The baryon asymmetry problem in physics deals with the anomaly of why the universe has any matter at all and why it is not filled with photons only. This is because the Big Bang should have produced equal amounts of what?

Matter and antimatter in the universe - IOPscience Matter and antimatter in the universe Laurent Canetti1, Marco Drewes2,3,4 and Mikhail Shaposhnikov1 Published 17 September 2012 • IOP Publishing and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft 1 ITP, EPFL, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland 2 Institut für Theoretische Teilchenphysik und Kosmologie, RWTH Aachen, D-52056 Aachen, Germany 3 Physik Department T31, Technische Universität München, James Franck Straße 1, D-85748 Garching, Germany 4 Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed. Dates View all New J. Phys. video abstracts We review observational evidence for a matter–antimatter asymmetry in the early universe, which leads to the remnant matter density we observe today. We also discuss bounds on the presence of antimatter in the present-day universe, including the possibility of a large lepton asymmetry in the cosmic neutrino background. We briefly review the theoretical framework within which baryogenesis, the dynamical generation of a matter–antimatter asymmetry, can occur. As an example, we discuss a testable minimal particle physics model that simultaneously explains the baryon asymmetry of the universe, neutrino oscillations and dark matter. Export citation and abstract Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 licence . Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. GENERAL SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY Introduction and background. Antimatter has been predicted theoretically, found experimentally and is now commonly used in medical imaging (positron emission tomography). However, no significant traces of antinuclei are found in the world around us. This immediately poses two questions: is this situation representative for the universe, and where does this asymmetry come from? Main results. To answer the first question we review the known astrophysical constraints on the existence of antimatter in the observable universe. We conclude that it is almost certain that there are no significant quantities of baryonic antimatter. Antimatter was, however, abundant in the hot primordial plasma that filled the universe after the Big Bang. As long as the temperature was high enough for pair creation to occur, matter and antimatter were present in almost equal amounts, with particles and antiparticles being continuously created and annihilated. The matter that fills the universe today originates from a small excess of particles, one in ten billion, which remained after all other particles and antiparticles had annihilated. Wider implications. To address the second question, we summarize the possible origins of this primordial asymmetry, focusing on those that may be tested experimentally in the foreseeable future. We discuss the possibility that it was created by the known forces of the standard model of particle physics (SM), concluding that this is very unlikely. Finally, we present a minimal extension of the SM in which the asymmetry is caused by right-handed neutrinos that are also responsible for other unexplained phenomena, namely the observed neutrino oscillations and dark matter. 1. Introduction The existence of antimatter is a direct consequence of combining two of the most fundamental known concepts in physics, the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. Its theoretical prediction, based on these abstract principles [ 1 ], and experimental discovery [ 2 ] represent one of the great successes of theoretical physics. At the time of its discovery, antimatter was thought to be an exact mirror of matter; all phenomena that had been observed in nature were invariant under conjugation of parity (P) and charge (C) as well as time reversal (T), and not much was known about the early history of the universe. Henceforth, the enormous matter–antimatter asymmetry of the nearby universe (complete absence of antimatter except in cosmic rays) posed a mystery that could only be explained by assuming that the universe was set up lik


Because all species of the manatee use fresh water in varying ways, what is the only strictly marine herbivorous mammal?

A future for the dugong  - ResearchOnline@JCU ResearchOnline@JCU Contacts A future for the dugong Marsh, Helene, Penrose, Helen, and Eros, Carole (2003) A future for the dugong. In: Gales, Nick, Hindell, Mark, and Kirkwood, Roger, (eds.)    Marine Mammals: fisheries, tourism and management issues.             CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, VIC, Australia, pp. 383-399. PDF (Published Version) Restricted to Repository staff only View at Publisher Website: http://www.publish.csiro.au/nid/220/issu...   2 Abstract The dugong (Dugong dugon) is the only herbivorous mammal that is strictly marine and is the only extant species in the Family Dugongidac. The other members of the order Sirenia, the three species of manatee, all use fresh water to varying degrees (Reynolds and Odell 1991). The only other recent Sirenian, Steller's sea cow, Hydrodamalis gigas, was hunted to extinction within 27 years of its discovery in the eighteenth century (Stejneger 1887). All extant members of Order Sirenia (induding the dugong) are listed as vulnerable to extinction (Hilton-Taylor 2000). All populations of the dugong are also listed on Appendix 1 of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Prospects for the survival of the dugong are the best among the Sirenia, because each manatee species has a more localised distribution than that of the dugong (Reynolds and Odell 1991). In addition, the estimates of dugong abundance in Australia which total to a mean of about 85000 individuals (Marsh et al. 1999) are much greater than have been recorded or suggested for any species of manatee. Item ID:


What cell line used in research that was taken from an African-American woman who died in 1951 is the oldest and most commonly used human cell line?

Journey of the HeLa Cells - Home Journey of the HeLa Cells Home Background of the Hela cells and the impact of hela cells throughout history  In 1951, an African-American woman named Henrietta Lacks went to Johns Hopkins Hospital to be treated for her cervical cancer.Henrietta's Doctors took tissue samples from her without her knowledge and made the first immortal cells to grow outside of the body without dying soon after. Henrietta's cells had let doctors and scientists research  cells like they never could before.They could test on the cells without harming a human which led to many advances in the medical field.  A HeLa cell is is a cell type in an immortal cell line used in scientific research. It is the oldest and most commonly used human cell line. The line was derived from cervical cancer cells taken on February 8, 1951 from Henrietta Lacks, a patient who eventually died of her cancer on October 4, 1951. The cell line was found to be remarkably durable and prolific as illustrated by its contamination of many other cell lines used in research. 1952 Biopsy The Tissue taken from Henrietta Lacks without her knowledge is depveloped into hardy cell line for scientific resarch. George Gey Polio Researchers discover that HeLa cells are suceptible to polio, paving the way for its use in the largest vaccine field trial to date. Cells Grown in Bulk Hela is used to develop processes for growing cells in bulk. Tuskegee Institue also opened the first HeLa factory and supplies cells to factories and researchers. Live Cell Transport Hela becomes the First living cells to be shipped through postal mail without killing them. 1953 A researcher working with HeLA discovers that a stain called hermatoxlin makes cell chromosomes visible 1954 Clones Thanks to the hardiness of the HeLa cell line,scientists are able to devise a method for isolating a single cell and keeping it alive long enough for it to replicate and create another perfect copy of itself. For profit- distribution of cells Microbiological Associates begin mass producing HeLa in a former Fritos factory. 1960's Space Biology 1960-  Hela was packed into a soviet satellte and sent into space before any astronaut. NASA also includes HeLa in the first manned US, discovering that cancer cells grow faster in space. Genetic hybrids 1965- My fusing HeLa and mouse cells, scientists create the first cross species hybrid. It helps in mapping human genes. Ethics 1966- after scientists inject HeLa cells into unwitting test subjects to stufy how cancer spreads, an NIH investigation leads to the institution of medical review boards and informed consent by patients. 1973 Salmonella Scientists use Hela to model the invasiveness of salmonella,gauge its infectiousness and study its behavior inside human cells. 1980's HPV 1984-A german Hirologists uses HeLa to help prove that the human papillomavirus causes cancer, a discovery that would earn him the Nobel Prize HIV 1986-Scentists figue out how to infect HeLa with HIV, shedding light on the virus infection mechanism by identifying a key receptor. Telomerase 1989-A yale researcher puplishes the discovery that the cancerous HeLa cells contain an enzyme called telomarse, which prevents cells from dying. 1990's Tuberculosis 1993- Scientists infects Hela cells witht he tuberculosis virus to learn how the bacterium attacks human cells. 2000's Nanotech 2005- Researchers subject hela to various forms of nanotech- from injecting them with wire nano-wires to testing how they absorb silica-coated nanoparticles. Create a free website


What type of creature was Lonesome George, who died in 2012 and who gained fame as the rarest creature in the world? (hint: he was aged perhaps more than 100 years)

Lonesome George | Sunstone Online Posted by James Fishman on Jun 27, 2012 in Featured | Comments Off on Bidding Adeiu to Lonesome George A dying breed has officially died in the Galapagos Islands. The world has just said goodbye to Lonesome George, believed to be the last of his sub-species. George has gained fame over the years as the world’s rarest creature, since there are no other known members of his species and he produced no offspring. Lonesome George was first discovered by a Hungarian scientist in 1971. For the past fifteen years, he’s been living at a breeding center on the island of Santa Cruz, as scientists have attempted to help him to breed, but any eggs he’s produced with females there have been infertile. He was found by his longtime keeper, Fausto Llerena, who was shocked to find his body, since tortoises can live to be 200 and he was only 100. The Galapagos National Park will have a post-mortem to discover the cause of his death. And with his passage, the sub-species of Chelonoidis nigra abingdoni has become extinct. While this breed used to be plentiful on the island, they were hunted by humans to the point of extinction.


A 15 meter long mechanical arm called the Canadarm was used to maneuver payloads through the 1980s to 2011 on what type of vehicles?

