Is Particle Physics About to Crack Wide Open? Hints of an unexpected new particle could be confirmed within days—and if it is, the Standard Model could be going down By Michele Redi on June 13, 2016 please log in to view this image ATLAS particle detector at the Large Hadron Collider, near Geneva Credit: CERN via Flickr under Creative Commons license It’s December 15, 2015, and an auditorium in Geneva is packed with physicists. The air is filled with tension and excitement because everybody knows that something important is about to be announced. The CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has recently restarted operations at the highest energies ever achieved in a laboratory experiment, and the first new results from two enormous, complex detectors known as ATLAS and CMS are being presented. This announcement has been organized hastily because both detectors have picked up something completely unexpected. Rumors have been circulating for days about what it might be, but nobody knows for sure what is really going on, and the speculations are wild. The CMS spokesperson takes the stage first, giving a presentation with no surprises until the very end, when two plots appear showing the energies—theoretical and actual—carried by a flood of particles emerging from head-on collisions between protons traveling at nearly the speed of light. If you squint, there appears to be bump in the experimental curve, suggesting too many events at one point than theory would predict. It could be evidence for a new, unexpected particle—but at a level that’s merely interesting, not definitive. We’ve seen things like this before, and they almost always go away when you look more closely. Then Marumi Kado from ATLAS steps up, with a strangely confident look in his eye—and when the results finally flash on the screen, the audience understands why. ATLAS has seen the bump too, at the same point as CMS did, but now it’s so prominent that you can’t miss it. This really does look like a new particle, and if it is, there is suddenly an enormous crack at the very heart of high-energy physics. The signal is one of the simplest you can imagine: it represents two high energy photons emerging from the decay of a subatomic particle created in a proton-proton collision. It’s very similar to the signal that led to the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012. But this particle is not the Higgs boson: it is six times more massive. Nobody had predicted anything like this. It is shocking to the physicists in the auditorium. People look around, astonished, trying to confirm that their own reactions are reflected in what they see in their colleagues’ faces. If the observations are confirmed, it will be revolutionary. This could mean nothing less than the fall of the Standard Model of particle physics (SM), which has passed every experimental test thrown at it since it was first put together over four decades ago. The SM describes what the building blocks of the universe are and how they work, and from there, at least in principle, explains every other phenomenon in nature. Originally theorists thought that the SM would be an approximation of a more fundamental theory that would be quickly discovered. This is what has always happened in the past. Newton’s theory of gravity, for example, doesn’t apply to bodies that are extremely massive, or which are moving close to the speed of light. It is accurate enough that engineers could use it to send the New Horizons space probe toward Pluto and have it arrive in just the right place nine years later. Einstein’s theory of General Relativity, however, is more fundamental, and applies in those extreme where Newton’s theory breaks down. Moreover, there are many reasons to believe that the SM is incomplete. In particular, the mechanism that generates the mass of the elementary particles suggests that the theory must be modified at higher energies. To discover this new physics was the number one motivation for the construction of the LHC and several other experiments before that. To theorists’ surprise, however, the SM has performed much better than originally expected. This has been both a blessing and a curse for particle physics for many years. On one hand, the discovery of the Higgs boson was an enormous success, identifying the SM’s last, and arguably most important, building block. On the other, the fact that the Higgs has just the mass and all the properties everyone expected generated a widespread pessimism about new discoveries. The search for a more fundamental theory might drag on indefinitely. But the bumps in the ATLAS and CMS data, which showed up at an energy of 750 billion electron-volts (GeV), would completely change this situation overnight, making it virtually certain that more discoveries will be coming during coming years. If the hint of a new particle is real, the successes of the SM suddenly will have come to an end. The importance of this result is clear to everybody working in the field and it has immediately triggered a huge amount of work on the possible implications. None of the more fundamental models that currently exist as possible replacements for the SM can explain the bump. If the SM has fallen it is likely not for any reason we expected. If the new particle is