After Higgs Boson, scientists prepare for next quantum leap

Seven months after its scientists made a landmark discovery that may explain the mysteries of mass, Europe’s top physics lab will take a break from smashing invisible particles to recharge for the next leap into the unknown.

From tomorrow, the cutting-edge facilities at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) will begin winding down, then go offline on Saturday for an 18-month upgrade. A vast underground lab straddling the border between France and Switzerland, CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was the scene of an extraordinary discovery announced in July 2012.

Its scientists said they were 99.9 percent certain they had found the elusive Higgs Boson, an invisible particle without which, theorists say, humans and all the other joined-up atoms in the Universe would not exist. The upgrade will boost the LHC’s energy capacity, essential for CERN to confirm definitively that its boson is the Higgs, and allow it to probe new dimensions such as supersymmetry and dark matter.

“The aim is to open the discovery domain,” said Frederick Bordry, head of CERN’s technology department. “We have what we think is the Higgs, and now we have all the theories about supersymmetry and so on. We need to increase the energy to look at more physics. It’s about going into terra incognita (unknown territory),” he told AFP.

Theorised back in 1964, the boson also known as the God Particle carries the name of a British physicist, Peter Higgs. He calculated that a field of bosons could explain a nagging anomaly: Why do some particles have mass while others, such as light, have none?

That question was a gaping hole in the Standard Model of particle physics, a conceptual framework for understanding the nuts-and-bolts of the cosmos. “Initially we thought we’d have the long shutdown in 2012, but in 2011, with some good results and with the perspective of discovering the boson, we pushed the long shutdown back by a year. But we said that in 2013 we must do it,” said Bordry.

Unlike the LEP, which was used to accelerate electrons or positrons, the LHC crashes together protons, which are part of the hadron family. “It’s about recreating the first microsecond of the universe, the Big Bang. We are reproducing in a lab the conditions we had at the start of the Big Bang,” Bordry said.

Five billion collisions yielded results deemed worthy of further research and data from only 400 threw up data that paved the road to the Higgs Boson.

Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/after-higgs-boson-scientists-prepare-for-next-quantum-leap/1074042/0

Asteroid to whizz past Earth tomorrow night

An asteroid, about half the size of a football field, will pass in close proximity to Earth, closer than the orbits of some geosynchronous satellites, tomorrow night.

The asteroid called “2012 DA14” will flyby earth at a distance of 27,700 km on February 16 at 00:10 AM, Secretary and Director of Planetary Society of India N Sri Raghunandan Kumar said.

The 45-metre wide space rock is moving at a speed of 7.8 km/sec. This is the closest approach by any asteroid in recorded history to buzz past our planet, NASA scientists have said. This asteroid was discovered on February 23, 2012 in Spain.

It will pass within the moon’s distance from Earth and closer than the orbits of some geosynchronous satellites, which provide weather data and telecommunications. However, the space rock poses no danger of impacting the Earth.

The next time it will have closest approach to Earth on February 15, 2019 when it be at 6,91,64,078 km. The last time it came close was on 16th February 2012 and was at 26,06,840 km. On the day of its closest approach, it will shine at 8 Magnitude. The space rock is not visible to the naked eye but can be spotted with the help of telescopes.

The best viewing location for the closest approach will be Indonesia. Eastern Europe, Asia and Australia are also well situated to see the asteroid, he said. Meanwhile, another space rock called “Asteroid 1999 YK5” will flyby Earth at distance of 1,88,87,632 km on February 15 at 3.48 PM. Its travelling at the rate of 20 km/sec.

Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/asteroid-to-whizz-past-earth-tomorrow-night/1074181/

Ice ages wiped out Australian plant diversity: study

Part of Australia’s rich plant diversity was wiped out by the ice ages, proving that extinction, instead of evolution, influences biodiversity, scientists say. Researchers led by the University of Melbourne and University of Tasmania found that plant diversity in South East Australia was as rich as some of the most diverse places in the world, and that most of these species went extinct during the ice ages, probably about one million years ago.

Dr Sniderman of the University of Melbourne’s School of Earth Sciences said the findings show extinction is just as important to diversity of organisms as evolution. “Traditionally scientists believed some places have more species than others because species evolved more rapidly in these places. We have overthrown this theory, which emphasises evolution, by showing that extinction may be more important,” he said.

The study compared two regions of Southern Australia and South Africa. “South-western Australia has a huge diversity of tough-leaved shrubs and trees such as eucalyptus, Banksia, Grevilleas and Acacias, making it one of the most biodiverse places on earth,” Sniderman said in a statement. “The southern tip of South Africa is even richer, with astonishing numbers of similar kinds of plants like proteas and ericas,” he said.