NASA's Space Shuttle - American Flyers The Space Shuttle was a partially reusable launch system and orbital spacecraft operated by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for human spaceflight missions. The system combined rocket launch, orbital spacecraft, and re-entry spaceplane with modular add-ons. The first of four orbital test flights occurred in 1981 leading to operational flights beginning in 1982. It was used on a total of 135 missions from 1981 to 2011 all launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Major missions included launching numerous satellites, interplanetary probes, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), conducting space science experiments, and constructing and servicing the International Space Station. Major components included the orbiters, recoverable boosters, external tanks, payloads, and supporting infrastructure. Five space-worthy orbiters were built; two were lost in mission accidents. The Space Shuttle at launch consisted of the Orbiter Vehicle (OV), one external tank (ET), and two Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs). It was launched vertically like a conventional rocket with thrust from the two SRBs and three main engines. During launch, the external tank provided fuel for the orbiter's main engines. The SRBs and ET were jettisoned before the orbiter reached orbit. At the conclusion of the orbiter's space mission, it fired its thrusters to drop out of orbit and re-enter the lower atmosphere. The orbiter decelerated in the atmosphere before flying like a glider but with reaction control system thrusters before landing on a long runway. Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour were the space-capable orbiters that were built. Discovery begins liftoff at the start of STS-120. Space Shuttle MMH / N2O4 Overview The Space Shuttle was a partially reuseable [2] launch system and orbital spacecraft operated by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for human spaceflight missions from 1981 to 2011. The system combined rocket launch, orbital spacecraft, and re-entry spaceplane with modular add-ons. The first of four orbital test flights occurred in 1981 leading to operational flights beginning in 1982, all launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The system was retired from service in 2011 after 135 missions; [3] on July 8, 2011, with Space Shuttle Atlantis performing that 135th launch ï¿½ the final launch of the three-decade Shuttle program. [4] The program ended after Atlantis landed at the Kennedy Space Center on July 21, 2011. Major missions included launching numerous satellites and interplanetary probes, [5] conducting space science experiments, and servicing and construction of space stations. Enterprise was a prototype orbiter used for atmospheric testing during development in the 1970s, and lacked engines and heat shield. Five space-worthy orbiters were builtï¿½two were destroyed in accidents and the others have been retired. It was used for orbital space missions by NASA, the U.S. Department of Defense, the European Space Agency, Japan, and Germany. [6] [7] The United States funded Space Transportation System (STS) development and Shuttle operations except for Spacelab D1 and D2 - sponsored by West Germany and reunified Germany respectively. [6] [8] [9] [10] [11] In addition, SL-J was partially funded by Japan. [7] At launch, it consisted of the "stack", including a dark orange-colored external tank (ET); [12] [13] two white, slender Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs); and the Orbiter Vehicle (OV), which contained the crew and payload. Some payloads were launched into higher orbits with either of two different booster stages developed for the STS (single-stage Payload Assist Module or two-stage Inertial Upper Stage). The Space Shuttle was stacked in the Vehicle Assembly Building and the stack mounted on a mobile launch platform held down by four f rangible nuts [14] on each SRB which are detonated at launch. [15] The Shuttle stack launched vertically like a conventional rocket. It lifted off under the power of its two SRBs and three main


The famed oil drop experiment performed by Millikan and Fletcher in 1909 helped determine what fundamental physical constant?

This Month in Physics History This Month in Physics History August, 1913: Robert Millikan Reports His Oil Drop Results Diagram of Millikan's apparatus, from his Physical Review paper Robert Millikan’s famous oil drop experiment, reported in August 1913, elegantly measured the fundamental unit of electric charge. The experiment, a great improvement over previous attempts to measure the charge of an electron, has been called one of the most beautiful in physics history, but is also the source of allegations of scientific misconduct on Millikan’s part. Robert Millikan was born in 1868 and grew up in rural Iowa, the second son of a minister. Millikan attended Oberlin College, earned his PhD from Columbia University, and then spent a year in Germany before taking a position at the University of Chicago. By about 1906, Millikan had become a successful educator and textbook writer, but he knew that he hadn’t done any research of real scientific significance, and was eager to make his mark as a researcher. J.J. Thomson had discovered the electron in 1897 and had measured its charge-to-mass ratio. The next step was to determine the electron’s charge separately. Thomson and others tried to measure the fundamental electric charge using clouds of charged water droplets by observing how fast they fell under the influence of gravity and an electric field. The method did give a crude estimate of the electron’s charge. Millikan saw this opportunity to make a significant contribution by improving upon these measurements. He realized that trying to determine the charge on individual droplets might work better than measuring charge on whole clouds of water. In 1909 he began the experiments, but soon found that droplets of water evaporated too quickly for accurate measurement. He asked his graduate student, Harvey Fletcher, to figure out how to do the experiment using some substance that evaporated more slowly. Fletcher quickly found that he could use droplets of oil, produced with a simple perfume atomizer. The oil droplets are injected into an air-filled chamber and pick up charge from the ionized air. The drops then fall or rise under the combined influence of gravity, viscosity of the air, and an electric field, which the experimenter can adjust. The experimenter could watch the drops through a specially designed telescope, and time how fast a drop falls or rises. After repeatedly timing the rise and fall of a drop, Millikan could calculate the charge on the drop. In 1910 Millikan published the first results from these experiments, which clearly showed that charges on the drops were all integer multiples of a fundamental unit of charge. But after the publication of those results, Viennese physicist Felix Ehrenhaft claimed to have conducted a similar experiment, measuring a much smaller value for the elementary charge. Ehrenhaft claimed this supported the idea of the existence of “subelectrons.” Ehrenhaft’s challenge prompted Millikan to improve on his experiment and collect more data to prove he was right. He published the new, more accurate results in August 1913 in the Physical Review. He stated that the new results had only a 0.2% uncertainty, a great improvement of over his previous results. Millikan’s reported value for the elementary charge, 1.592 x 10-19 coulombs, is slightly lower than the currently accepted value of 1.602 x 10-19 C, probably because Millikan used an incorrect value for the viscosity of air. It appeared that it was a beautiful experiment that had determined quite precisely the fundamental unit of electric charge, and clearly and convincingly established that “subelectrons” did not exist. Millikan won the 1923 Nobel Prize for the work, as well as for his determination of the value of Plank’s constant in 1916. But later inspection of Millikan’s lab notebooks by historians and scientists has revealed that between February and April 1912, he took data on many more oil drops than he reported in the paper. This is troubling, since the August 1913 paper explicitly states at one point, “It is to be remarked, too, that t


Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania with its high levels of diversity that includes chimpanzee populations is best associated with which person?

National Parks | African Safaris | Vacation 2 Africa Size: 552 sq km 212 sq miles). Location: Northern Tanzania, northeast of Arusha town. Getting There An easy 40-minute drive from Arusha. Approximately 60 km (35 miles) from Kilimanjaro International Airport. The lakes, forest and Ngurdoto Crater can all be visited in the course of a half-day outing at the beginning or end of an extended northern safari. NOTE: Mountain Climbing Permits duration time is 12 HOURS What to Do Forest walks, numerous picnic sites, a three- or four-day Mt. Meru climb – good acclimatisation for Kilimanjaro. When to Go To climb Mt. Meru, June – February, although it may rain in November. Best views of Kilimanjaro: December – February. Accommodations Two lodges, two rest houses, camp sites, two mountain huts inside the park; more lodges at Usa River outside the park and many hotels and hostels in Arusha town. See options. Gombe Stream National Park An excited whoop erupts from deep in the forest, boosted immediately by a dozen other voices, rising in volume and tempo and pitch to a frenzied shrieking crescendo. It is the famous ‘pant-hoot’ call: a bonding ritual that allows the participants to identify each other through their individual vocal stylisations. To the human listener, walking through the ancient forests of Gombe Stream, this spine-chilling outburst is also an indicator of imminent visual contact with man’s closest genetic relative: the chimpanzee. Gombe is the smallest of Tanzania’s national parks: a fragile strip of chimpanzee habitat straddling the steep slopes and river valleys that hem in the sandy northern shore of Lake Tanganyika. Its chimpanzees – habituated to human visitors – were made famous by the pioneering work of Jane Goodall, who in 1960 founded a behavioural research program that now stands as the longest-running study of its kind in the world. The matriarch Fifi, the last surviving member of the original community, only three-years old when Goodall first set foot in Gombe, is still regularly seen by visitors. Chimpanzees share about 98% of their genes with humans, and no scientific expertise is required to distinguish between the individual repertoires of pants, hoots and screams that define the celebrities, the powerbrokers, and the supporting characters. Perhaps you will see a flicker of understanding when you look into a chimp’s eyes, assessing you in return – a look of apparent recognition across the narrowest of species barriers. The most visible of Gombe’s other mammals are also primates. A troop of beachcomber olive baboons, under study since the 1960s, is exceptionally habituated, while red-tailed and red colobus monkeys – the latter regularly hunted by chimps – stick to the forest canopy. The park’s 200-odd bird species range from the iconic fish eagle to the jewel-like Peter’s twinspots that hop tamely around the visitors’ center. After dusk, a dazzling night sky is complemented by the lanterns of hundreds of small wooden boats, bobbing on the lake like a sprawling city. About Gombe Stream National Park Size: 52 sq km (20 sq miles), Tanzania’s smallest park. Location: 16 km (10 miles) north of Kigoma on the shore of Lake Tanganyika in western Tanzania. Getting There Kigoma is connected to Dar and Arusha by scheduled flights, to Dar and Mwanza by a slow rail service, to Mwanza, Dar and Mbeya by rough dirt roads, and to Mpulungu in Zambia by a weekly ferry. From Kigoma, local lake-taxis take up to three hours to reach Gombe, or motorboats can be chartered, taking less than one hour. What to Do Chimpanzee trekking; hiking, swimming and snorkelling; visit the site of Henry Stanley’s famous “Dr. Livingstone I presume” at Ujiji near Kigoma, and watch the renowned dhow builders at work. When to go The chimps don’t roam as far in the wet season (February-June, November-mid December) so they may be easier to find; better picture opportunities in the dry (July – October and late December). Lake Manyara National Park Stretching for 50km along the base of the rusty-gold 600-metre high Rift Valley escarpment, Lake Manyar


"In June 1696 Bernoulli addressed a letter to the mathematicians of Europe challenging them to solve two problems concerning curves. Several people including Leibniz sent solutions. Whose solution was submitted anonymously but was recognized by Bernoulli with the words ""tanquam ex ungue leonem"" (we know the lion by his claw)?"