real, it is absolutely unclear what might be its role in the greater scheme of things. Maybe it is related indirectly to the Higgs boson somehow, or maybe it is connected with the puzzle of dark matter in the universe. Or maybe it is just there by chance. Certainly these are questions that scientist will have to answer in the future and more data will help to understand what lies ahead. This is by far the most exciting thing that has happened in particle physics over the last three decades. If this hint of new physics is confirmed—something that could happen within just a few weeks, or possibly even within days—it is difficult to state the importance of such a discovery. It would be bigger than the detection of the Higgs boson, which was just confirmation of what was already known. If the bump is real, we are about to start writing a whole new chapter in the history of fundamental physics. It is impossible to imagine where this could lead. We could know the answer very, very soon.
Is there a FIFTH fundamental force? LHC's new particle that doesn't fit with laws of physics could be confirmed within WEEKS In December, data suggested a particle six times heavier than Higgs It would not be described by Standard Model of particle physics More collisions started in April 2016, to collect more data Experts expect confirmation or refutation of its existence 'very soon' CERN spokesman told MailOnline it is still likely to take weeks By ABIGAIL BEALL FOR MAILONLINE PUBLISHED: 15:20, 13 June 2016 | UPDATED: 12:32, 14 June 2016 In he first signs of a particle heavier than the Higgs boson was seen at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) back in December. Unexplained by current models, its existence might lead to the discovery of a whole new set of particles and possibly even a fifth fundamental force. The first results were not enough to confirm the particle exists, but now the new particle could be confirmed within the next few weeks. please log in to view this image +5 Two of the detectors, ATLAS and CMS, were counting particle decays that ended up in two photons, and found a potential new particle. If it turns out to be real, and not a blip, this would be a huge discovery. Two high-energy photons whose energy, shown in red, was measured in the CMS is illustrated THE ELUSIVE PARTICLE Two of the detectors at the Large Hadron Collider - ATLAS and CMS - were searching for new kinds of physics by counting particle decays that ended up in two photons. Measuring photons is a way of detecting new and unknown events because photons are easy to detect and physicists know what to expect in terms of results from background events. When particles decay into photons, they release energy equivalent to their mass multiplied by the speed of light squared. The measurements saw photons with a combined energy of 750 GeV, making the potential particle six times heavier than the Higgs boson. If it turns out to be real, and not just a blip in the measurements, this would be a huge discovery. 'It would be something completely beyond the Standard Model, and the tip of an iceberg of a large new set of particles, if it exists!', the researchers said. In data produced last December at the LHC in Geneva, two separate measurements found what looked like a particle six time heavier than the Higgs boson. If it turns out to be real, and not just a blip in the measurements, this would be a huge discovery. 'We should have enough data by mid-July to either confirm the result or place serious doubt on its existence,' Professor James Olsen, CMS physics coordinator and a physicist at Princeton, told MailOnline. 'The CMS plan is to have an updated result using the 2016 data by the ICHEP conference in Chicago (starting Aug 3), although this timescale could be accelerated if the LHC outperforms expectations.' According to Dr Michele Redi. a research scientist at INFN Florence, writing in Scientific American, the hints of the new particle might be confirmed 'within just a few weeks, or possibly even within days.' 'If the bump is real, we are about to start writing a whole new chapter in the history of fundamental physics,' Dr Redi said. 'It is impossible to imagine where this could lead. 'We could know the answer very, very soon.' 'The LHC is in good shape, therefore delivering collisions and new data to the experiments,' a spokeman from CERN told MailOnline. 'It is clear that the ATLAS and CMS collaborations plan to analyze these data in preparation for the big conference of the year - ICHEP 2016 Chicago - early August - so in case they have enough data and there is something new, it should be known by then or just before. 'I would say it will still take a few weeks before we can provide an update about "the bump" as analyzing the data requires some careful work.' 