a potentially important discovery, but needs experimental confirmation and so forth.

For a little context here, the skyrmion is basically a swirled magnetic structure in a ferromagnetic thin film where the swirl can have two directions (chirality). Additionally, at the center of the swirl the magnetization points up/out of the plane of the film, or down into it (polarity). So with one small structure you have four states, or a 4-bit, so that you could produce potentially high density magnetic storage, in addition to a lot of other things.

This is an important piece but there's still a lot of physics to be worked out. Have a look at the reviews if you're interested.

Suber's book looks good, and I've read through the overview.

I do have some concerns that I'd like to see addressed.

As the primary argument for open access goes, publicly funded research should be publicly available. This ignores the fact that the individual graduate students have an ownership interest apart from the public funding. While some students are paid as a Research Associate, many are not, and all of their time spent in doing research is their own and should be appropriately attributed to them. Even for those who are paid as an RA, that is only for a fraction of the time spent doing their work, usually limited to 20 hours/wk. The remaining time can be attributed to both personal time and research credits. Just as undergraduates retain rights to their own work that they do as students and for their courses, graduate students ought to retain similar rights to the work they do under the research credit portion of their work, as well as for any additional personal hours they do beyond those credit hours. These portions of the research and its ownership are not publicly funded, and ought to belong to the graduate student.

Aside from that, there seem to be some serious problems regarding mandated open access publishing, costs being passed on to individual researchers and students (which would be an extreme burden in the U.S., not to mention the rest of the world), the loss of well-established independent peer-review processes, the setting up of an effective payola system, and the loss of long-held and well-curated reputations of solid academic journals in favor of new and not well-known operations with perhaps lower standards.

At the end of the day we have to pay for the work to be done, for all of the copy editing/formatting, content/quality control and general editing, peer-review management, magazine printing and distribution, web development and maintenance, and etc. And right now it seems that researchers are more willing to allow publishers to continue as is because of the reputation of the highly-regarded journals, or else they would willingly be flocking to open access without any need for mandates. So it seems there really is a high value to those publishers that is being disregarded. A move to open access would be great, but we need a payment model that's going to work and that isn't going to destroy a lot of the traditional publishers. Why not just let traditional publishers continue to thrive, and let open access journals compete in the open marketplace for researchers to bring their work to them?

A little web search shows I'm not the only one with these concerns. An op-ed in The Chronicle of Higher Education covers this, and there are some serious critiques in Nature, which makes it look like it really can't be done. It costs Nature, for example, between 10 and 30k Euros to publish each article, while PNAS estimated it costs $6000. Good luck getting researchers to pony that up. The AAAS also weighed in, saying that the european OA model "will not support high-quality peer-review, research publication and dissemination."

Eventually we have to get there, to OA, but maybe there is a better way than mandates and boycotts.

I'm very glad to hear that you are working on these issues as well. Thank you!

I have tried to work with my university to get them to gather data by asking for surveys, anonymous or otherwsise, of the graduate student body, about their experiences in general and with their advisers; to provide exit interviews with graduate students when they leave the university, whether they leave with a degree or not; and to provide the opportunity to give feedback about their advisers in the form of course evaluations. The university rejected all of those and continues to willfully keep its head in the sand, even while dealing with sexual harassment lawsuits and, from what I hear, a raft of student complaints.

Students who advocate for change on these issues are treated as a nuisance, and in some cases it really could jeopardize their careers. So I'm very glad that you are working on these issues where transparency is also sorely needed and almost completely neglected in the public/university discourse. I'm very much looking forward to reading about FAARM, and thank you for your work on that front.

I haven't seen any good discussion of the pros and cons anywhere. Can you point me to any articles/reviews? Would you also like to summarize your own sense of the pros and cons?

Speaking of transparency in science, science departments are not very transparent at all in the recruiting of graduate students, especially vis-a-vis graduation rates (counting a student who drops out with a Masters degree a "successful graduate"), graduation rates per adviser, exam pass rates, job opportunities, and the hiding of information regarding professors with a history of abusive behavior towards students. With regard to the selection of adviser, if science departments wanted to be transparent toward its graduate students, they would keep records of former student outcomes and also put prospective students in contact with current and former students and recommend they do their due diligence in speaking with them, and also advise of the conflict of interest between student and adviser which grows in severity as years are invested.

Beyond recruiting, universities, departments, and many professors honor a code of silence between professors regarding the abuse of graduate students. And when abuse is reported, universities are demanding that students do not speak out about their abuse, in having both school policies that demand the silence, administrators giving gag orders, and also forcing NDAs upon settlement. Where's the transparency in reporting these policies in advance? Where's the student body's right to know?