Sir Isaac Newton facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com articles about Sir Isaac Newton (b. Woolsthorpe, England, 25 December 1642; d. London, England, 20 March 1727) mathematics, dynamics, celestial mechanics, astronomy, optics, natural philosophy. Isaac Newton was born a posthumous child, his father having been buried the preceding 6 October. Newton was descended from yeomen on both sides: there is no record of any notable ancestor. He was born prematurely, and there was considerable concern for his survival. He later said that he could have fitted into a quart mug at birth. He grew up in his father’s house, which still stands in the hamlet of Woolsthorpe, near Grantham in Lincolnshire. Newton’s mother, Hannah (née Ayscough), remarried, and left her three-year-old son in the care of his aged maternal grandmother. His stepfather, the Reverend Barnabas Smith, died in 1653; and Newton’s mother returned to Woolsthorpe with her three younger children, a son and two daughters. Their surviving children, Newton’s four nephews and four nieces, were his heirs. One niece, Catherine, kept house for Newton in the London years and married John Conduitt, who succeeded Newton as master of the Mint. Newton’s personality was no doubt influenced by his never having known his father. That he was, moreover, resentful of his mother’s second marriage and jealous of her second husband may be documented by at least one entry in a youthful catalogue of sins, written in shorthand in 1662, which records “Threatning my father and mother Smith to burne them and the house over them.” 1 In his youth Newton was interested in mechanical contrivances. He is reported to have constructed a model of a mill (powered by a mouse), clocks, “lanthorns,” and fiery kites, which he sent aloft to the fright of his neighbors, being inspired by John Bate’s Mysteries of Nature and Art. 2 He scratched diagrams and an architectural drawing (now revealed and preserved) on the walls and window edges of the Woolsthorpe house, and made many other drawings of birds, animals, men, ships, and plants. His early education was in the dame schools at Skillington and Stoke, beginning perhaps when he was five. He then attended the King’s School in Grantham, but his mother withdrew him from school upon her return to Woolsthorpe, intending to make him a farmer. He was, however, uninterested in farm chores, and absent-minded and lackadaisical. With the encouragement of John Stokes, master of the Grantham school, and William Ayscough, Newton’s uncle and rector of Burton Coggles, it was therefore decided to prepare the youth for the university. He was admitted a member of Trinity College, Cambridge, on 5 June 1661 as a subsizar, and became scholar in 1664 and Bachelor of Arts in 1665. Among the books that Newton studied while an undergraduate was Kepler’s “optics” (presumably the Dioptrice, reprinted in London in 1653). He also began Euclid, which he reportedly found “trifling,” throwing it aside for Schooten’s second Latin edition of Descartes’s Géométrie. 3 Somewhat later, on the occasion of his election as scholar, Newton was reportedly found deficient in Euclid when examined by Barrow. 4 He read Descartes’s Géométrie in a borrowed copy of the Latin version (Amsterdam, 1659–1661) with commentary by Frans van Schooten, in which there were also letters and tracts by de Beaune, Hudde, Heuraet, de Witt, and Schooten himself. Other books that he studied at this time included Oughtred’s Clavis, Wallis’ Arithmetica infinitorum, Walter Charleton’s compendium of Epicurus and Gassendi, Digby’s Two Essays, Descartes’s Principia philosophiae (as well as the Latin edition of his letters), Galileo’s Dialogo (in Salisbury’s English version)—but not, apparently, the Discorsi—Magirus’ compendium of Scholastic philosophy, Wing and Streete on astronomy, and some writings of Henry More (himself a native of Grantham), with whom Newton became acquainted in Cambridge. Somewhat later, Newton read and annotated Sprat’s History of the Royal Society, the early Philosophical Transactions, and Hooke’s M


Similar to an eclipse, they are among the rarest predictable celestial phenomena. The last one for the 21st century occurred on 5/6 June 2012. They are historically of great scientific importance as they were used to gain the first realistic estimates of the size of the Solar System. Observation for the first time in 1639 provided an accurate estimate of the distance between the Sun and the Earth. Answer?

Problems With The Fixed Stars: Do Exoplanets really exist? — A Proper Gander At Propaganda Please excuse any typos yo may come across, spell check is evil. We will correct them as we find them.Thank you. AAMorris Staff ANSWER: NO. Nature Does Not Make Mistakes People Do. If This Was Based on Natural Principle No Flaws Would Be Found Fakin' The Space Station is Explained Towards The End of This Article http://neave.com/planetarium/ The stars in the sky move as if all attached to a large dome. This is impossible if we assume they are suns with planets. They would all have to be impossibly some imagined infinite distance away from Earth and yet somehow they show no parallax, no change of relative distance from each other. The shapes of the constellations do not change over the course of the year as one would expect in a three dimensional ‘big bang’ explosion based model.  Are we to believe that the Stars are somehow infinitely far away from us and each other? How can they infinitely far from each other if we can see the relative distances between the stars? How does the cosmic scale used by today’s astronomers make any sense? The history of the speed of light is not what you might think and will be the subject of a future article. The velocity of light us an idea and the truth is it has never been measured. The velocity of light is mathematical fiction. Light might be best described as a pressure or intensity effect that propagates instantaneously.  Stellar Parallax Is Fudged! "The angles involved in these calculations are very small and thus difficult to measure. The nearest star to the Sun (and thus the star with the largest parallax), Proxima Centauri, has a parallax of 0.7687 ± 0.0003 arcsec. This angle is approximately that subtended by an object 2 centimeters in diameter located 5.3 kilometers away." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax#Stellar_parallax The constellations are not supposed to have changed shape in thousand and thousands of years. Any supposed alteration to the shapes we se in the heavens is based on theory and speculation and mathematical model fudging alone and is undetectable and won't be noticeable for millions of years (or something to that effect). Newton’s Sun centered Universe is long gone and he would think the Big Bang model insane. Newton and the rest of the heliocentrists believed the Sun sat motionless at the center of the Universe. This is not the model used today. What the Stars lack-  The stars never do this: We’d expect little to no parallax due to an imagined rotation of the Earth. But we do expect to see parallax due to the Earth’s supposed motion across the solar system. The shapes and relative positions of the stars in the sky would always be changing and there would be no set of constellations to navigate the world by. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax "As an indication of exactly how good the Ptolemaic model is, modern planetariums are built using gears and motors that essentially reproduce the Ptolemaic model for the appearance of the sky as viewed from a stationary Earth. In the planetarium projector, motors and gears provide uniform motion of the heavenly bodies. One motor moves the planet projector around in a big circle, which in this case is the deferent, and another gear or motor takes the place of the epicycle." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy The compounded motions of the modern mainstream patchwork cosmological model literally compounds the problem of the “Fixed Stars”. The shapes of the constellations and the relative distance of the stars do not change as the Earth moves around the Sun over the course of a year, or at least that is the model we are taught. This is not what one would expect in a real life, three dimensional existence. We can see how this model is flawed and how the geocentric model of Ptolemy better describes what we experience and what we can actually demonstrate with experiment. Modern cosmological ‘physics’ is not science and is propaganda and a religion. Check out the article index to read more about this. Keep in mind that in the moder


Fill in the missing word in this sentence written by Arthur Eddington in The Nature of the Physical World (1927). The law that ___ always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature.

Atom Quotes - 204 quotes on Atom Science Quotes - Dictionary of Science Quotations and Scientist Quotes Science quotes on:  |   Democritus of Abdera (14)  |   Universe (374) Als Physiker, der sein ganzes Leben der nï¿½chternen Wissenschaft, der Erforschung der Materie widmete, bin ich sicher von dem Verdacht frei, fï¿½r einen Schwarmgeist gehalten zu werden. Und so sage ich nach meinen Erforschungen des Atoms dieses: Es gibt keine Materie an sich. Alle Materie entsteht und besteht nur durch eine Kraft, welche die Atomteilchen in Schwingung bringt und sie zum winzigsten Sonnensystem des Alls zusammenhï¿½lt. Da es im ganzen Weltall aber weder eine intelligente Kraft noch eine ewige Kraft gibt - es ist der Menschheit nicht gelungen, das heiï¿½ersehnte Perpetuum mobile zu erfinden - so mï¿½ssen wir hinter dieser Kraft einen bewuï¿½ten intelligenten Geist annehmen. Dieser Geist ist der Urgrund aller Materie. As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter. — Max Planck Lecture, 'Das Wesen der Materie' [The Essence/Nature/Character of Matter], Florence, Italy (1944). Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Abt. Va, Rep. 11 Planck, Nr. 1797. Excerpt in Gregg Braden, The Spontaneous Healing of Belief: Shattering the Paradigm of False Limits (2009), 334-35. Note: a number of books showing this quote cite it as from Planck's Nobel Prize acceptance speech (1918), which the Webmaster has checked, and does not see this quote therein. Science quotes on:  |   Consciousness  |   Virtue (33) Den fï¿½rslags-mening: att olika element fï¿½renade med ett lika antal atomer af ett eller flere andra gemensamma element ï¿½ och att likheten i krystallformen bestï¿½mmes helt och hï¿½llet af antalet af atomer, och icke af elementens. [Mitscherlich Law of Isomerism] The same number of atoms combined in the same way produces the same crystalline form, and the same crystalline form is independent of the chemical nature of the atoms, and is determined only by their number and relative position. — Eilhard Mitscherlich Original Swedish from 'Om Fï¿½rhï¿½llandet emellan chemiska sammansï¿½ttningen och krystallformen hos Arseniksyrade och Phosphorsyrade Salter', Kungl. Svenska vetenskapsakademiens handlingar (1821), 4. In English as expressed later by James F.W. Johnston, 'Report on the Recent Progress and present State of Chemical Science', to Annual Meeting at Oxford (1832), collected in Report of the First and Second Meetings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1833), 422. A Google raw translation of the Swedish is: ï¿½The present proposal-sense: that various elements associated with an equal number of atoms of one or several other common elements ï¿½ and that the similarity in: crystal shape is determined entirely by the number of atoms, and not by the elements.ï¿½ Science quotes on:  |   Chemical Nature is curious, and such worke may make, That our dull sense can never finde, but scape. For Creatures, small as Atomes, may be there, If every Atome a Creatures Figure beare. If foure Atomes a World can make, then see What severall Worlds might in an Eare--ring bee: For Millions of these Atomes may bee in The Head of one Small, little, Single Pin. And if thus Small, then Ladies may well weare A World of Worlds, as Pendents in each Eare. From 'Of Many Worlds in this World', in Poems and Fancies (1653), 44-5. Science quotes on:  |   Poetry (83) [About describing atomic models in the language of classical physics:] We must be clear that when it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images and establi