'It would be something completely beyond the Standard Model, and the tip of an iceberg of a large new set of particles,' Professor John Ellis, theoretical physicist at Kings College London told MailOnline, 'if it exists!' Two of the detectors, ATLAS and CMS, were searching for new physics by counting particle decays that ended up in two photons. Measuring photons is a good method for detecting new physics because photons are easy to detect and physicists know what to expect in terms of results from background events. They both separately saw photons with a combined energy of 750 GeV. When particles decay into photons, they release energy equivalent to their mass multiplied by the speed of light squared. We’re all familiar with Einstein’s most famous equation, and this observation is it in action. This means the particle that produced these photons is an as yet unknown with this exact amount of energy in the form of its mass. ‘It weighs about 750 GeV, corresponding to about six times heavier than the Higgs boson, and almost 800 times heavier than the proton,’ said Ellis. It was a similar 'bump' that gave the first hints to the Higgs boson. But the difference now is that the existence of the Higgs boson had already been predicted. This new particle, if it exists, has not been predicted by the Standard Model, so would open up physicists to a whole new unexplored world and could lead to the discovery of a new set of particles. please log in to view this image +5 In December last year the two observations, in the ATLAS and CMS detectors, hinted at a new particle six times heavier than the Higgs boson. The LHC will start making more collisions next month, April 2016, and experts can expect confirmation or refutation in the summer please log in to view this image +5 When particles decay into photons, they release energy equivalent to their mass multiplied by the speed of light squared. The measurements saw photons with a combined energy of 750 GeV, about six times heavier than the Higgs boson, something that has not been predicted by the current theory describing particle physics The Standard Model claims everything in the universe is made from the most basic building blocks called fundamental particles, that are governed by four forces: gravity, electromagnetic, weak nuclear and strong nuclear. The forces work over different ranges and have different strengths. This new particle, if it exists, would not fit into the description given by the Standard Model and so would lead to a whole new area of particle physics for them to explore. Some have suggested it might even lead to the discovery of a fifth fundamental force. 'This is possible, but there must at least be a set of unknown particles to explain how this new particle decays, and probably how it is produced,' said Ellis. This development is exciting because the Standard Model has left some questions unanswered for years, so scientists are keen to break free of it and find new theories. It can't explain gravity, for example, because it is incompatible with our best explanation of how gravity works - general relativity, nor does it explain dark matter particles. STANDARD MODEL OF PARTICLE PHYSICS AND WHY THE FIND IS SO EXCITING The Standard Model says everything in the universe is made from the most basic building blocks called fundamental particles, that are governed by four forces: gravity, electromagnetic, weak nuclear and strong nuclear. please log in to view this image +5 The Higgs boson, named after professor Higgs, shown, was discovered in 2012 and is an essential component of the Standard Model The forces work over different ranges and have different strengths. This new particle, if it exists, would not fit into the description given by the Standard Model and so would lead to a whole new area of particle physics. Some have suggested it might even lead to the discovery of a fifth fundamental force. This development is exciting because the Standard Model has left some questions unanswered for years, so scientists are keen to break free of it and find new theories. It can't explain gravity, for example, because it is incompatible with our best explanation of how gravity works - general relativity, nor does it explain dark matter particles. The quantum theory used to describe the small particles in the world, and the general theory of relativity used to describe the larger objects world, are also difficult to reconcile. Nobody has managed to make the two mathematically compatible in the context of the Standard Model. According to the Big Bang theory, matter and antimatter were created in equal amounts at the start of the universe and so they should have annihilated each other totally in the first second or so of the universe's existence. This means the cosmos should be full of light and little else. But because it isn't there must have been a subtle difference in the physics of matter and anti-matter that has left the universe with a surplus of matter and that makes up the stars we see, the planet we live on and ourselves. But the observations seen so far are not enough to confirm the existence of a particle. The quantum theory used to describe the small particles in the world, and the general theory of relativity used to describe the larger objects world, are also difficult to reconcile. Nobody has managed to make the two mathematically compatible in the context of the Standard Model. According to the Big Bang theory, matter and antimatter were created in equal amounts at the start of the universe and so they should have annihilated each other totally in the first second or so of the universe's existence. This means the cosmos should be full of light and little else. But because it isn't there must have been a subtle difference in the physics of matter and anti-matter that has left the universe with a surplus of matter and that makes up the stars we see, the planet we live on and ourselves. please log in to view this image +5 The detectors saw photons with a combined energy of 750 GeV. When particles decay into photons they release energy equivalent to their mass multiplied by the speed of light squared. This means the particle that decayed into them would have been about six times heavier than the Higgs boson But the observations seen so far are not enough to confirm the existence of a particle. The CERN physicists need to make sure the observations were not just down to chance, so it comes down to collecting much more data and waiting to see if the particle is spotted again. Some remain unconvinced. 