UPTON, NY — An international team of scientists studying high-energy collisions of gold ions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a 2.4-mile-circumference particle accelerator located at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, has published evidence of the most massive antinucleus discovered to date. The new antinucleus, discovered at RHIC’s STAR detector, is a negatively charged state of antimatter containing an antiproton, an antineutron, and an anti-Lambda particle. It is also the first antinucleus containing an anti-strange quark. The results will be published online by Science Express on March 4, 2010.
“This experimental discovery may have unprecedented consequences for our view of the world,” commented theoretical physicist Horst Stoecker, Vice President of the Helmholtz Association of German National Laboratories. “This antimatter pushes open the door to new dimensions in the nuclear chart — an idea that just a few years ago, would have been viewed as impossible.”
The discovery may help elucidate models of neutron stars and opens up exploration of fundamental asymmetries in the early universe.
New nuclear terrain
All terrestrial nuclei are made of protons and neutrons (which in turn contain only up and down quarks). The standard Periodic Table of Elements is arranged according to the number of protons, which determine each element’s chemical properties. Physicists use a more complex, three-dimensional chart to also convey information on the number of neutrons, which may change in different isotopes of the same element, and a quantum number known as “strangeness,” which depends on the presence of strange quarks (see diagram). Nuclei containing one or more strange quarks are called hypernuclei.
The judge’s decision to reverse the school’s disciplinary action is not only blatantly, wrong, but in fact the exact OPPOSITE of the actual law; Firstly, school’s are special environments, one of few where “freedom of speech” really doesn’t exist. If not, instructors inherently could not even grade papers for fear of infringing upon such rights [more]
THIS IS TOTALLY UTTERLY INSANE!!!!
What crap .. the duality of standards that allows the student (who isnt anymore) to continue her harassment of the instructor years later.
Two Muslim women have become the first passengers to refuse to subject themselves to controversial 'naked' full body airport scans, it emerged today. [more]
I AM GLAD THEY REFUSED!!!!!!!
There is no reason to subject yourself to these harmful rays FOR NO REASON!
The massive 8.8 earthquake that struck Chile may have changed the entire Earth's rotation and shortened the length of days on our planet, a NASA scientist said Monday.
The quake, the seventh strongest earthquake in recorded history, hit Chile Saturday and should have shortened the length of an Earth day by 1.26 milliseconds, according to research scientist Richard Gross at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
"Perhaps more impressive is how much the quake shifted Earth's axis," NASA officials said in a Monday update.
The computer model used by Gross and his colleagues to determine the effects of the Chile earthquake effect also found that it should have moved Earth's figure axis by about 3 inches (8 cm or 27 milliarcseconds).
The Earth's figure axis is not the same as its north-south axis, which it spins around once every day at a speed of about 1,000 mph (1,604 kph).
The figure axis is the axis around which the Earth's mass is balanced. It is offset from the Earth's north-south axis by about 33 feet (10 meters).
Strong earthquakes have altered Earth's days and its axis in the past. The 9.1 Sumatran earthquake in 2004, which set off a deadly tsunami, should have shortened Earth's days by 6.8 microseconds and shifted its axis by about 2.76 inches (7 cm, or 2.32 milliarcseconds).
One Earth day is about 24 hours long. Over the course of a year, the length of a day normally changes gradually by one millisecond. It increases in the winter, when the Earth rotates more slowly, and decreases in the summer, Gross has said in the past.
The Chile earthquake was much smaller than the Sumatran temblor, but its effects on the Earth are larger because of its location. Its epicenter was located in the Earth's mid-latitudes rather than near the equator like the Sumatran event.
The fault responsible for the 2010 Chile quake also slices through Earth at a steeper angle than the Sumatran quake's fault, NASA scientists said.
"This makes the Chile fault more effective in moving Earth's mass vertically and hence more effective in shifting Earth's figure axis," NASA officials said.
Gross said his findings are based on early data available on the Chile earthquake. As more information about its characteristics are revealed, his prediction of its effects will likely change.
The Chile earthquake has killed more than 700 people and caused widespread devastation in the South American country.
Several major telescopes in Chile's Atacama Desert have escaped damage, according to the European Southern Observatory
MARCH 2--A Delaware man is facing a federal criminal charge after he was caught yesterday masturbating on a plane while seated next to a female passenger. Murali Nookella, a 34-year-old computer programmer, was en route to Denver from Philadelphia on a Southwest Airlines flight when a woman noticed him "fumbling underneath a blanket," according to an affidavit sworn by FBI Agent Joel Nishida. The woman, identified only by her initials in the affidavit, said that Nookella's "eyes were closed and his hands moved all around his groin area" underneath a "mustard/gold blanket pulled up to his waist." As the woman packed up her belonging to move seats, she "looked at Nookella and saw him holding his erect *****." The woman said that Nookella remarked, "You caught me." Nookella held a napkin in his left hand, the woman told the FBI. According to Nishida's affidavit, a copy of which you'll find below, the woman "did not look but heard a swishing sound. She thought Nookella wiped something." Nookella's employer told TSG that he was headed to Denver on a work assignment. Nookella was named today in a misdemeanor criminal complaint charging him with indecent exposure. If convicted, he faces a maximum of 90 days in jail and a $5000 fine. (4 pages)