What systems are classified based on their visual appearance by the Hubble sequence?

Galaxy morphological classification : Wikis (The Full Wiki) Main article: Hubble sequence The Hubble sequence is a morphological classification scheme for galaxies invented by Edwin Hubble in 1936. [1] It is often known colloquially as the “Hubble tuning-fork” because of the shape in which it is traditionally represented. Hubble’s scheme divides galaxies into 3 broad classes based on their visual appearance (originally on photographic plates ): Tuning-fork style diagram of the Hubble sequence Elliptical galaxies have smooth, featureless light distributions and appear as ellipses in images. They are denoted by the letter E, followed by an integer n representing their degree of ellipticity on the sky. Spiral galaxies consist of a flattened disk, with stars forming a (usually two-armed) spiral structure, and a central concentration of stars known as the bulge , which is similar in appearance to an elliptical galaxy . They are given the symbol S. Roughly half of all spirals are also observed to have a bar-like structure, extending from the central bulge. These barred spirals are given the symbol SB. Lenticular galaxies (designated S0) also consist of a bright central bulge surrounded by an extended, disk-like structure but, unlike spiral galaxies , the disks of lenticular galaxies have no visible spiral structure and are not actively forming stars in any significant quantity. These broad classes can be extended to enable finer distinctions of appearance and to encompass other types of galaxy, such as irregular galaxies , which have no obvious regular structure (either disk-like or ellipsoidal). The Hubble sequence is often represented in the form of a two-pronged fork, with the ellipticals on the left (with the degree of ellipticity increasing from left to right) and the barred and unbarred spirals forming the two parallel prongs of the fork. Lenticular galaxies are placed between the ellipticals and the spirals, at the point where the two prongs meet the “handle”. To this day, the Hubble sequence is the most commonly used system for classifying galaxies, both in professional astronomical research and in amateur astronomy . de Vaucouleurs system NGC 6782 : a spiral galaxy (type SB(r)0/a) with three rings of different radii, as well as a bar. NGC 7793 : a spiral galaxy of type SA(s)d. The Large Magellanic Cloud : a type SBm galaxy. The de Vaucouleurs system for classifying galaxies is a widely used extension to the Hubble sequence , first described by Gérard de Vaucouleurs in 1959. [2] de Vaucouleurs argued that Hubble's two-dimensional classification of spiral galaxies - based on the tightness of the spiral arms and the presence or absence of a bar - did not adequately describe the full range of observed galaxy morphologies. In particular, he argued that rings and lenses were important structural components of spiral galaxies. [3] The de Vaucouleurs system retains Hubble’s basic division of galaxies into ellipticals , lenticulars , spirals and irregulars . To complement Hubble’s scheme, de Vaucouleurs introduced a more elaborate classification system for spiral galaxies, based on three morphological characteristics: Bars. Galaxies are divided on the basis of the presence or absence of a nuclear bar. de Vaucouleurs introduced the notation SA to denote spiral galaxies without bars, complementing Hubble’s use of SB for barred spirals. He also allowed for an intermediate class, denoted SAB, containing weakly barred spirals. Lenticular galaxies are also classified as unbarred (SA0) or barred (SB0), with the notation S0 reserved for those galaxies for which it is impossible to tell if a bar is present or not (usually because they are edge-on to the line-of-sight). Rings. Galaxies are divided into those possessing ring-like structures (denoted ‘(r)’) and those without rings (denoted ‘(s)’). So-called ‘transition’ galaxies are given the symbol (rs). Spiral arms. As in Hubble’s original scheme, spiral galaxies are assigned to a class based primarily on the tightness of their spiral arms. The de Vaucouleurs scheme extends the arms of


The development of the immuno-suppressant drug ciclosporin in the 1980s gave a fillip to what type of surgeries?

Immunosuppressive Medications You are here: Home / Lupus Treatment / Lupus Medications / Immunosuppressive Medications Immunosuppressive Medications Nitrogen mustard (Mustargen) What are immunosuppressive medications? Immunosuppressives are medications that help suppress the immune system. Many were originally used in patients who received organ transplants to help prevent their bodies from rejecting the transplanted organ. However, these drugs are now also used for the treatment of certain autoimmune diseases, such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. In people with lupus, the immune system mistakenly attacks the body’s own tissues. Most immunosuppressives work to downregulate (suppress) this attack by interfering with the synthesis of DNA, the material in your cells that contains the blueprints for all of your genetic information. In doing this, these medications prevent the cells of your immune system from dividing. When cells cannot divide correctly, they will eventually die. The immunosuppressives prescribed most commonly for the treatment of lupus are azathioprine (Imuran), mycophenolate (Cellcept), and cyclosporine (Neoral, Sandimmune, Gengraf). Immunosuppressive medications are used to control more serious lupus activity that affects major organs, including the kidney, brain, cardiovascular system, and lungs. Before prescribing an immunosuppressive medication, your doctor may perform a biopsy of the kidney or affected organ system to evaluate the most effective course of treatment. Sometimes immunosuppressive medications are given in addition to or instead of steroid therapy to lower the dose of steroids needed and thus spare some of the undesirable side effects of steroid therapy. For this reason, these drugs are sometimes called “steroid-sparing” medications or “adjuvant” (helping) drugs. Steroid-sparing drugs usually have a two-fold benefit, since they often reduce or eliminate the need for steroids while also improving lupus symptoms. Because immunosuppressive drugs put down the immune system, people taking them are at an increased risk for infection. Try to stay away from people who have colds or other illnesses, and make sure to wash your hands regularly and maintain good personal hygiene. If you are also taking steroid medications, you may not realize that you are ill because the steroid may suppress your fever symptoms. Contact your doctor immediately at the first sign of any infection or illness. In addition, immunosuppressive medications are known to increase the risk of cancer development later in life. However, lupus itself is also known to increase the risk of cancer, so by controlling your lupus now and preventing it from doing further damage to your body, immunosuppressive therapy may actually decrease your risk of developing cancer. Either way, it is very important to control your lupus activity now to prevent other potentially life-threatening complications. Types of Immunosuppressive Medications Azathioprine (Imuran) Imuran is an anti-inflammatory immunosuppressive that can decrease joint damage and disability in people with lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and other conditions. In addition, Imuran has proven to clearly improve lupus affecting the liver and kidneys. Imuran is “steroid-sparing,” which means that it may allow for a reduction of the amount of steroid being taken. Since the side effects of steroids generally increase with the dosage, this medication generally promotes a reduction in steroid side effects as well. People with lupus have overactive immune systems. Imuran works by preventing some of the cells involved in this immune response (specifically, white blood cells [WBCs], or leukocytes) from spreading. Imuran is a “slow onset” drug, which means it may take 6-12 weeks for you to notice its effects. It usually comes in pill form and has fewer side effects than many other immunosuppressive medications. The most common and serious side effects involve the stomach and blood cells. Nausea and vomiting can occur, sometimes with stomach pain and diarrhea. Taking the medication with food may


What was the subject of astronomer Fred Whipple's 'Dirty Snowball' hypothesis?