'Indeed, I don't see yet statistically convincing bumps that would point to the existence of a new particle in the LHC data,' Professor Patrick Janot, working on the CMS detector at CERN told MailOnline. The LHC started making more collisions in April, and the results that might confirm or refute the existence of this particle could be available soon. 'You will hear solid statements in summer,' Professor Janot said back in March, 'when a lot more data than in 2015 are accumulated at 13 TeV.'
Excitement grows as Large Hadron Collider hints at new particle Blips in data are common, but scientists are hoping that brief flashes of light spotted inside the LHC might be the first glimpse of a new era of physics please log in to view this image The green lines on the left and right of the image point to what might be the creation and destruction of a new particle. Illustration: CERN Ian Sample Science editor @iansample Friday 18 March 2016 12.04 GMTLast modified on Friday 18 March 201622.00 GMT Share on LinkedIn Share on Google+ This article is 3 months old Shares 90 Comments 594 Save for later When hundreds of physicists gathered this week in La Thuile, an old mining town in the heart of the Italian alps, one short and simple question hung in the cool, crisp air: is it real? The source of their fascination, and no little excitement, was light. Not the sunlight that made the snow glint on the mountains in the Aosta valley, but light inside the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) across the border near Geneva. The machine had detected more photons than expected as it smashed particles beneath the quiet Swiss countryside. The brief flashes of light might be the first glimpse of the next big discovery. Or it may be nothing. The LHC hunts for signs of new physics by slamming particles together and capturing the debris in giant detectors. It is a world where quantum weirdness rules, and random blips in the data are a daily nuisance. But what if this latest bump in the data has solid foundations? Enter a new era of physics, and a world of hitherto unknown particles and forces. Speculation is rife. Some physicists suspect that the blip may be a heavier cousin of the Higgs boson, the mass-giving particle the LHC discovered in 2012. Alternatively, it could mean the Higgs itself is made up of a bunch of smaller particles. Others wonder if the bump might be a graviton, a particle that transmits gravity. That would be truly remarkable: so far, gravity has proved impossible to reconcile with theories of other particles and forces. “If this thing turns out to be real, it’s a ten on the Richter scale of particle physics,” says John Ellis, professor of physics at King’s College London, and the former head of theory at Cern. “One’s excitometer gets totally broken.” That if, though, is a big one. “I would love for it to persist, but I’ve seen so many effects come and go that I have to say in my heart of hearts I’m not very optimistic. It would be such a fantastic discovery if it were true, precisely because it’s unexpected, and because it would be the tip of an iceberg of new forms of matter,” Ellis says. His caution is echoed by Frank Wilczek, who won the Nobel prize for physics in 2004. “It’s not what the doctor ordered to solve any specific problem that I know about. But I think there may be an attractive way to accommodate it, if it exists,” he says. Wilczek likes the sound of a particle made from new types of quarks (the constituents of protons and neutrons), bound together by a new super-strong force. “That said, I’m afraid the most likely resolution is that what’s been seen is a statistical fluke.” Advertisement The first hints of the intriguing blipsemerged in December, when researchers on the LHC’s two main detectors, Atlas and CMS, revealed that they had both seen small bumps in their data. They showed that collisions of protons inside the huge detectors had produced slightly more high-energy photons, or particles of light, than our best theories predict. Normally, such bumps barely draw comment. Too many come and go, never to be seen again. But what made physicists raise a collective eyebrow was that two teams, working independently, in competition, and on completely different detectors, had bumps in the same place: the energies of the extra photons matched. Both hinted at a hefty new particle 15 times more massive than an iron atom. If real, the mystery particle had burst into existence and promptly vanished, releasing a burst of light as a death throe. Tiziano