Two New Sub-Atomic Particles Discovered at CERN Two never-before-seen particles have just been detected at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest particle accelerator, by the international LHCb collaboration. Known as Xi_b'- and Xi_b*-, the new particles belong to the baryon family. Baryons are made from three fundamental, subatomic particles called quarks, bound together by a strong force. And the quarks in these newly discovered baryons aren’t even the same type: Each of the new particles contains one beauty (b), one strange (s), and one down (d) quark. The new particles are more than six times as massive as a proton, thanks to their heavyweight b quarks and their angular momentum -- a particular attribute of quarks known as “spin.” “Nature was kind and gave us two particles for the price of one," says Matthew Charles of the CNRS's LPNHE laboratory at Paris VI University in a CERN statement. The existence of these particles were previously predicted in 2009, but no one has ever seen them until now.
Astronomers Find Quasars Are "Aligned" Across Billions Of Light-Years Quasars separated by billions of light-years are lined up in a mysterious way. Astronomers looking at nearly 100 quasars have discovered that the central black holes of these ultra-bright, faraway galaxies have rotational axes that are aligned with each other. These alignments are the largest known in the universe. Quasars are some of the brightest things known, and at the center of these super luminous nuclei of galaxies are very active supermassive black holes. Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, a team led by Damien Hutsemékers from the University of Liège in Belgium studied 93 quasars known to form huge groupings. So the team wanted to find out if the rotation axes were linked at that time—and not just to each other, but also to the structure of the universe on large scales. The team could not see the rotation axes or the jets of the quasars directly. The findings were published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics this week. Images: ESO/M.
Researchers Translate Ancient Egyptian Spellbook A duo of Australian researchers has deciphered an ancient Egyptian handbook that belonged to a ritual practitioner some 1,300 years ago. This “Handbook of Ritual Power,” as it has been named, was found to contain a number of spells and invocations (the act of summoning a diety) that instruct the reader how to cast love spells, exorcise evil spirits and cure various ailments, to name a few. The book is written in Coptic, an Egyptian language, and contains 20-pages of bound parchment. Handwritten books, such as this, that are made up of bound sheets of paper or similar materials are referred to as a codex. According to researchers Malcolm Choat and Iain Gardener, who describe the text in a new book, the beginning of the codex consists of a series of invocations that end with drawings or “words of power.” This then leads to various different spells which have a variety of purposes, for example curing possession or disease, or bringing about success in life. [Via Live Science]
Philae Detected Organic Molecules On Comet Though the Philae lander was short-lived on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, it was able to return scientific data back to Earth from the first samples ever obtained directly from a comet’s nucleus. During its successful 60-hour-long primary science mission last week, Philae made a very important discovery: the comet contains organic molecules. Not much has been released about the molecules so far, with the Wall Street Journal breaking the news on Monday. Philae’s mission was to determine which, if any, organic compounds existed on comets. The discovery of the molecules was made with Philae’s Cometary Sampling and Composition Experiment (COSAC) instrument. As of right now, it is hard to tell when additional information will be provided about the nature of these molecules, and what implications they may have. Read thi snext: Amazing New Find Brings Us Closer To Cloning A Woolly Mammoth
Information Flows In Opposite Directions During Imagination And Reality Sometimes, you can picture something so vividly in your head that it feels as though you’re actually looking at what you’re imagining. But no matter how good your imagination is, information will flow through your brain in the opposite direction compared to when you actually perceive something. That’s the conclusion of a new study, published in NeuroImage, which looked at brain activity in participants when they were either watching clips or recalling them in their heads. “A really important problem in brain research is understanding how different parts of the brain are functionally connected. For the study, scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Liege examined the activity of participants’ brains using a technique called electroencephalography (EEG). They were interested in looking at the flow of information through the cortex, which is the outer layer of the brain. [Via UW-Madison and NeuroImage]
Brain Pathway Rediscovered After 100 Years Modern magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques are giving scientists unprecedented insight into the inner workings of the human brain. When neuroscientist Jason Yeatman of the University of Washington noticed a large fiber bundle that was unfamiliar to him and did not exist in modern scientific literature, he couldn’t believe he was actually the first person to discover the structure. It turns out that he was right; the structure had been described before. However, the book that contained the last known mention of the fiber bundle had not been read in over 100 years. The structure is now officially named the vertical occipital fasciculus (VOF). “We believe that signals carried by the VOF play a role in many perceptual processes, from recognizing a friend’s face to rapidly reading a page of text,” Yeatman said in a press release. The researchers also developed a computer algorithm for other neuroscientists to use that will allow measurements of the VOF to be completed more quickly.
