(PhysOrg.com) -- An international collaboration of scientists has reported a landmark calculation of the decay process of a kaon into two pions, using breakthrough techniques on some of the world's fastest supercomputers. This is the same subatomic particle decay explored in a 1964 Nobel Prize-winning experiment performed at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), which revealed the first experimental evidence of charge-parity (CP) violation a lack of symmetry between particles and their corresponding antiparticles that may hold the answer to the question "Why are we made of matter and not antimatter?"
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Feed SubscriptionWhite House Energy Strategy – "All of the Above"
Today, President Obama spoke again about the country’s need for an all-of-the-above U.S. energy strategy.
Read More »Best Science Song of All Time, Verse 2
Yesterday I asked: what is the best pop science song of all time? Here’s where we stand: on the shoulder of giants (with apologies to Sir Isaac). One of those giants is Ryan Reid, our digital art guru, who not long ago did a wonderful post on 10 songs inspired by science .
Read More »10 Unsolved Mysteries in Chemistry (preview)
1 How Did Life Begin? The moment when the first living beings arose from inanimate matter almost four billion years ago is still shrouded in mystery. How did relatively simple molecules in the primordial broth give rise to more and more complex compounds
Read More »Future of Chernobyl Health Studies in Doubt
By Declan Butler of Nature magazine How much radiation is 'unsafe' for humans? For those exposed to fallout from the disaster at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, the question is all too real. [More]
Read More »Prediction or cause? Information theory may hold the key
(PhysOrg.com) -- "A perplexing philosophical issue in science is the question of anticipation, or prediction, versus causality," Shawn Pethel tells PhysOrg.com.
Read More »Too Hard for Science? Off-the-Shelf Organs
Instead of waiting around for organs to become available, have shelves of them instantly ready In "Too Hard for Science?" I interview scientists about ideas they would love to explore that they don't think could be investigated. For instance, they might involve machines beyond the realm of possibility, such as particle accelerators as big as the sun, or they might be completely unethical, such as lethal experiments involving people. This feature aims to look at the impossible dreams, the seemingly intractable problems in science.
Read More »Too Hard for Science? Regaining the Element of Surprise
How Do You Repeat Experiments That Require Volunteers to Not Know What's Next?
Read More »Step Right Up And Guess the Star’s Age
Stars of the sky, like stars of the silver screen, hide their age well.
Read More »Too Hard for Science? Seeing If 10,000 Hours Make You an Expert
Experiment Might Take Thousands of Volunteers and Decades of Effort In "Too Hard for Science?" I interview scientists about ideas they would love to explore that they don't think could be investigated. For instance, they might involve machines beyond the realm of possibility, such as particle accelerators as big as the sun, or they might be completely unethical, such as lethal experiments involving people.
Read More »Too Hard For Science? Bora Zivkovic–Centuries to Solve the Secrets of Cicadas
Red-eyed periodic cicadas emerge every 13 or 17 years, but finding out why could take millennia In ""Too Hard For Science?" I interview scientists about ideas they would love to explore that they don't think could be investigated. For instance, they might involve machines beyond the realm of possibility, such as particle accelerators as big as the sun, or they might be completely unethical, such as lethal experiments involving people. This feature aims to look at the impossible dreams, the seemingly intractable problems in science
Read More »Why Johnny Can’t Name His Colors (preview)
Subject 046M, two years old, was seated nervously across from me at the table, his hands clasped tightly together in his lap. He appeared to have caught an incurable case of the squirms. I resisted the urge to laugh and leaned forward, whispering conspiratorially.
Read More »Artificial Intelligence: If At First You Don’t Succeed…
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--The last symposium in MIT's 150-day celebration of its 150th anniversary (who ever said that geeks don't like ritual?) is devoted to the question: "Whatever happened to AI?" Of course, that is a particularly appropriate self-introspection for MIT because a lot of artificial intelligence action occurred there during the past 50 years.
Read More »Would You Like Some Vodka on Those Pancakes?
That could be the question someone might jokingly ask upon first learning of this unusual, individualistic, and hauntingly flavorful vodka from Vermont, which lends credence to the fact that it is made with the sugars from 100 percent natural maple syrup. That in itself makes Vermont Gold maple vodka ($40/$20) ...
Read More »Too Hard for Science? Creating naked singularities
Neutrino beams might create such enigmas, but dare we risk making anything so unpredictable? In "Too Hard for Science?" I interview scientists about ideas they would love to explore that they don't think could be investigated
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