For the study, researchers analysed plant fossils that accumulated in an ancient lake in South Eastern Australia. They found the region had at least as many tough-leaved plants 1.5 million years ago as Western Australia and South Africa do today.

“As Australia dried out over the past several million years, rainforest plants largely disappeared from most of the continent,” said Sniderman. “It has been thought that this drying trend allowed Australia’s characteristic tough-leaved plants to expand and became more diverse. We have shown that the climate variability of the ice ages not only drove rainforest plants to extinction but also a remarkable number of tough-leaved, shrubby plants,” he said.

Dr Greg Jordan of the School of Plant Sciences at the University of Tasmania said not only has the study overturned current thought on the role of extinction in plant diversity, it has implications for understanding how Australian plant diversity will deal with current and future climate change.

“The species that went extinct in SE Australia during the ice ages were likely to be the ones most sensitive to rapid climate change, meaning that the species that now grow in eastern Australia may be more capable of tolerating rapid changes than predicted by current science,” he said.

The study was published in the journal National Academy of Sciences.

Source:http://www.indianexpress.com/news/ice-ages-wiped-out-australian-plant-diversity-study/1073604/0

Supervolcano forming under the Pacific could wipe out life

Life on Earth could be facing threat from a catastrophic “supervolcano” which seismologists believe is due to erupt in 200 million years’ time. At least two “piles” of rock the size of continents are crashing together as they shift at the bottom of Earth’s mantle, 2,900 km beneath the Pacific Ocean, researchers say.

“What we may be detecting is the start of one of these large eruptive events that – if it ever happens – could cause very massive destruction on Earth,” said seismologist Michael Thorne, the study’s principal author and an assistant professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Utah.

However, disaster is “not imminent,” he adds, “This is the type of mechanism that may generate massive plume eruptions, but on the timescale of 100 million to 200 million years from now. So don’t cancel your cruises.” The new study, published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, said the activity is creating a Florida-sized zone of partly molten rock that may be the root of either of two kinds of massive eruptions far in the future.

Hotspot plume supervolcano eruptions like those during the past 2 million years at Wyoming’s Yellowstone caldera, which covered North America with volcanic ash. Gargantuan flood basalt eruptions that created “large igneous provinces” like the Pacific Northwest’s Columbia River basalts 17 million to 15 million years ago, India’s Deccan Traps some 65 million years ago and the Pacific’s huge Ontong Java Plateau basalts, which buried an Alaska-sized area 125 million to 199 million years ago.

“These very large, massive eruptions may be tied to some extinction events,” Thorne said. The Ontong eruptions have been blamed for oxygen loss in the oceans and a mass die-off of sea life. Since the early 1990s, scientists have known of the existence of two continent-sized “thermochemical piles” sitting atop Earth’s core and beneath most of Earth’s volcanic hotspots – one under much of the South Pacific and extending up to 20 degrees north latitude, and the other under volcanically active Africa.

Using the highest-resolution method yet to make seismic images of the core-mantle boundary, Thorne and colleagues found evidence the pile under the Pacific actually is the result of an ongoing collision between two or more piles. Where they are merging is a spongy blob of partly molten rock the size of Florida, Wisconsin or Missouri beneath the volcanically active Samoan hotspot. The study’s computer simulations “show that when these piles merge together, they may trigger the earliest stages of a massive plume eruption,” Thorne said.

Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/supervolcano-forming-under-the-pacific-could-wipe-out-life/1073560/0

Space laser could help detect counterfeit food post life on Mars

The European Space Agency (ESA) has revealed that a laser device developed to measure carbon on Mars could soon be used here on Earth to detect counterfeit food.

Today’s equipment is large, bulky and stationary. Samples of, say, polluted soil must be collected in the field, put in a flask and brought to the lab for testing – clearly unsuitable for space testing. But the new laser ‘isotope ratio-meter’ from RAL Space could change that.

Thanks to its small, lightweight, robust, highly accurate lasers, the device could be sent into space to look for trace amounts of gas in very small samples. “You take a laser, whose optical frequency or ‘colour’ can be continuously adjusted, beam it at a gas sample, and detect the level passing through the gas,” explained Dr Damien Weidmann, Laser Spectroscopy Team Leader at RAL Space.

As the laser colour changes, the light passes straight through the sample until it reaches a particular frequency, specific to the isotopic gas, that is partially blocked. “Each molecule, and each of its isotopic forms, has a unique fingerprint spectrum. If, on the other hand, you know what you are looking for, you can simply set the laser to the appropriate frequency.”