Meanwhile graduate committees which should be monitoring the process are phoning it in when they should be providing oversight which could be helpful to the student. Science conferences force students to attend science ethics classes, but neglect to say anything about dealing with a corrupt adviser with omnipotent power over a student's career. Departments and committees provide no support in dealing with a corrupt adviser, and in fact hide the facts from other prospective students. And what of legitimate scientific disputes between student and adviser? Again, no support from university/department/committee. Where's the transparency in this?

Then there is the question of the ownership of discoveries made by graduate students. Universities claim all or exhorbitant levels of ownership of the discoveries of graduate students when it comes to patent rights, notwithstanding the fact that graduate students do not make those discoveries as employees of the university. Additionally, the credit, ownership, and authorship of many graduate student discoveries can be effectively plagiarized by their own advisers, a racketeering made possible by the refusal of universities to appropriately manage the extreme conflict of interest that leads professors to abuse their power over the students they "advise."

Transparency in publiction is critical to the fundamental role of science and I applaud your efforts there, but science departments everywhere continue deceptive practices in both recruiting and in the general treatment of its graduate students, creating a toxic environment which is much more inimical to the ethical and responsible practice of science, in addition to hindering its real progress in the long term. Transparency in publication and fighting Elsevier is both popular and easy because it doesn't require the university look inwards. It's time MIT and a lot of other universities look in the mirror.

We are beginning to be able to map some parts of the brain. In the very foreseeable future, it may be possible to simulate an entire brain, and to feed it with the world info that may surround it. That (simulated) person will believe it is in a real world, or may believe, like I do and basically like Descartes did, that the question is immaterial. Perhaps some of us are real and some are not, in a sort of Truman Show-like simulation. But there are problems when it comes to simulations at a large scale. Our universe and the knowledge we have is fairly large (to my imagination), so if this was a simulation, that would mean that the simulating universe would have to be infinitely larger. Otherwise there would be the Borges mapping problem: http://3stages.org/c/gq.cgi?fi...

By the way, just got back from the slashcott, and was immediately redirected to the beta. It's awful. It's trying to be like the rest of the new web, e.g. arstecnica, pinterest-style multi-column graphics-heavy at the top, giant text, and tons of scrolling to get thru content. Have you seen Drudge's new design? Nah, didn't think so, because it isn't needed. Google's search methods were nice, but more importantly the simplicity was easy on the eyes.

comments are a double-edged sword. There's a lot of junk on here nowadays, but if you're willing to wade thru it you can still get a lot of good stuff, especially if you ignore the ratings. Ratings used to work, but it seems like they've been gamed and a lot of idiots are holding the reins. Afraid to say it, but it would be nice to socialize it, say, and let you follow half-decent commenters (but definitely not via fb). That actually might incentivize me to log in and contribute to the discussion more often, as opposed to being ignored with low scores while dorks give 3rd-grade level responses and get 5's and insightful.

seconded. If possible this is a nice route.

For scientific computing, you will be doing a lot of collaboration and very likely sharing codes with other scientific programmers, very few of whom enjoy learning new programming languages all the time. To simplify/enable collaboration, you should follow what the community uses. In physics, generally that means Fortran. Anything past Fortran90 is basically modern, it's really not too bad to learn and even has basic object-oriented stuff, though not as good as C++. F77 is mostly obsolete and a major pain in the neck, but you will see it around in older codes, as well as a lot of the libraries. There are C/C++/Python/f77/etc codes around, but most physicists use >F90, especially in high performance/parallel computational work. But there are subfields of physics with their own popular tools too. My advice is to go with whatever the majority of your colleagues are using, placing a very big premium on what your adviser and group members use, which is who you will collaborate with the most. What the majority in the field uses is usually suitable for the job anyway.

It sounds like you're interested in parallel computing as well. Fortran is probably the best option then, mostly for the libraries, but you can still interface from C/C++ or whatever. Also, if you have a lot of computationally intensive stuff, you should try to get supercomputer access. Ask around, you should be able to work something out. You'll need to decide on OpenMP or MPI for parallel programming, depending e.g. on your memory, shared/distributed etc. Here's a quick rundown: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~rc/classes/intro_mpi/parallel_prog_compare.html
Most scientific hpc (high performance computing/supercomputer/parallel) is on unix/linux.

What field are you in exactly, and what is the nature of your data mining?

How can the U.S. eliminate its nuclear arsenal without becoming militarily inferior to other countries, even to minor powers who possess (or may someday possess) nuclear weapons (e.g. Iran/North Korea)?

Could you speak about the origins of the Dyson-Maleev transformation?

