Monday, July 5, 2010
Monday, June 28, 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Neutrino Search
A hard-to-observe fundamental particle that travels alone, the neutrino has little or no mass, so rarely interacts with other particles.
Neutrinos are ubiquitous throughout our universe. They were produced during the Big Bang, and many of those are still around. New ones are constantly being created too, through natural occurrences like solar fusion in the sun's core, or radioactive elements decaying in the Earth's mantle, as well as when the particle accelerator at Fermilab purposely smashes protons into carbon foils.
Our sun produces so many that hundreds of billions are zinging through our bodies every second, Coan said. It's hoped the new detector can resolve questions surrounding three different kinds of neutrinos — electron, tau and muon — and their "oscillation" from one type to another as they travel, he said.
Scientists at the new detectors will analyze data from Fermilab's neutrino beam to observe evidence of neutrinos when the speedy, lightweight particles occasionally smash into the carbon nuclei in the scintillating oil of the detector, causing a burst of light flashes, Coan said.
NOvA is looking for the most elusive oscillation of the muon type of neutrino to the electron type, Cooper said.
More information: http://www-nova.fnal.gov/
Neutrinos are ubiquitous throughout our universe. They were produced during the Big Bang, and many of those are still around. New ones are constantly being created too, through natural occurrences like solar fusion in the sun's core, or radioactive elements decaying in the Earth's mantle, as well as when the particle accelerator at Fermilab purposely smashes protons into carbon foils.
Our sun produces so many that hundreds of billions are zinging through our bodies every second, Coan said. It's hoped the new detector can resolve questions surrounding three different kinds of neutrinos — electron, tau and muon — and their "oscillation" from one type to another as they travel, he said.
Scientists at the new detectors will analyze data from Fermilab's neutrino beam to observe evidence of neutrinos when the speedy, lightweight particles occasionally smash into the carbon nuclei in the scintillating oil of the detector, causing a burst of light flashes, Coan said.
NOvA is looking for the most elusive oscillation of the muon type of neutrino to the electron type, Cooper said.
More information: http://www-nova.fnal.gov/
Neutrino search
A hard-to-observe fundamental particle that travels alone, the neutrino has little or no mass, so rarely interacts with other particles.
Neutrinos are ubiquitous throughout our universe. They were produced during the Big Bang, and many of those are still around. New ones are constantly being created too, through natural occurrences like solar fusion in the sun's core, or radioactive elements decaying in the Earth's mantle, as well as when the particle accelerator at Fermilab purposely smashes protons into carbon foils.
Our sun produces so many that hundreds of billions are zinging through our bodies every second, Coan said. It's hoped the new detector can resolve questions surrounding three different kinds of neutrinos — electron, tau and muon — and their "oscillation" from one type to another as they travel, he said.
Scientists at the new detectors will analyze data from Fermilab's neutrino beam to observe evidence of neutrinos when the speedy, lightweight particles occasionally smash into the carbon nuclei in the scintillating oil of the detector, causing a burst of light flashes, Coan said.
NOvA is looking for the most elusive oscillation of the muon type of neutrino to the electron type, Cooper said.
More information: http://www-nova.fnal.gov/
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Alfred Russel Wallace: Darwin's co-discoverer - a forgotten hero
The Times
February 12, 2009
: Darwin's co-discoverer
A little-known naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, also proposed the theory of natural selection - and this spurred Charles Darwin on to publish his great book.
Anjana Ahuja
In the 1850s, a bearded Victorian naturalist set sail for exotic shores, determined to discover the origin of species. He returned to England laden with once-living bounty - mostly birds, beetles and butterflies - which he dispersed, for modest sums, to museums and cultured gentlemen. He retained specimens for himself, the study of which furnished such papers as On the Law that has regulated the Introduction of New Species. His investigations would culminate, in 1858, in an explanation of evolution through natural selection.
This is not Charles Darwin, but Alfred Russel Wallace, who shared joint billing with Darwin on the paper that would set the elder scientist on the road to fame. The stirringly titled On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection, read out to the Linnean Society in Piccadilly on July 1, 1858, raised the controversial idea of natural selection. This argued that favourable traits in a species would result in greater reproductive success for the lucky ones that carried them, and these traits - such as a long neck for eating leaves from high branches - would gradually spread. This might slowly lead to new species (say, giraffes).
The story of what happened afterwards to Darwin and Wallace might well have been entitled “On the Tendency of Co-Discoverers of a Theory to Depart Indefinitely in Their Fortunes”. Darwin, whose reputation was sealed a year later with the publication of On the Origin of Species, lies entombed in Westminster Abbey, metaphorically rubbing shoulders with prime ministers and royalty. The bicentenary of his birth is being marked in grand fashion this week. Wallace lies in a small Dorset graveyard, flanked until recently by unchecked leylandii, his name and legacy largely unfamiliar beyond his family and a coterie of scientists and historians. More
February 12, 2009
: Darwin's co-discoverer
A little-known naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, also proposed the theory of natural selection - and this spurred Charles Darwin on to publish his great book.
Anjana Ahuja
In the 1850s, a bearded Victorian naturalist set sail for exotic shores, determined to discover the origin of species. He returned to England laden with once-living bounty - mostly birds, beetles and butterflies - which he dispersed, for modest sums, to museums and cultured gentlemen. He retained specimens for himself, the study of which furnished such papers as On the Law that has regulated the Introduction of New Species. His investigations would culminate, in 1858, in an explanation of evolution through natural selection.
This is not Charles Darwin, but Alfred Russel Wallace, who shared joint billing with Darwin on the paper that would set the elder scientist on the road to fame. The stirringly titled On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection, read out to the Linnean Society in Piccadilly on July 1, 1858, raised the controversial idea of natural selection. This argued that favourable traits in a species would result in greater reproductive success for the lucky ones that carried them, and these traits - such as a long neck for eating leaves from high branches - would gradually spread. This might slowly lead to new species (say, giraffes).
The story of what happened afterwards to Darwin and Wallace might well have been entitled “On the Tendency of Co-Discoverers of a Theory to Depart Indefinitely in Their Fortunes”. Darwin, whose reputation was sealed a year later with the publication of On the Origin of Species, lies entombed in Westminster Abbey, metaphorically rubbing shoulders with prime ministers and royalty. The bicentenary of his birth is being marked in grand fashion this week. Wallace lies in a small Dorset graveyard, flanked until recently by unchecked leylandii, his name and legacy largely unfamiliar beyond his family and a coterie of scientists and historians. More
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