Through an ESA program, Weidmann and his colleagues have been able to demonstrate that the laser can quickly root out counterfeit food. Fake honey made using sugar, for example, would be detected by the laser by scanning the carbon dioxide released from burning only a few milligrams of the product. Likewise, counterfeit olive oil and chocolate could also be detected.

Though Weidmann said it was important for his project to attract interest from industry, sending the laser to Mars is his real goal. “I wanted to develop this to help gather evidence as to whether or not there was life on Mars,” said Weidmann.

Weidmann stated that using the laser to measure carbon isotopic ratios in methane on Mars could help determine where the hydrocarbon came from. “If it’s bacterial in origin, it would mean a form of life occurred on Mars,” he added.

Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/space-laser-could-help-detect-counterfeit-food-post-life-on-mars/1073539/0

Indian region moved to Australia when splitted 100 mln years ago

The present size and form of Indian Ocean came into being after parts of the Indian region shifted back to the Australian plates during Gondwana split more than 100 million years ago, a new research claimed.

An Australian scientist, Ana Gibbson who collaborated with Indian National Institute of Oceanography and Australian National university show that after the continental split, some Indian regions moved back to the Australian plate. Roughly the size of Tasmania, they remained sunk in the seafloor roughly 500-1000 kilometers from the western coast of Australia.

“It’s a bit like doing a really big 3D jigsaw puzzle,” she said. Using the magnetic data from the seafloor provided by the institutes, she has been able to reconstruct the movement of the tectonic plates.

Her findings are giving scientists new insights into the age and nature of Australia’s western margins. Ana attributed the success of the project to its international reach. She said, “being able to work with open-minded, enthusiastic professionals from all over the world has helped a lot. The study has been supported by Australia-India Strategic Research Fund, a statement said.

Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/indian-region-moved-to-australia-when-splitted-100-mln-years-ago/1073524/

Light bulb shining after an incredible 130 years

While most modern light bulbs barely last a year, a bulb in UK is still glowing after an amazing 130 years, making it one of the oldest in the world.

The bulb, dating from 1883, was clearly built to last with six internal filaments which wobble when in use.

It continued to give good service throughout two world wars, shining well into the new millennium, the ‘Daily Mail’ reported.

The bulb first belonged to the late Florence Crook who once took it to school to dazzle her classmates. It then passed down to her son Kenneth, in Morecambe, Lancshire and is still in use by his widow Beth, 79, at their home.

“It’s a real talking point. There is no substitute for craftsmanship. The new eco bulbs take all week to warm up and hardly give off any light,” Beth told the ‘Daily Express’.

The bulb, marked EDISWAN, has the number 200-32:B.56 on the glass. The UK’s previously oldest working bulb surfaced after 113 years continuous use in Margate, Kent, in 2008.

Ediswan was a collaboration between the British Physicist Sir Joseph Swan and US scientist Thomas Alva Edison, both of whom are independently credited with the invention of the light bulb in 1879.

Swan’s break through was to use a vacuum which meant there was very little oxygen inside the bulb so the filament to glow white-hot without catching fire.

It rolled of the production line as Queen Victoria was beginning her 64th year on the throne and William Gladstone was the UK Prime Minister, the report said.

According to the Guinness Book of Records the world’s oldest light bulb in continuous use has been burning for 109 years and holds pride of place in Fire Station 6, in Livermore, northern California.

Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/light-bulb-shining-after-an-incredible-130-years/1073013/0

NASA’s new mission to estimate impact of asteroids on Earth

NASA plans to launch a new mission in 2016 to find potentially hazardous asteroids and predict their impact threat to Earth.

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission will arrive at RQ36 in 2018 and orbit the asteroid until 2021. By communicating continuously with a spacecraft in orbit around RQ36, the team will get a much better idea of the asteroid’s orbit.

“We expect OSIRIS-REx will enable us to make an estimate of the Yarkovsky force on RQ36 at least twice as precise as what’s available now,” says Jason Dworkin, OSIRIS-REx project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt.

The Yarkovsky effect happens simply because it takes time for things to heat up and cool down. Objects tend to be coldest just before dawn and warmest at mid-afternoon, after hours of illumination by the high Sun.

The team will use what it learns about the Yarkovsky effect on RQ36 to help estimate the effects on other asteroids, NASA said in a statement.

The key to all these strategies is to discover the asteroid well in advance of its impact date and attempt to deflect it early, according to Edward Beshore of the University of Arizona, Tucson, deputy principal investigator for OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission.

One of the first things that would be done if an asteroid appeared to be on a collision course with Earth is to send a probe to the asteroid that might look very much like OSIRIS-REx, said Beshore.

