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5 June 2016 marked the tenth anniversary of the PAMELA (Payload for Antimatter Exploration and Light-nuclei Astrophysics) satellite detector, the space observatory for the study of cosmic rays, currently in orbit at 560 km above the Earth. Launched in 2006 with a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur base in Kazakhstan, included on board the Russian satellite Resurs-DK1, for all this time PAMELA has been acquiring data and obtaining fundamental results. The result of an Italo-Russian collaboration also involving Germany and Sweden, the mission is led by INFN and supported by the Italian Space Agency (ASI).
Certainly among the most significant and promising scientific contributions of the mission, the first measurement of high-energy positron and antiproton streams has over the years enabled a new field of investigation on dark matter to be opened. Great interest was aroused, in particular, by the excess of positrons detected by PAMELA and published in Nature in the first half of 2009. Various explanations have been advanced by theoretical physicists in the more than 1,400 articles subsequently published.
Contributions from the annihilation of dark matter or from pulsars, or changes in the propagation models of cosmic rays in the Galaxy have been postulated. Noteworthy were also the results of the measurements performed on proton and helium nuclei streams, i.e. almost all cosmic radiation, up to one billion MeV and published in Science in 2011. PAMELA for the first time demonstrated that these particles have slightly different energy spectra between the two species and have a change of slope at high energies. This data has shed new light on the mechanisms of production, acceleration and propagation of cosmic rays in our Galaxy. Among the results that have aroused great interest, also outside the scientific community, is the unexpected discovery of an antiproton belt around the Earth. Finally, the latest experiment data, published in Physical Review Letters on 13 June last, demonstrate for the first time with extreme clarity the effects of solar activity and the magnetic polarity of the Sun on cosmic rays, also providing unique information on heliosphere mechanisms.

PAMELA is conducted by an international team, led by INFN and with the support of the Italian Space Agency, consisting of the INFN Sections and Departments of Physics of Trieste, Florence, Rome Tor Vergata, Naples and Bari, the Frascati National Laboratories, the IFAC Institute of the CNR, the NRNU MEPhI and the Fian Lebedev in Moscow, the Joffe Institute in St. Petersburg, the University of Siegen in Germany and the
Royal Technical Institute in Stockholm. The Russian Space Agency also built the Resurs-DK1 satellite and the Soyuz rocket. The individual parts of the instrument were built in the various laboratories with the support of numerous companies, especially Italian. the integration of the instrument prior to launch took place in the laboratories of the INFN section and Department of Physics of Rome Tor Vergata

The Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI), founded in 2012 in L’Aquila (Italy) as Center for Advanced Studies of the National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) and then established in March 2016 as a new university providing post-graduate education, offers 41 PhD fellowships for the academic year 2016/17.

The GSSI invites applications for 10 fellowships in “Astroparticle Physics”, 11 in “Mathematics in Natural, Social and Life Sciences”, one of which funded by the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), 10 in “Computer Science” and 10 in “Urban Studies and Regional Science”. The official language for all PhD courses is English.

The fellowships are awarded for three years and their yearly amount is € 16.159,91 gross. All PhD students have free accomodation at the GSSI facilities and use of the canteen.

The application must be submitted through the online form available at www.gssi.it/phd/ by 1st September 2016 at 18.00 (Italian time zone).

For more information, please consult the Call for Applications at www.gssi.it/phd/ or write an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call +39 0862 4280262.

Bologna has been chosen as the headquarters of the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTA Observatory), and Berlin as the headquarters of the Science Data Management Centre (SDMC). CTA is part of the ESFRI roadmap indicating the research infrastructures of primary interest for Europe, and this is the first time that Italy has been awarded the headquarters of an ESFRI project. The decision was taken by the CTA Board on the basis of evaluation criteria that included infrastructures, services and accessibility. The headquarters will be on the premises of INAF, the National Institute of Astrophysics, in a new building shared with the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Bologna. SDMC, on the other hand, will be located in a newly built complex on the campus of the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), in Zeuthen, near Berlin. CTA is the project for the construction of the largest gamma ray telescope in the world. Italy is participating with INAF and, since 2013, with INFN.

Gianlorenzo D’Angelo, post doc researcher in Computer Science at GSSI, was awarded the “Best Italian Young Researcher in Theoretical Computer Science” by the Italian Chapter of the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS). “Gianlorenzo D'Angelo obtained remarkable new results in the following areas of theoretical computer science: approximation algorithms, scheduling, distributed algorithms, algorithms and data structures for dynamic graphs, algorithm engineering and complex network analysis”, the award committee – composed by Pino Di Battista, Simone Faro e Dino Mandrioli – wrote. “The contribution of Gianlorenzo D'Angelo in such areas lead to a significant progress in the knowledge of the respective fields of theoretical computer science, making the author amongst the most known researchers in the international scientific community, as witnessed by the excellent publication venues and by the numerous citations obtained, despite the relatively short period of time.” Gianlorenzo D'Angelo obtained his B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the University of L’Aquila, Italy in 2004, 2006 and 2010, respectively. Before joining GSSI, where he is currently a post-doc researcher, he was a post-doc at the University of L'Aquila, at INRIA Sophia-Antipolis (France), at the University of Perugia (Italy), and at the University of Pisa (Italy). He is (co)author of more than 70 papers in international journals and peer-reviewed conference proceedings. His research interests include combinatorial algorithms, scheduling, combinatorial optimization, computational complexity, network analysis, distributed computing, and algorithm engineering. EATCS is an international organization founded in 1972. Its aim is to facilitate the exchange of ideas and results among theoretical computer scientists as well as to stimulate cooperation between the theoretical and the practical community in computer science. Its Italian Chapter was founded in 1988.