FermiLab Physicists May Have Found New Particle

 

Fermilab's Accelerator Rings

‘Physicists at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory are planning to announce Wednesday that they have found found a suspicious bump in their data that could be evidence of a new elementary particle or even, some say, a new force of nature. 

…“Nobody knows what this is,” said Christopher Hill, a theorist at Fermilab who was not part of the team. “If it is real, it would be the most significant discovery in physics in half a century.” ‘  (viaNYTimes.com).

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How Japan’s Tsunami Massive Debris Plume Will Hit California and Hawaii

Debris floats in the water off the coast of Ja...

“If you live in Hawaii, California, British Columbia, Alaska or Baja California, here is some bad news: According to computer models made by scientists at the International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa, all the debris washed out by the Japan tsunami is coming your way.

This is how the trash will spread through the Pacific and hit the West Coast of the United States, Canada and Mexico…” (via Gizmodo).

Is The “Paleolithic Diet” Really Better?

Primate skulls provided courtesy of the Museum...

GOOD Asks the Experts: A roundtable discussion among four anthropologists (who know what they are talking about with respect to our Paleolithic ancestors). Did our evolutionary forebears evolve eating alot of meat? Should we?

Leonard: Although there’s an extraordinary range of variation, based on the climate and the environment, hunter-gatherers get a fair amount of meat in their diet. We require a diet that is more energy-dense than other primates and historically, we may have reached that point by incorporating more meat. It’s reflected in evolutionary changes in our face, our teeth, and in our gastrointestinal tract. Indeed, the GI tract of modern humans looks more like a carnivore’s than a large primate’s. Because early humans increasingly used tools to hunt, we don’t show the same kinds of dental adaptations as modern carnivores…” (via GOOD).

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What to Do When Your Pilot Gets Sucked Out the Plane Window

Cockpit of a Boeing 767

In light of the recent Southwest decompression incident:

“It was a routine day at the Birmingham, England airport in 1990. The British Airways crew had gotten up early to prepare for a trip to Malaga, Spain. About 13 minutes into the flight, flight attendant Nigel Ogden walked into the cockpit to offer the captain Tim Lancaster and co-captain Alistair Atcheson a cup of tea. As he was walking out, the plane was rocked by an explosion. He turned around and this is what he saw, as he told it to the Sydney Morning Herald‘s Julia Llewellyn Smith.” (via The Atlantic).