When you begin working on your PhD, you will continue working on your PhD until it is complete, at which time you will either directly enter industry or a postdoc. A gap in a resume is a serious concern to many employers, unfortunately. If you do a postdoc, you will continue doing postdocs until you get a job and then you will work for the rest of your life, with bills to pay and mouths to feed. A three-month vacation is not in your forecast at any other time in your life other than after you retire. Now would be a good time, not just to vacation, but to have the best vacation of your life. Go where you've always wanted to go with someone you'll have a great time with. The probability that you will ever have another opportunity like this is slim to nil. And go ahead and spend some money. It's okay. You won't be as poor being a grad student as you were when you were an undergrad.

That doesn't mean some preparation won't help. First of all, you should try to think about what kind of biologist you want to be. You should try to be good at it, whatever it is. It's going to require some planning and introspection. One thing to anticipate is that you're going to be very busy and under a lot of pressure. You should plan for ways to deal with that in advance. One way of dealing is to have some hobby or something as an occasional escape. Be careful though in choosing your hobby. Try to choose something that doesn't take much time, and that isn't intellectually taxing. My hobby was learning Japanese, a bad choice on both grounds. If I was to do it over, I would try a sport or something physical. That gets your mind off your work, and it can release a lot of stress. Another thing to prepare for is planning time for your own personal study. You're going to be terribly busy studying for exams and doing homework, etc. Find something that you're interested in, and look into that. Figure something out on your own that is not required work. This actually helped me a lot at the times when I felt overwhelmed. Another thing you're going to want to work into your schedule is some career planning. Do something once every few weeks. Look at indeed.com, craigslist, jobiology or whatever, and see what companies are looking for. As bad as it sounds for biologists, as I'm looking for jobs, there are many more options there than for physicists. If you're reading slashdot, you likely have some technical abilities. Programming often comes in handy. In physics, some programming was used in about 80% of PhD's, and I'd guess it's somewhere around 60-70% of biologists, but don't quote me on that. Anyway, if you like programming, it couldn't hurt to get a little more experience here. Scientific programming is different from sys-admin or soft-dev, so maybe look into some of the well-known programs in your field and get to know them. Chances are, these days, a lot of them will be open-source. At least many in physics are. Personally, I think it's a good idea to program in a language that is common in your field. If it's Fortran, then it's Fortran (it's not as bad as it used to be). But go with the group on this so you can cooperate with your colleagues.

In your PhD, the three keys to success are not location location location, it's Adviser Adviser Adviser. This is one of the big choices you will make in your life. Do it carefully. Your adviser will be your parent, prosecutor, parole officer, and savior (or destructor), all in one. There are some very excellent advisers out there and there are some real assholes too, and it's actually kind of hard to tell even after being there fore a couple of years. Other commentors have mentioned some useful ideas for selecting an adviser, so see those too. It's sometimes hard to get an honest comment from current students of some advisers because of the conflict of interest, so really ask around and talk through your ideas with some of the older grad students, but definitely more than one. One other point I'd like to make is that you should select someone as good/prestigious as possible. I opted not to go with the best because I saw how many students he had and I figured he would be too busy, but it's not the quantity of interaction you have with your adviser, it's the quality. When you get going on your project, and really get into the details, you will know more about it than your adviser, probably, and anyway you will be doing 99% of the work all by your lonesome. What can really make or break you is that 1% of the time and whether your adviser can help you out at that point. Also, better advisers are way better at lining you up with a good project, something that is publishable, important, and doable within a reasonable time span. Crappy advisers are more gamblers, will throw you at what looks like promising projects, but turn out to be fads or total time-sinks or just plain shite. And they won't be helping you out with your career, you will be padding their resumes with your publications. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, professors get raises when you publish more, so they may push you to publish earlier than is reasonable. You will have to walk a fine line between doing questionable work and not pissing off your adviser. Unless you get a good one, then you don't have to worry so much. But they need publications too. Anyway, if you realize you've got a crappy adviser, switch if it's early enough, or just stick with it if you can. I finally told my adviser to fo and now I'm in a bad way. Anyway, as a bit of personal advice, just as you shouldn't date a co-worker, you shouldn't try to be friends with your adviser. Keep it professional. But then again, you're kind of stuck with whatever they want the relationship to be. I guess just roll with the punches.

Graduate courses are weird. They're much harder than undergrad courses, but then again, in some ways, they're about the same. I don't know. One thing you may realize is that the sky is the limit, that there are an infinite number of things you feel you should study, and you just don't have the capacity. It's crazy, probably none of the other grads will agree, but my advice is to compare yourself with the other grad students. If you're understanding things about as good or better than most, then you're okay. You don't need to be a genius. It's supposed to be difficult. That's why you're there. It's hard for geniuses too. The first two years of courses were the hardest, but they were also the time when I felt the most capable. You're going to feel overwhelmed and like you don't understand anything, but when you're done you're going to look back and say, "I know kung fu!" or whatever it is you know, and you can be proud of that.