International Space Hall of Fame :: New Mexico Museum of Space History :: Inductee Profile USA Inducted in 1984 Established the first optical tracking system for satellites, proposed the 'dirty snowball' theory of comet formation. Fred Lawrence Whipple was born on November 5, 1906, on a farm outside of Red Oak, Iowa. While he was a teenager his father sold the farm and moved the family to Long Beach, California, where Fred worked in the family grocery store. He graduated from Long Beach High School in 1923, and enrolled in Occidental College in Los Angeles, hoping to become a professional tennis player. After transferring to the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), he reluctantly abandoned tennis and by his junior year became interested in astronomy. He received a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics from UCLA in 1927, then enrolled at University of California, Berkeley in 1929, teaching astronomy while pursuing a Ph.D. in the subject. After earning his doctorate in 1931, Whipple transferred to the staff of the Harvard College Observatory. While still a graduate student, Whipple helped map the orbit of Pluto, discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930. Working out of the Harvard Observatory, Whipple discovered or co-discovered five comets and asteroid 1252 Celestia. During World War II, he aided the war effort by inventing a system to counteract German radar by cutting up thousands of fragments of aluminum foil (chaff) to create false radar readings, hiding real targets with radar "static." Anticipating threats to the spacecraft of the future from space debris, in 1946, Fred Whipple invented the "meteor bumper," now known as the Whipple Shield. A thin outer skin of metal, it protects spacecraft by disintegrating space debris such as small asteroids when they impacted the shield. His invention is still used by NASA to protect spacecraft. Dr. Fred Whipple may be best known for his "dirty snowball" theory on the substance of comets in 1950. He argued that comets were primarily ice with some rock mixed in, rather than materials such as sand held together by gravity, as was the more accepted belief at the time. Dr. Whipple believed that as a comet approached a star, light from the star vaporized ice in the comet's nucleus. The jets of particles that resulted acted like rocket engines that either slowed or accelerated the comet. He also theorized that the glowing comet tails contained particles that originated from frozen reservoirs in comet nuclei. Whipple was proven correct in 1986, when the European Space Agency's Giotto spacecraft took close-up photographs of Haley's comet. Fred Whipple was director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) in Cambridge, Massachusetts from 1955 to 1973. Under his leadership, the SAO developed a network of Baker-Nunn cameras that achieved spectacular success in tracking man-made satellites. Anticipating the era of artificial satellites, he had organized the "Moonwatch" group to track them. His was the only organization able to make observations on Sputnik I, man's first satellite, launched by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957. During the International Geophysical Year (1957-1958), Dr. Whipple headed a team formed by the National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Foundation, responsible for developing an optical satellite tracking system. His techniques for photographically measuring the speeds and decelerations of meteors, his methods for computing the orbits of comets and asteroids, and his theoretical model for describing the structure of the comets are still scientific standards. President John F. Kennedy honored Fred Whipple for his tracking project with an Award for Distinguished Public Service in 1963. Whipple also received the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1983, the Bruce Medal of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific in 1986, and the Henry Norris Russell Lectureship of the American Astronomical Society the next year. In 1968, Dr. Whipple set up the Mount Hopkins Observatory near Amado, Arizona. One of the world's premier obs


In physics, what is the more common term for the Einstein-Rosen bridge that has fascinating implications for time travel?

Time travel for beginners Is time travel possible ? John and Mary Gribbin In one of the wildest developments in     serious science for decades, researchers from California     to Moscow have recently been investigating the     possibility of time travel. They are not, as yet,     building TARDIS lookalikes in their laboratories; but     they have realised that according to the equations of     Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity (the best     theory of time and space we have), there is nothing in     the laws of physics to prevent time travel. It may be     extremely difficult to put into practice; but it is not     impossible. It sounds like science fiction, but it     is taken so seriously by relativists that some of them     have proposed that there must be a law of nature to     prevent time travel and thereby prevent paradoxes     arising, even though nobody has any idea how such a law     would operate. The classic paradox, of course, occurs     when a person travels back in time and does something to     prevent their own birth -- killing their granny as a     baby, in the more gruesome example, or simply making sure     their parents never get together, as in Back to the     Future. It goes against commonsense, say the sceptics, so     there must be a law against it. This is more or less the     same argument that was used to prove that space travel is     impossible. So what do Einstein's equations tell     us, if pushed to the limit? As you might expect, the     possibility of time travel involves those most extreme     objects, black holes. And since Einstein's theory is a     theory of space and time, it should be no surprise that     black holes offer, in principle, a way to travel through     space, as well as through time. A simple black hole won't     do, though. If such a black hole formed out of a lump of     non-rotating material, it would simply sit in space,     swallowing up anything that came near it. At the heart of     such a black hole there is a point known as a     singularity, where space and time cease to exist, and     matter is crushed to infinite density. Thirty years ago,     Roger Penrose (now of Oxford University) proved that     anything which falls into such a black hole must be drawn     into the singularity by its gravitational pull, and also     crushed out of existence. But, also in the 1960s, the New Zealand     mathematician Roy Kerr found that things are different if     the black hole is rotating. A singularity still forms,     but in the form of a ring, like the mint with a hole. In     principle, it would be possible to dive into such a black     hole and through the ring, to emerge in another place and     another time. This "Kerr solution" was the     first mathematical example of a time machine, but at the     time nobody took it seriously. At the time, hardly     anybody took the idea of black holes seriously, and     interest in the Kerr solution only really developed in     the 1970s, after astronmers discovered what seem to be     real black holes, both in our own Milky Way Galaxy and in     the hearts of other galaxies. This led to a rash of popular     publications claiming, to the annoyance of many     relativists, that time travel might be possible. In the     1980s, though, Kip Thorne, of CalTech (one of the world's     leading experts in the general theory of relativity), and     his colleagues set out to prove once and for all that     such nonsense wasn't really allowed by Einstein's equations. They studied the situation from all sides, but     were forced to the unwelcome conclusion that there really     was nothing in the equations to prevent time travel,     provided (and it is a big proviso) you have the     technology to manipulate black holes. As well as the Kerr     solution, there are other k


"""It was as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a sheet of tissue paper and it came back to hit you."" Who is the 20th century scientist who is describing his most famous experiment in the above words?"

NZEDGE Legends — Ernest Rutherford, Nuclear Physicist — Scientists Atom Man STORY BY BRIAN SWEENEY AND JACQUELINE OWENS. The creator of modern atomic physics and forerunner of the nuclear age, Rutherford was one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1908 and a baronetcy in 1931, choosing the title Baron Rutherford of Nelson. In the words of Einstein, he was “a second Newton”, the man who “tunneled into the very material of God”: inventor, experimenter and Nelson farm boy. Rutherford’s strengths as a scientist are legion. A prolific, practical inventor and scientific theorist, his ideas were based on rigorous experimentation. He was one of the original “demo or die” scientists, turning conjecture into fact. He attributed his willingness to experiment and find unorthodox solutions to his hardscrabble background in rural New Zealand: “We don’t have the money, so we have to think”. Three Discoveries Ernest Rutherford’s three major discoveries shaped modern science, created nuclear physics and changed the way that we envisage the structure of the atom. Rutherford’s first discovery was that elements are not immutable, but can change their structure naturally, from heavy elements to slightly lighter. This led to him being awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1908, at the age of 37, for his work on the transmutation of elements and the chemistry of radioactive material. His second discovery, the nuclear model of the atom, became the basis for how we see the atom today: a tiny nucleus surrounded by orbiting electrons. Rutherford in the Caverndish lab He built on this discovery for his third great achievement, the splitting of the atom, making him, as John Campbell says, in his biography of Rutherford in The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, “the world’s first successful alchemist”. Counting The Beats Ernest Rutherford was born in Brightwater, near Nelson, New Zealand, in 1871.  He was the fourth child and second son of 12 children, to James Rutherford, a mechanic, wheelwright, engineer, flax-miller and farmer and his wife, Martha Thompson, a school teacher before her marriage. Both parents were keen that their children gain an education, and were supporters of the small local schools where Rutherford and his brothers and sisters began their schooling. Martha ensured the Rutherford children completed their homework with the dictum, “All knowledge is power.” From an early age Rutherford was distinguished at school for his arithmetical abilities and his scientific curiosity. Both qualities were encouraged by his early teachers, Harry Ladley at Foxhill and Jacob Reynolds at Havelock School. Reynolds gave extra lessons in Latin and algebra for children of above average ability, including brothers Ernest and Jim Rutherford. Rutherford’s early education, from school, from his family and from exploring the local farms and countryside with his siblings, awakened his interest in science and developed the the keen observational skills that are essential for the scientific mind. A school science text-book told of a method for determining the distance of an enemy’s cannon, a method which Rutherford adapted to local surroundings during an electrical storm at Foxhill. As Eugene Grayland recounts in Famous New Zealanders in a reconstruction of an anecdote from Rutherfrod’s childhood: “James Rutherford, who had got out of bed to check on the storm, was surprised, more so when he heard his son talking to himself softly.” ‘Ernest, what’s up, my boy?’ he called out. ‘I’m counting,’ the boy called back. ‘Counting?’ There was a rumble of thunder which shook the house. ‘Yes. If you count the seconds between the flash and the thunder clap and allow 1,200 feet for each second for the sound to travel, you can tell how close you are to the storm centre.’ “ Rutherford Family, early 1883 Left to Right: Charles (8 yrs), Ernest (11 yrs), Florence (6 yrs), Martha (40 yrs), James (10 yrs), Herbert (9 yrs) Appropriately, Rutherford’s first recorded experiment was a cannon constructed from the brass t


Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo that was established in 1925 as Africa's first national park was created mainly to protect what animal?