OSIRIS-REx will determine if RQ36 is actually a rubble pile by orbiting it and revealing the subtle effects on the orbit from the gravity of any large and dense lumps within the asteroid.

A probe like OSIRIS-REx could map the internal structure of an asteroid this way, providing valuable information on where to target the deflection mechanism.

OSIRIS-REx will also determine the composition of RQ36 using remote measurements from both visible light and infrared spectrometers, and by collecting a sample of material from the asteroid’s surface and returning it to Earth for study.

Since the Yarkovsky effect may vary depending on the type of material and its distribution, a probe with OSIRIS-REx’s capability to map the surface composition will enable a more precise estimate of the effect on the asteroid’s orbit.

The mission will also provide critical experience navigating around asteroids.

According to NASA’s Near-Earth Object (NEO) programme, there are more than 1,300 “Potentially Hazardous Asteroids” (PHAs) ¿ objects at least 150 yards across with a very small chance of impacting us someday because their orbital paths take them close to Earth’s orbit.

Source:http://www.indianexpress.com/news/nasas-new-mission-to-estimate-impact-of-asteroids-on-earth/1071471/0

Ruchi Group aims at 15% higher revenue

Ruchi Group of Industries today said it is expecting up to 15 per cent growth in revenue following high crushing, better margins and growth in soya meal exports.

“We are expecting 10-15 per cent growth in sales this fiscal year mainly on account of higher crushing, better margins through product innovations and increase in branded sales. Rise in soya meal exports will also help in boosting our revenue,” Ruchi Group of Industries Managing Director Dinesh Sahara told reporters here. The company’s overall revenue in FY’12 stood at nearly Rs 26,000 crore.

Ruchi Group of Industries, which recently launched margarine, is planning to introduce more healthy options of edible oils in future. About exports, he said the company expects to ship about 1.7-1.8 million tonnes of soya meal compared with 1.5 mt last year.

“We are expecting this rise in exports mainly due to higher global demand as the crops in South America were affected following drought,” he said. On the country’s soyabean production this kharif season, he said it is likely to be a record crop at about 10.5-11 mt and the arrivals will peak in mid-October.

“The late rainfall did not have any major impact either on the crop yield or the size and this is expected to boost the overall soyabean meal exports to about 5 mt this crop year (October-September) from 4.5 mt last year,” Sahara said.

Rape seed or mustard crop is also likely to be 10-15 per cent higher than last year at about 6.5 mt this season mainly due to good rainfall and better soil condition in the producing areas, he said.

Last year, the overall mustard output stood at 5.34 mt. However, due to decline in production of groundnut and cotton seed, the vegetable oil import is likely to be at 9.8 mt this oil year (November-October), which is yet to end. The overall demand, which is also growing at 5 per cent annually, will also add to the rise in imports, he added.

Source: http://business-worldupdate.blogspot.in/2013/02/ruchi-group-aims-at-15-higher-revenue.html

World’s largest prime number discovered with 17 million digits, prime search continues

Researchers have identified the world’s largest prime number yet, beating the previous record by over four million digits.

The number has now shot up to 2 multiplied by itself 57,885,161 times minus 1, breaking a four-year dry spell in the search for new, ever-larger primes.

Curtis Cooper from the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg made the finding as part of the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS), a distributed computing project designed to hunt for a particular kind of prime number first identified in the 17th century, the ‘New Scientist’ reported.

“It’s sort of like finding a diamond,” says Chris Caldwell at the University of Tennessee, Martin, who keeps a record of the largest known primes.

“For some reason people decide they like diamonds and so they have a value. People like these large primes and so they also have a value,” said Caldwell.

All prime numbers can only be divided by themselves and 1.

The rare Mersenne primes all have the form 2 multiplied by itself p times minus 1, where p is itself a prime number.

The new prime, which has over 17 million digits, is only the 48th Mersenne prime ever found and the 14th discovered by GIMPS. The previous record holder, 2 multiplied by itself 43,112,609 times minus 1, which was also found by GIMPS in 2008, has just under 13 million digits.

All the top 10 largest known primes are Mersenne primes discovered by GIMPS. Until today, the most recent addition to the list was found in 2009, but it was smaller than the 2008 discovery.

Though there are an infinite number of primes, there is no formula for generating these numbers, so discovering them requires intensive computation.

GIMPS uses volunteers’ computers to shift through each prime-number candidate in turn, until eventually one lucky user discovers a new prime.

GIMPS software runs on around a thousand university computers, one of which spent 39 days straight proving that the number was prime, which was then independently verified by other researchers.

Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/worlds-largest-prime-number-discovered-with-17-million-digits-prime-search-continues/1070830/0