This Is What The Skeletons Of Famous Cartoon Characters Would Look Like One of the greatest things about cartoons is that normal physics and biology don’t apply. Artists are able to draw animals in a way that is exaggerated or anthropomorphized in order to build life into a character. It takes an equally creative mind to turn those drawings around and ask, “What would the anatomy of these animated characters actually look like?” Using resin, wire, aluminum sticks, and paint, Hyungkoo Lee has imagined the skeletal structure of some of the most beloved animated characters of all time. Rather than depicting them as strictly scientific duplications, the artist has shown them in action and given them life. Check out the amazing skeletons of your favorite cartoon characters: Donald Duck Huey, Dewey, and Louie Roadrunner Wile E. Tweety and Sylvester Felix the Cat Goofy Bugs Bunny Tom and Jerry All images belong to Hyungkoo Lee. [Via AsapSCIENCE] Read this next: Predatory ‘Glow Worm’ Discovered In Peruvian Rainforest
UK Announces First Mission To The Moon With the global economy in a bit of a pickle, governments are finding it tough to justify spending considerable amounts of money on exploratory space missions that are solely designed to further our scientific knowledge, rather than to generate income. But it’s not just space exploration that is struggling with the global financial crisis; funding for scientific projects in general can be hard to come by these days. That’s why more and more people are starting to realize the beauty of public funding, and are increasingly using crowdsourcing to give projects a financial kick in the right direction. Crowdfunding is helping to clean up the ocean, turn roads into solar panels, and build floating laboratories, to name a few. And as of today, it could help fund an ambitious new mission to the moon. Lunar Mission One, which was announced today at the Royal Society in London, will be the UK’s first trip to the moon. [Via Lunar Mission One]
Bicycle Bottle System Condenses Humidity From Air Into Drinkable Water The weight of water limits how much can be brought on a long bike ride. There isn’t always an option to stop and fill up from a clean stream or drinking fountain, but water could be obtained from a different source: the air. Austrian industrial design student Kristof Retezár has created Fontus: a prototype of a water bottle system that condenses humid air into clean, drinkable water. His design made him a finalist for the 2014 James Dyson Award. The Fontus attaches to the bicycle frame and consists of a condenser unit and a bottle for collection. A filter is fixed onto the opening where the air comes through, preventing bugs or dirt from damaging the components or getting into the water. Currently, the design is capable of producing a drop of water per minute, in air that is approximately 50% humidity with temperatures at least 20˚C (68˚F). The technology behind the design does not only apply to keeping thirst quenched; it could potentially save lives.
Predatory ‘Glow Worm’ Discovered In Peruvian Rainforest Different organisms are capable of glowing for various reasons. Some do it for communication or to attract mates, while some glow to lure in prey. A group of researchers recently discovered a glowing larva in Peru that definitely fits into that last group. While it isn’t yet known exactly what species of beetle the larvae are, these little guys have some serious hunting prowess. According to the Rainforest Expeditions blog, these larvae were first discovered a couple of years ago by wildlife photographer Jeff Cremer during a hike at night through the Peruvian Amazon rainforest. Cremer returned to the rainforest alongside three entomologists: Aaron Pomerantz of Rainforest Expeditions, along with Pomerantz’s colleagues from the University of Florida, Mike Bentley and Geoff Gallice. The scientists suspect that the larvae glow in order to draw in prey, then ambush them when they come close enough. Read this next: Philae Detected Organic Molecules On Comet
Lego's Fantastic Instructions For Parents In 1973 If you care about inspiring children with an interest in engineering and aspirations not bound by their gender, this note may bring a tear to your eye. Two tears actually, both because it is so eloquently beautiful, and because it shows that in a lot of ways we have gone backwards over the last forty years. Lego has been criticized recently for its move to gender its toys, creating “girl's Lego” and producing, in the words of one seven year old, female characters that “sit at home, go to the beach, and shop," while the boy characters "saved people, had jobs, even swam with sharks!" To their credit Lego has taken this on board to some extent, with a line of women scientists, but the sad thing is that they needed to be pushed. Because there was a time when the Danish company got these things so, so right. When reddit user fryd_ posted this image at imgur and said it came from a 1974 box of Lego, plenty of people disputed its authenticity.