The Battle for Virunga, Africa's Oldest National Park The Battle for Africa's Oldest National Park The mystery surrounding a wounded conservationist, and the fight for war-torn Virunga The waters of Lake Edward have finally grown calm as Josué Kambasu revs his pirogue's outboard motor, steering the craft past the local pod of hippos before heading toward the fishing boats returning with their previous night's catch. Kambasu, the head of a local fishermen's cooperative, has invited me on an early morning tour of the lake—located within Virunga National Park in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Plagued by decades of overfishing, he tells me, Edward's stocks of tilapia, bagrid catfish, and the eel-like protopteur have begun to recover. To prove it, he’s hoping to show me pêche de Merode—local slang for a bumper catch and a testament to the park’s chief warden, Emmanuel de Merode, whose strong enforcement of fishing regulations has helped drive the industry’s revival. NG Staff Despite de Merode's popularity on the lake, it's a sensitive time to be discussing his record. Two weeks earlier, on April 15, the 44-year-old Belgian had been ambushed while driving to Virunga's Rumangabo headquarters, shot by unknown gunmen. Although he was widely admired for upholding the law in a region long defined by lawlessness, his work also had given him many enemies: poachers, illegal charcoal harvesters, and members of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a rebel militia founded by the ethnic Hutu perpetrators of Rwanda's 1994 genocide who have long hunted the park's animals for bush meat, cut down its trees, and built bases in its vast remote areas. Along the way, they have often clashed with park rangers and raped and looted local populations. In addition, de Merode had been a leading critic of oil exploration inside the park, currently being carried out by London-based Soco International. Under a contract signed with the DRC government in 2010, Soco has access to a block of land that includes 1,500 square miles of the park—roughly 50 percent—including much of Virunga's southern and central sectors and the two-thirds of Lake Edward that falls within the DRC's borders. Fishermen haul in their nets near the southern shores of Lake Edward in the village of Vitshumbi. They, along with some 20,000 other residents of Vitshumbi, rely on the lake’s resources to earn a living. Photograph by Brent Stirton, Getty Images On May 1, as de Merode was recovering from the shooting in Nairobi, Kenya, and preparing for his eventual return to the park three weeks later, Soco contractors began recording seismic data from the lake floor. In the coming weeks, data they collect will be used to determine whether there are underground formations that might hold extractable oil. It's a prospect, Kambasu tells me, that worries many in his home village of Vitshumbi, located at the southern end of Lake Edward. Almost entirely dependent on fishing, Vitshumbi's 20,000 residents fear a future of invasive rigs, polluted waters, and disrupted fish-spawning zones. But they also worry about potential violence, which has plagued the area for 20 years as multiple militia groups (some backed by neighboring countries) have fought the Congolese military and each other. Now the villagers see potential threats from powerful political actors vying for a piece of possible oil contracts; by armed groups targeting oil infrastructure for profit; and by local youths who, like many across the region, can't find work and often join militias out of desperation. For now, though, there's little Vitshumbi's fishermen can do but cast their nets and hope. Blocked off Virunga National Park stretches along the Albertine Rift in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and includes parts of Lake Edward’s shore. Almost two-thirds of the lake and about half of the park are within Block 5, an oil and gas exploration area accessible to Soco International. NG Staff. Source: Soco International Emmanuel de Merode was driving to Rumangabo station from Goma on


"The Montreal Protocol that went into force in 1989 and which was hailed by Kofi Annan as ""... the single most successful international agreement to date ..."" was aimed at protecting what?"

Negotiating the Montreal Protocol on Protecting the Ozone Layer - Association for Diplomatic Studies and TrainingAssociation for Diplomatic Studies and Training Moments in U.S. Diplomatic History Negotiating the Montreal Protocol on Protecting the Ozone Layer More Moments in U.S. Diplomatic History As global concerns grow over the effect of climate change and the devastating effects it already is beginning to have on agriculture, wildlife and the economies of lesser developed countries, there has been increasing despair that such issues are too great and that the international community will never be able to agree on a robust course of action. And yet, from the not-too-distant past, is a stunning example of just what the world can do when faced with a seemingly intractable environmental problem. Only 30 years ago, scientists were deeply concerned over the growing hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica, which helps absorb harmful ultraviolet radiation and which was caused by man-made chemicals, such as refrigerants . That spurred countries, primarily the U.S. and the European Community, to reach an agreement on limiting and then eliminating these chemicals — the Montreal Protocol.   The Protocol supplements the 1985 Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, a simple framework for cooperation and research which said very little about emissions. It is far more substantive and is designed to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production of numerous substances that are responsible for ozone depletion. The treaty was opened for signature on September 16, 1987; it entered into force on January 1, 1989 and since then, has undergone eight revisions. The two ozone treaties have been ratified by 197 parties, which include 196 states and the European Union, making them the first universally ratified treaties in United Nations history. As a result of the Protocol, recent studies now indicate that the ozone hole in Antarctica is slowly recovering. Climate projections show that the ozone layer will return to 1980 levels between 2050 and 2070. Due to its widespread adoption and implementation it has been hailed as an example of exceptional co-operation. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called it “perhaps the single most successful international agreement to date.” Key reasons for its success include resourceful ways of reaching compromise between the U.S. and EC positions, effective burden-sharing and solutions which mitigated regional conflicts of interest, and involving industry representatives in the negotiations. This stands in stark contrast to the foundering  negotiations on climate change, which have had only government representatives and less buy-in from key countries, such as China and the U.S. Robert Reinstein served with the Department of State as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Environment, Health and Natural Resources from 1990 to 1993 and as chief U.S. negotiator for the UN Convention on Climate Change and for the Montreal Protocol to Protect the Ozone Layer. Prior to that he served  as a trade negotiator at the White House Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), responsible for coordinating US trade policy for energy, chemicals, natural resources and environment.  You can also read the extensive three-part Moment on the negotiations on UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Go here to read about the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) , at  the 1995 Beijing’s Women Conference  and on the Convention on Chemical Weapons .   “They’re getting way into trade and they’re over their heads because it’s not just environment”   REINSTEIN: At the time I was at the U.S. Trade Representative, responsible for energy, chemicals, and natural resources. I had been doing that for most of the ‘80s. In ’86 a colleague who was working with me was on detail from EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] had been going to meetings at the State Department in preparation for a treaty to limit ozone-depleting substances, chemicals that destroy the stratospheric ozone layer, the biggest ones being the C


The terms anadromous and catadromous describe what type of living thing referring to its mode of migration? (hint: 'ana' is up and 'cata' is down in Greek)

The Natural World: Migrating Fish: Anadromous or Catadromous? Wednesday, November 27, 2013 Migrating Fish: Anadromous or Catadromous? According to Merriam-Webster's online edition, the word "anadromous" means "ascending rivers from the sea for breeding."  This word is almost always used in conjunction with fish , as they are the main type of animal that do this.  There are a number of fish that are defined as anadromous, but of particular import for us are several types of salmon, including the Coho, steelhead, Chinook, and sockeye salmons. You don't have to be in a school (of fish) to hypothesize that there might be a group of fish that behave in an opposite manner from the anadromous fish.  "I'll take the bait," you're saying.  "What's the opposite of an anadromous fish?"  Let's break the word apart.  First, we can break off the root "ana," a Greek root which means "up."  For you chemistry buffs out there, you might have felt an electric current running up your spine, as you've probably thought of the word "anion," a term used to describe an ion that contains more electrons than it does protons, giving the atom an overall negative charge.  If you follow the flow of my logic*, you might be thinking of the opposite of an anion: a "cation," or an ion that contains fewer electrons than it does protons, giving the atom an overall positive charge.  So judging from this chemistry example, you can either conclude that, A) The opposite of anadromous is likely something along the lines of "catadromous," or, B) I give really long and tangential comparisons that are neither helpful or correct.  Fortunately for you guys, option A is the correct one.  The opposite of an anadromous fish is, indeed, a catadromous fish.  To learn more about the life cycle of a catadromous fish, let's travel to the eastern coast of North America , and meet Anguilla rostrata, the North American eel.  (And yes, eels are a type of fish.) To learn more about the life cycle of the North American eel, I consulted the website of the Penobscot River Restoration Trust .  According to the Trust, mature Anguilla rostrata leave their brackish or freshwater homes and migrate to the Sargasso Sea in the fall.  The Sargasso Sea is not actually a distinct sea, but instead a large region of the Atlantic Ocean where a holopelagic species of seaweed called Sargassum reproduces.  The term "holopelagic" simply refers to the fact that, unlike other seaweeds, Sargassum does not require the presence of the ocean floor to reproduce, and can instead reproduce while just floating around in the ocean, or in the pelagic zone.  In turn, the pelagic zone is simply defined as an area of a body of water that is neither close to shore nor close to the bottom.  I remember when my family and I went on the Tybee Island Ecology Tour with Dr. Joe Richardson several years ago in Georgia , Dr. Joe commented on the large amount of Sargassum that was on the beach that day.  I've recently talked with Dr. Joe about the Sargassum, as well as the North American eel, and this interview will be the subject of our next post. As winter rolls around, the adult eel spawns....then dies.  Sad day for the grown up eels.  Their eggs , however, hatch after a few days, and the young develop into a larval stage (which are then called leptocephali) that simply drift around for a few months.  Their days of floating casually around the ocean end as they enter the Gulf Stream, and are carried north towards North America.  Once the larvae find themselves near the continental shelf, they transform into what are called "glass eels," miniature little eels that, as you could probably guess from the name, are transparent! It's not over for these eels yet, though!  Next, the young reach the estuaries, transitional areas along the coast where the rivers meet the sea.  Once the summer rolls around, it is in the estuaries that the eels enter the next stage of their life.  In this phase, the young eels are called "elvers," a name for a juvenile fish that is specific to eels.  After making their way into their adult habitat, the


"What's the missing word in this paraphrase of Stephen Hawking's statement that the universe has not existed forever? ""It's true because if it were not, all things would be the same ___."""