Some of the other commenters have given you some decent advice. The PhD is a serious journey with a lot of cool stuff and a lot of total shite all the way through. It's also a gamble. First off, many will flunk out or simply quit grad school. Many flunk on preliminary exams or in qualifying exams, but some quit because of crap projects or advisers. And you hear people with the PhD's complaining about the job market! Next, for some reason, we pay doctors, lawyers, MBA's and bankers exhorbitant sums of cash, but scientists get little pecuniary respect, generally speaking. When you begin grad school, you will probably be a T.A. for which you will be paid, on top of having your tuition taken care of, and you'll think, oh snap, this is a sweet deal! But you have to realize that the $20k or so per year you're getting is only a fraction of what your engineering pals are already getting paid right out of college, or what your construction buds are getting with no real education whatsoever. If you're lucky it will take 5 years. I think one or two out of forty in my class graduated in 5. The average is between six and seven, but many also take eight and some nine years. So at $20k/year for 6 or seven years, you'll basically be working for room and board, even though you're already one of the most highly skilled, highly trained people around in an area that's critical to the U.S.'s economic growth. And then things really get dicey after you've spent all that time getting superior training. I'm not saying don't do it. But I'm telling you, honestly, it's a gamble. And these are some of your best years, when you are setting the course of your career. There is some real risk here. I don't want to dissuade you from the PhD. I think it's probably a good option if that's what you want to do, but I don't want you to go in there blind. Your school is your main source of info on your career at this point, but they really do keep you in the dark on a lot of things.

Well, there's a lot more I could say, but it's getting late and you've probably stopped reading a long time ago, so I'll stop here. Wow, looking back, it sounds fairly pessimistic. I guess I was just one of those for whom the gamble didn't pay off. I'm a better physicist than 90% of PhD-holders, but got a crappy adviser and crap project. If I had the opportunity to go back, would I do it again? Yeah, I'm pretty sure. I'd just choose another adviser. There really is a lot of cool stuff that happens as a PhD student, etc. Good luck to you, whatever you do.

To summarize, be smart, stay tough, deal with the stress, and strive to be a master at what you do. There is no spoon.

I'm not sure which trait you're referring to. That they're topological, having "a full pairing gap in the bulk and gapless surface states"? That's not the case for superconductors, generally.

Topological Insulators (2D and 3D) are strange, but definitely not an "IF". Check this: http://arxiv.org/abs/1002.3895 from 2010. Several have been predicted and confirmed experimentally previous to this.

SmB6 is great because it's not based on weak interactions (like other topological insulators) but on strongly-correlated electrons, and the new relation of the Kondo insulator to the Topological Insulator.

Look at top-film lists for any genre or time-period and then see which of those are available on Netflix (streaming). It's less than 1 in 10. Then look at new releases. Very few are available on Netflix for download. Selection is a big divider for Netflix and brick/mortars. These two areas (popular/classic favorites and new releases) are Netflix weaknesses that are local video store strengths. Hang on to these and try to do them well.

Common weaknesses are general selection. The fact is there are millions of movies out there, and not even Netflix can offer all of them. I'd really like to see all the films of Francois Truffaut, for example, but you can't on Netflix. You also can't at your local video store. But this is where I like what another slashdot commentor said: let the user sponsor the dvd. I think they said through buy-back, which is a good option if the store wants the disc, but if not, I'd also let them purchase the dvd and share in any profits from rentals and let them own the disc after a time if no one's renting it.

One area where video rentals could have innovated 10 years ago but are still resisting is in video research. Put up a kiosk in your store where people can do movie research and that shows them whether the movie they want is available (for rent, and whether currently in-stock) in your store. Put this online too, so people can look it up before they drive all the way to your store. You already have computerized systems that tell the store the same info, so it can't be too hard to make it available to the customers. Even Netflix is squandering this possibility, especially since they split the dvd and streaming business lines. Now when you search for a movie that is not in their streaming-only system, it doesn't show you the title and say 'sorry-not available for streaming' or give you the option to rent-by-mail, it actually suggests totally different movies, making you think you entered the wrong title or something. And while you're at it, give the users a flat-screen tv to watch movie trailers on while they're there.

There are ways for brick/mortar's to survivce for a bit longer, but I give dvd/hd rental companies 3-5 years max, for the ones that really try to hang on. The ideas I've given above are areas where locals can offer big advantages over digital streaming services, but those wrinkles will be ironed out soon enough in streaming. I guess then you could try to target poor areas where the net isn't ubiquitous. Long-term, perhaps there is a way to take advantage of the meat-space aspect of local stores, but I can't think of any, except for the general fostering of community. Sorry I can't help in this area, but if you want to survive long-term, it's got to be in the community--something that puts customers face-to-face and interacting in a fun way.