Have you heard about the physics of mosh pits yet?   The observation of human collective motion at heavy metal concerts led to some interesting parallels with the statistical mechanics of classical 2D gasses.  Read the article on the arXiv here, or try an interactive version of the simulation here.

UPDATE: Since it's release, the mosh pit pre-print article has been making quite a bit of noise!  

• NPR's Morning Edition aired an interview and "Research News" piece on the physics of mosh pits, which can be listened to here.
   
• Reuters TV produced a piece for mass distribution to television news channels.  Watch the video here or on Scientific American here.
   
• Scientific American did podcast about the physics of mosh pit available here.
   
• Listen to radio interviews with co-author Jesse Silverberg on CBC's As It Happens here,WHCU's Morning News Watch here, and read the transcript from WTOP's interview here.  Jesse was also interviewed on the radio programs You Study WHAT?? produced by Australian Public radio (2/25/13), Coast Breakfast with Bern Young (3/4/13), and Afternoons With Glynn Greensmith (3/7/13).  
   
• Watch co-author Matt Bierbaum deliver a talk about mosh pits at the 2013 APS March Meetinghere.  Matt was also interviewed on Madrid's La Hora del Metal by Lisveth Hernández (3/3/13) and can be heard here.  The program was rebroadcasted in El Salvador on Metal Critico(3/3/13). Matt was also interviewed on Germany's DRadio Wissen (3/5/13) and can be heardhere.  
   
• Jesse, Matt, and Itai Cohen were interviewed on WVBR's The Sunday Forum with Tommy Bruce(3/10/13).  Jesse and Matt were interviewed for the Physics Buzz Podcast at APS March Meeting 2013 and can be heard here (see related blog post here).
   
• Our project was featured on the Discovery Channel's show Daily Planet (2/14/13), as well asThe Prime Show, on Japan's WOWOW channel (3/5/13).  See the segment here.
   
• A very interesting analysis of tweets about the mosh pit paper by Altmetric can be found here.
   
• SourceFed did a blurb about the physics of mosh pits that can be viewed here.  It's really funny too!

Follow the press coverage:

NBC, National Geographic, Popular Science, New Scientist, Physics World, The Times, The Atlantic,The Chicago Reader, Smithsonian, The Huffington Post (written by co-author J.L.S.), The Telegraph,ABC Science, MIT Technology Review - arXiv Blog, Phys.org, Physics Central, Physics Central Buzz Blog, Inside Science, Spin, The Verge, Gizmodo, Examiner, DR, Yahoo! News, Hacker News, io9, Line Out @ The Stranger, Nerdcore @ Crackajack, Alt Press, News.com, AUX.tv, Metafilter, Slashdot,Motherboard, Txchnologist, The Creators Project, The Kevin Houston Blog, Synchronized Minds (Tommi Himberg Blog), Alan Cross Blog, CBC Music, Break Through Radio, Global Domination, NME,Metalsucks, Metal Injection, Metal Hammer, Animal, GSA, Thrash MTL, Tone Deaf, Ultimate Guitar, No Clean Singing, A Metal State of Mind, Braingell Radio, Blabbermouth, Jam Spreader, At Most Fear Entertainment, Loudwire, ToDaMax, Thrash Hits,Top News, Konbini, Sounds, Tert, NWT online, Lenta,Tempo, Hypothesis, Nerd D3, XFM, Unsigned Expenditures, Chaos Cartel, Musica Diabolus, Topix News, Ca Muz, iPon, Atlantico, Brooklyn Vegan, GMA news, Dangerous Minds, KROQ, Neatorama,TEOTI, The Wild Children, Videosift, Geekapolis, Syracuse, Rock NYC, Wish You Would Hear, Antimusic, Dailymail, Gaffa, Knovel, Planet Ivy, Skruff, Q103, Up the Downstair, The Sound and the Fury, Dying Scene, Pedestrian TV, HLN, Ligonier Living, Pages Digital, Pheonix New Times, Line Logic, Alligator, Cay Compass, Homeland Voice, Current, ZME Science, No Country For New Nashville,APA340, Live Fix, Capital Gazette, C&EN, Open Culture, The Dish, The Ithaca Journal, Reddit (Various threads in Physics, Science, Science (again), Metal, Ska), Cornell Alumni Magazine, Cornell Chronicle, Cornell Daily Sun, and Cornell Physics.

Since it's publication in PNAS, the plant root project has been making quite a stir in the media!  Among others, MSNBC, Discovery, and the Huffington Post have all featured it in their science sections.  Keep up the great work!

Additional media coverage:

• Science Daily
• Futurity
• Phys.org
• Ag Professional
• Examiner
• Science News Line
• The Epoch Times
• e! Science News
• Ithaca Week
• The Ithaca Journal

 Dr. Mark Buckley will join the faculty in the Biomedical Engineering department at the University of Rochester.

Congratulations Mark!

Congratulations to Ben Nachman on his scholarship.

we wish him the best of luck on his journeys both abroad and at Stanford where he will be heading after his stint in England.

Dr. Xiang Cheng will join the faculty in the Chemical Engineering and Materials Science department at the University of Minnesota.

Congratulations Xiang!

Congragulations to Cohen-group alumnus Sharon Gerbode for her recent appointment as an assistant professor in the Department of Physics at Harvey Mudd College!  Keep up the good work and stay in touch!

John Mergo has been awarded with an additional NSF Integrative Gratudate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) fellowship.  This fellowship now lasts for 2.5 years.  The extension was awarded for his current work in crystallization and melting of colloidal lattices, as well as his recent internship with Professor Tony Dinsmore at the Univeristy of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he studied growth and vitrification dynamics of amorphous colloidal clusters.

Congragulations to Jesse for winning an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship!  Jesse's support will last 3 years while he studies the mechanics of cartilage and other biological materials.

 Cheers to Leif Ristroph for his recent PRL publication on the paddling mode of forward flight in fruit flies.  As an added bonus, APS did a Physics Spotlight feature on the work.   

Congragulations to Brian for winning an NDSEG Fellowship!  Brian's support will last 3 years while he studies the rheological properties of colloidal suspensions.

Dr. Leif Ristroph has successfully defended his PhD thesis. He has also recently received an NSF postdoctoral fellowship to conduct research with the Applied Mathematics group at the Courant Institute at NYU.

We're still developing a plan for dealing with his absence.

Congratulations to Sharon Gerbode and Mark Buckley both of whom recently completed their PhDs. Mark is taking up a postdoctoral fellowship with the group of Louis Soslowsky, the Fairhill Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery and Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania. Sharon is taking up a postdoctoral fellowship with the group of L. Mahadevan at Harvard.

We are very proud of you both.

Check out Itai's recent interview conducted by Ellen Ferrante of Science Lives

http://www.livescience.com/culture/physics-motion-itai-cohen-sl-100610.html