The Beginning of TIme - Stephen Hawking Stephen Hawking The Beginning of Time This lecture is the intellectual property of Professor S.W.Hawking. You may not reproduce, edit, translate, distribute, publish or host this document in any way with out the permission of Professor Hawking. Note that there may be incorrect spellings, punctuation and/or grammar in this document. This is to allow correct pronunciation and timing by a speech synthesiser. In this lecture, I would like to discuss whether time itself has a beginning, and whether it will have an end. All the evidence seems to indicate, that the universe has not existed forever, but that it had a beginning, about 15 billion years ago. This is probably the most remarkable discovery of modern cosmology. Yet it is now taken for granted. We are not yet certain whether the universe will have an end. When I gave a lecture in Japan, I was asked not to mention the possible re-collapse of the universe, because it might affect the stock market. However, I can re-assure anyone who is nervous about their investments that it is a bit early to sell: even if the universe does come to an end, it won't be for at least twenty billion years. By that time, maybe the GATT trade agreement will have come into effect.  The time scale of the universe is very long compared to that for human life. It was therefore not surprising that until recently, the universe was thought to be essentially static, and unchanging in time. On the other hand, it must have been obvious, that society is evolving in culture and technology. This indicates that the present phase of human history can not have been going for more than a few thousand years. Otherwise, we would be more advanced than we are. It was therefore natural to believe that the human race, and maybe the whole universe, had a beginning in the fairly recent past. However, many people were unhappy with the idea that the universe had a beginning, because it seemed to imply the existence of a supernatural being who created the universe. They preferred to believe that the universe, and the human race, had existed forever. Their explanation for human progress was that there had been periodic floods, or other natural disasters, which repeatedly set back the human race to a primitive state.  This argument about whether or not the universe had a beginning, persisted into the 19th and 20th centuries. It was conducted mainly on the basis of theology and philosophy, with little consideration of observational evidence. This may have been reasonable, given the notoriously unreliable character of cosmological observations, until fairly recently. The cosmologist, Sir Arthur Eddington, once said, 'Don't worry if your theory doesn't agree with the observations, because they are probably wrong.' But if your theory disagrees with the Second Law of Thermodynamics, it is in bad trouble. In fact, the theory that the universe has existed forever is in serious difficulty with the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The Second Law, states that disorder always increases with time. Like the argument about human progress, it indicates that there must have been a beginning. Otherwise, the universe would be in a state of complete disorder by now, and everything would be at the same temperature. In an infinite and everlasting universe, every line of sight would end on the surface of a star. This would mean that the night sky would have been as bright as the surface of the Sun. The only way of avoiding this problem would be if, for some reason, the stars did not shine before a certain time.  In a universe that was essentially static, there would not have been any dynamical reason, why the stars should have suddenly turned on, at some time. Any such "lighting up time" would have to be imposed by an intervention from outside the universe. The situation was different, however, when it was realised that the universe is not static, but expanding. Galaxies are moving steadily apart from each other. This means that they were closer together in the past. One can plot the separation of two galaxi


On 25 December 1990 while working at CERN, he implemented the first successful communication between a HTTP client and server via the Internet. In less than 10 years, Time named him as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century. Who?

Brief History of the Internet - Internet Timeline | Internet Society Brief History of the Internet Home » The Internet » What Is the Internet? » History of the Internet » Brief History of the Internet Brief History of the Internet Authors Introduction The Internet has revolutionized the computer and communications world like nothing before. The invention of the telegraph, telephone, radio, and computer set the stage for this unprecedented integration of capabilities. The Internet is at once a world-wide broadcasting capability, a mechanism for information dissemination, and a medium for collaboration and interaction between individuals and their computers without regard for geographic location. The Internet represents one of the most successful examples of the benefits of sustained investment and commitment to research and development of information infrastructure. Beginning with the early research in packet switching, the government, industry and academia have been partners in evolving and deploying this exciting new technology. Today, terms like "bleiner@computer.org" and "http://www.acm.org" trip lightly off the tongue of the random person on the street. 1 This is intended to be a brief, necessarily cursory and incomplete history. Much material currently exists about the Internet, covering history, technology, and usage. A trip to almost any bookstore will find shelves of material written about the Internet. 2 In this paper, 3 several of us involved in the development and evolution of the Internet share our views of its origins and history. This history revolves around four distinct aspects. There is the technological evolution that began with early research on packet switching and the ARPANET (and related technologies), and where current research continues to expand the horizons of the infrastructure along several dimensions, such as scale, performance, and higher-level functionality. There is the operations and management aspect of a global and complex operational infrastructure. There is the social aspect, which resulted in a broad community of Internauts working together to create and evolve the technology. And there is the commercialization aspect, resulting in an extremely effective transition of research results into a broadly deployed and available information infrastructure. The Internet today is a widespread information infrastructure, the initial prototype of what is often called the National (or Global or Galactic) Information Infrastructure. Its history is complex and involves many aspects - technological, organizational, and community. And its influence reaches not only to the technical fields of computer communications but throughout society as we move toward increasing use of online tools to accomplish electronic commerce, information acquisition, and community operations. Origins of the Internet The first recorded description of the social interactions that could be enabled through networking was a series of memos written by J.C.R. Licklider of MIT in August 1962 discussing his "Galactic Network" concept. He envisioned a globally interconnected set of computers through which everyone could quickly access data and programs from any site. In spirit, the concept was very much like the Internet of today. Licklider was the first head of the computer research program at DARPA, 4 starting in October 1962. While at DARPA he convinced his successors at DARPA, Ivan Sutherland, Bob Taylor, and MIT researcher Lawrence G. Roberts, of the importance of this networking concept. Leonard Kleinrock at MIT published the first paper on packet switching theory in July 1961 and the first book on the subject in 1964. Kleinrock convinced Roberts of the theoretical feasibility of communications using packets rather than circuits, which was a major step along the path towards computer networking. The other key step was to make the computers talk together. To explore this, in 1965 working with Thomas Merrill, Roberts connected the TX-2 computer in Mass. to the Q-32 in California with a low speed dial-up telephone line creating


Princess Irene, Carnaval de Nice, Hollandia and Blue Parrot are some of the varieties of what spring beauties?

September 2011 Newsletter - the Dependable Daylily September 2011 Newsletter - the Dependable Daylily September 2011 Newsletter from Mary's Garden Patch THE DEPENDABLE DAYLILY Did you know you can plant Daylilies in both the spring and fall? Daylilies are adaptable and vigorous perennials that are among our most popular flowers. The Daylily, which isn't a lily at all, is a cultivar of the genus Hemerocolis. This Greek word is made up of "hemera" (day) and "Kalos" (beautiful). Since each lily-like flower only lasts one day, it's an appropriate name. To make up for this short life-span each Daylily flower stalk has many flowers. In fact, established clumps can produce 200-400 flowers in a season! Daylily flowers come in many brilliant colors, shades and combinations. They can be full and round and have wide petals with ruffled edges, like Siloam Plum Tree . Other Daylilies have thin spidery petals like Frans Hals , and some have double the number of petals and sepals like Kwanzo . Most Daylilies have narrow and arching leaves. There are over 60,000 registered cultivars. Why plant Daylilies? Well, many say it's the perfect perennial because they: can survive in a wide range of climates, from Zones 1 through 11 so everyone can grow Daylilies no matter where they live; provide a multitude of brightly colored flowers and a variety of sizes and shapes; multiply quickly, doubling or tripling every year; establish quickly, grow vigorously and survive winters with little or no injury; are low maintenance and have relatively few pests; are suitable for all types of landscapes; are very adaptable to different soils and light conditions and can tolerate a wide range of different growing conditions. Daylilies can be used to fill in difficult spots that fussier plants reject. They are great in the border, planted in masses or as a ground cover on a slope where they form a dense mat in just a few years that will help control soil erosion and suppress weeds. Tall Daylilies like Bengaleer will color up the back of the border throughout the summer if you pick early ( Breathless Beauty ), mid ( Catherine Woodbury ) and late ( Chicago Apache ) season varieties. Daylilies like Stella d'Oro are perfect for planting in front of tulips and daffodils where they hide the dying foliage. Stella d'Oros , which are the single most popular Daylily, will also bloom for months, in some areas blooming from May to October. Daylilies can be planted almost any time the soil can be worked. Before planting, soak them in a bucket of water for 24 hours to make sure the roots have plenty of water to start growing. Dig a hole 6" deep and 12" wide. Add compost and fertilizer and form the soil mix into a mound. Center the plant on the mound and spread the roots over the sides. Fill with soil, water and mulch well to retain moisture. Although they're tough and will grow practically anywhere, all Daylilies prefer full sun and well-drained soil. Plant short varieties 1 foot apart and tall ones 2 feet apart, and they will quickly fill in the gaps. Daylilies multiply very quickly, so after 4 or 5 years your daylilies will need to be divided. A good sign is that the center of the clump has little to no flowers or foliage. Although Daylilies are very hardy and can be divided early spring to fall, the best time to divide is in early fall to give your transplants time to form new roots before the ground freezes. Dig the whole clump up - a garden fork is good for this. The clump can then be divided in two or more pieces with a spade or even an ax. After re-planting, water well, mulch and cut the foliage back to around 8 inches. Divisions should have at least 2 or 3 stems or fans of leaves with roots attached to thrive. Finally, Daylilies have very few pests. A spring application of manure or compost will help ensure a good blooming season for your daylilies, as will deadheading the spent flowers. With just a little care, you can count on these rugged perennials t last for many years. There's a spot in every garden for these bright and carefree beauties. Newsletter Special: Sa


What wishing program has become the traditional first program that people see when starting to learn a new programming language?

