Vacuum birefringence spotted in space? 7 Feb 2017
A rather exciting paper, for theoretical strong field physicists such as I, appeared recently. It involved astronomical observations of a neutron star (RX J1856.5-3754 to be exact) with a very strong magnetic field near its surface.
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Observations of light coming from this star were made by ESO's Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. The observers found the light to be polarised and after eliminating other sources, found that this polarisation was due to the vacuum polarisation of the vacuum in the presence of the very strong magnetic field coming from the star itself. The paper reference is: R Mignani, MNRAS 465 492 (2016)
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Outstanding if true, since this is a long standing prediction of Quantum Electrodynamics that has been thought out of reach of experimental confirmation in the laboratory.
The on-again, off-again travel ban 1 Feb 2017
In his infinite wisdom, the new POTUS, keen to engage in 'extreme vetting', has imposed a blanket ban on travel from several proscribed nations - irregardless of whether their nationals have US green cards or not.
There is a lot that could be said about this, but I refer here to the article in New Scientist pointing out the damage to scientific collaboration:
Trump’s travel ban is already stopping scientific collaboration
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Scientific American has also run a series of articles, seemingly to address some of the 'alt-facts' floating around these days:
The Free Flow of Scientific Information Is Critical for Democracy