Chapter 1. C# and .NET Programming Chapter 1. C# and .NET Programming Collapse the table of content Expand the table of content This documentation is archived and is not being maintained. This documentation is archived and is not being maintained. This documentation is archived and is not being maintained. C# and .NET Programming This chapter is excerpted from Learning C# 3.0: Master the fundamentals of C# 3.0 by Jesse Liberty, Brian MacDonald, published by O'Reilly Media Welcome to Learning C# 3.0. We're here to teach you the C# language from the ground up. If you've never done any programming before, in any language, start here in Chapter 1, C# and .NET Programming, and we'll have you writing real working applications in no time flat-before you reach the end of this chapter. If you have a little programming background in VB 6, PHP 4, or another non-object-oriented language, you'll find a lot in this book that's familiar, but also a lot that's new. You'll probably find the code in the first few chapters to be recognizable, but you may want to read the chapters anyway to get the hang of the syntax. Classes and objects are at the core of how C# works, though, so we'll get to those quickly, once we've covered the basics. Tip If you're a programmer migrating from Java or C++, you may find the material in Programming C# 3.0 by Jesse Liberty and Donald Xie (O'Reilly) a more appropriate fit for your skills. To start at the very beginning, C# is a modern language created by Microsoft as part of its .NET platform of languages. .NET is a layer of software that makes it easier for you to write programs that can communicate with the operating system (in this case, Windows). As the name implies, C# has its roots in C++, but over three versions, it has evolved its own techniques and elements that make it distinct. Most important, C# has the backing of the .NET Framework behind it, which we'll get into shortly. We're not going to assume that you have any C++ experience, so we won't frame our discussions of C# in terms of C++, or any other programming language. What you need to know right now is that you can write applications in C# that will do just about anything you need to do. You can write applications to manage your company's inventory (interacting with a database); you can write applications to analyze documents; you can write games; you can create an entire operating system in C# if you have a mind to. The .NET Framework allows C# to operate seamlessly with Windows, and take advantage of the familiar Windows features that users all over the world already know. You can also create C# applications that you can use on the Web, in much the same way. To be completely honest, most modern object-oriented languages are rather similar underneath. The choice of one over the other is usually just a matter of personal preference. C# and Visual Basic have the advantage of the .NET Framework, but third-party languages can interact with the framework, too. C#'s similarity to C++ and Java makes it easy to learn for programmers familiar with those languages, but it's also easy to learn as your first language. Once you have the basics of C# down, you'll find it much easier to learn any other language you want to. Unless we specifically say otherwise, when we refer to C# in this book, we mean C# 3.0; when we refer to .NET, we mean the .NET 3.5 Framework; and when we refer to Visual Studio, we mean Visual Studio 2008. We could spend some time telling you about the cool new features of C# 3.0 over its predecessors-and we're pretty excited about them-but if you're new to the language, it's all new to you, so there's little point in calling attention to specific features. Finally, when we refer to using Visual Studio 2008, you may be using Visual C# 2008 Express Edition instead. C# Express is the free version of Visual Studio, designed for students and home users, but that doesn't mean it's a toy. In fact, the examples in this book were written and tested using C# Express. C# Express has the same compiler and libraries as Visual Studio, and within th


In the hardware industry, what 'stirring' word describes the process of coating of iron/steel with zinc to prevent rusting?

Patent US8182874 - Method for coating metallic surfaces with an aqueous composition - Google Patents Method for coating metallic surfaces with an aqueous composition US 8182874 B2 Abstract A process for coating a metallic surface by contacting the metallic surface with a first coating composition to form a first coating on the metallic surface, wherein the first coating composition contains water and at least one compound a) selected from a silane, a silanol, a siloxane and a polysiloxane. The first coating is the rinsed with an aqueous surfactant-containing fluid without drying so that the at least one compound a) does not condense before the rinsing step. The silane, silanol, siloxane or polysiloxane is capable of condensation. Images(15)   Claims(38) 1. A process comprising the steps of contacting a metallic surface with a first coating composition to form a first coating on the metallic surface, wherein the first coating composition consists of: water; and at least one compound a) selected from the group consisting of a silane, a silanol, a siloxane and a polysiloxane, wherein the at least one compound is capable of condensation; and rinsing the first coating with an aqueous surfactant-containing fluid without drying so that the at least one compound a) does not condense before the rinsing step. 2. The process of , further comprising applying a second coating on the first coating. 3. The process according to claim 2 , comprising rinsing the first coating with a fluid before applying the second coating. 4. The process according to claim 3 , wherein the second coating is a conversion coating, a coating resulting from the application of an after-rinsing solution, a coating based on a lacquer, a primer or an adhesive. 5. The process according to claim 2 , wherein the second coating is a conversion coating, a coating resulting from the application of an after-rinsing solution, a coating based on a lacquer, a primer or an adhesive. 6. The process according to claim 1 , wherein the pH of the first coating composition is greater than 1.5 and less than 9. 7. The process according to claim 1 , wherein compound a) is present in an amount of from 0.005 to 80 g/l, calculated on the basis of a corresponding silanol. 8. The process according to claim 1 , wherein compound a) contains at least one member selected from the group consisting of an amino group, an urea group and an ureido group. 9. The process of claim 1 , wherein the aqueous surfactant-containing fluid contains demineralized water. 10. A process comprising the steps of contacting a metallic surface with a first coating composition to form a first coating on the metallic surface, wherein the first coating composition consists of: water; at least one compound a) selected from the group consisting of a silane, a silanol, siloxane and a polysiloxane, wherein the at least one compound is capable of condensation; and at least one compound b) selected from the group consisting of titanium, hafnium, zirconium, aluminum and boron; and rinsing the first coating with an aqueous surfactant-containing fluid without drying so that the at least one compound a) does not condense hefbre the rinsing step. 11. The process of , further comprising applying a second coating on the first coating. 12. The process according to claim 11 , comprising rinsing the first coating with a fluid before applying the second coating. 13. The process according to claim 12 , wherein the second coating is a conversion coating, a coating resulting from the application of an after-rinsing solution, a coating based on a lacquer, a primer or an adhesive. 14. The process according to claim 11 , wherein the second coating is a conversion coating, a coating resulting from the application of an after-rinsing solution, a coating based on a lacquer, a primer or an adhesive. 15. The process according to claim 10 , wherein the pH of the first coating composition is greater than 1.5 and less than 9. 16. The process according to claim 10 , wherein compound a) is present in an amount of from 0.005 to 80 g/l, calculated on t


A hypothetical elementary particle called the Higgs boson that is the subject of studies using the Large Hadron Collider has been given what 'divine' name by the mainstream media?

Higgs boson - 必应 Sign in Higgs boson The Higgs boson is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of particle physics. It is the quantum excitation of the Higgs field—a fundamental field of crucial importance to particle physics theory, first suspected to exist in the 1960s, that unlike other known fields such as the electromagnetic field, takes a non-zero constant value almost everywhere. The question of the Higgs field's existence has been the last unverified part of the Standard Model of particle physics and, according to some, "the central problem in particle physics". The prese ... (展开) nce of this field, now believed to be confirmed, explains why some fundamental particles have mass when, based on the symmetries controlling their interactions, they should be massless. The existence of the Higgs field would also resolve several other long-standing puzzles, such as the reason for the weak force's extremely short range. Although it is hypothesized that the Higgs field permeates the entire Universe, evidence for its existence has been very difficult to obtain. In principle, the Higgs field can be detected through its excitations, manifest as Higgs particles, but these are extremely difficult to produce and detect. The importance of this fundamental question led to a 40 year search, and the construction of one of the world's most expensive and complex experimental facilities to date, CERN 's Large Hadron Collider, in an attempt to create Higgs bosons and other particles for observation and study. On 4 July 2012, the discovery of a new particle with a mass between 125 and 127 GeV/c2 was announced; physicists suspected that it was the Higgs boson. Since then, the particle has been shown to behave, interact, and decay in many of the ways predicted by the Standard Model. It was also tentatively confirmed to have even parity and zero spin, two fundamental attributes of a Higgs boson. This appears to be the first elementary scalar particle discovered in nature. More studies are needed to verify that the discovered particle has properties matching those predicted for the Higgs boson by the Standard Model, or whether, as predicted by some theories, multiple Higgs bosons exist. The Higgs boson is named after Peter Higgs, one of six physicists who, in 1964, proposed the mechanism that suggested the existence of such a particle. On December 10, 2013, two of them, Peter Higgs and François Englert, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work and prediction (Englert's co-researcher Robert Brout had died in 2011 and the Nobel Prize is not ordinarily given posthumously). Although Higgs's name has come to be associated with this theory, several researchers between about 1960 and 1972 independently developed different parts of it. In mainstream media the Higgs boson has often been called the "God particle", from a 1993 book on the topic; the nickname is strongly disliked by many physicists, including Higgs, who regard it as sensationalistic. In the Standard Model, the Higgs particle is a boson with no spin, electric charge, or colour charge. It is also very unstable, decaying into other particles almost immediately. It is a quantum excitation of one of the four components of the Higgs field. The latter constitutes a scalar field, with two neutral and two electrically charged components that form a complex doublet of the weak isospin SU(2) symmetry. The Higgs field is tachyonic (this does not refer to faster-than-light speeds, it means that symmetry-breaking through condensation of a particle must occur under certain conditions), and has a "Mexican hat" shaped potential with nonzero strength everywhere (including otherwise empty space), which in its vacuum state breaks the weak isospin symmetry of the electroweak interaction. When this happens, three components of the Higgs field are "absorbed" by the SU(2) and U(1) gauge bosons (the "Higgs mechanism") to become the longitudinal components of the now-massive W and Z bosons of the weak force. The remaining electrically neutral component separately couples to other particl