Camporesi, head of the CMS group, has offered colleagues 20:1 against the particle’s existence, with payment in bottles of decent French wine. So far, no takers. “I’m not finding anyone among my colleagues who wants to accept my bet,” he says. “I am betting against it, but I would gladly lose.” “The point is, when you look at the difficulties something like this raises in terms of interpretation, you wonder whether you are not seeing some sort of extraordinary example of a coincidence in both experiments,” he adds. Advertisement It was measurements like these that led to the discovery of the Higgs boson in July 2012. The particle, first postulated in 1964, was predicted to appear in LHC collisions and immediately disintegrate into other, less massive particles. The cleanest death for the Higgs was to decay into pairs of photons, and it was counting these extra flickers of light that nailed the discovery. The meeting at La Thuile, a key event in the particle physics calendar, was the first chance LHC scientists had to unveil their latest analyses of the new bumps. They had a captive audience. Since the LHC groups first announced the blips in December, theorists have churned out more than 200 papers proposing all manner of explanations for this mysterious - and still highly tentative - particle. The eagerness of theorists to jump on every surprise result from any experiment going has earned them the collective title of “ambulance chasers”. To be fair, building theories around new results is what they are meant to do. In the months after Christmas, the CMS team worked hard to sharpen up their data. They compensated for technical problems that affected scores of collisions, and then combined their 2015 data with that collected during the 2011 to 2012 run that discovered the Higgs boson. Presenting in La Thuile on Thursday, the CMS team revealed that the new bump had grown, and now had a statistical strength of 3.4 sigma. After technical corrections though, which account for the fact that physicists look for bumps in lots of places and not just one, the strength fell to 1.6 sigma. It’s the same reason that the finding £20 in an ATM is less of a fluke if you check all the cashpoints in the neighbourhood, and not just the one in your office. The chance of a 1.6 sigma effect being a fluke is the same as flipping a few heads in a row. That’s far from impossible, especially in a machine that records billions of collisions a second. As for the Atlas team, the latest analyses unveiled at La Thuile has their bump at 3.6 sigma, or about 2 sigma after corrections, the equivalent of tossing five heads in a row. Physicists can only claim a bona fide discovery once their signals reach a statistical significance of five sigma. The chances of a such a signal being a random fluke is less than one in 3 million. That is the same as tossing 21 heads in a row. “If this particle is real, it is unavoidable that it’s a telltale signal of something new both in terms of states of matter and fundamental forces. But for the moment it is just a fluctuation,” says Camporesi. “Only more data will tell.” That will soon be forthcoming. The LHC shuts down every winter for its annual check-up. But over the next week, the machine will gradually be brought back to life, and prepared for what Mike Lamont, operations group leader, calls “first beams” over the Easter weekend. Towards the end of April, the collider should start crashing particles again, and Atlas and CMS can start to collect the data they need. If the machine behaves well and goes smoothly about its business, physicists could have their answer, one way or another, in time for the next major conference, in August. “It’s intriguing, but it really is this year’s data that is going to tell us much more,” says Dave Charlton, head of the Atlas group. “Things like this do come and go. That doesn’t mean they’re not exciting, but it does mean you shouldn’t start rewriting the textbooks.” Potential new discovery: what you need to know How does the Large Hadron Collider find new particles? The machine accelerates two beams of protons around a 27km loop at close to the speed of light. The beams go in different directions and are crossed at four points where the protons slam into one another inside giant detectors. The intense energy of the collisions is converted into all manner particles, including photons (particles of light), electrons and quarks. New particles are unstable, and the moment they are made they disintegrate into other more common particles. This creates unexpected patterns in the LHC data which reveal the particle’s presence. For example, the Higgs boson was discovered because it decayed into pairs of photons. Why are physicists excited? Scientists from two independent LHC teams, Atlas and CMS, have seen bumps in their data that might be caused by a new, unknown particle. Both have detected more high-energy photons in their collisions, and in both cases, they point to a new particle six times more massive than the Higgs boson. If the particle is real, physicists will be stunned. It would be the tip of an iceberg of new particles and forces. What could the new particle be? Theorists have come up with plenty of ideas. It could be a heavier cousin of the Higgs boson, or perhaps a type of graviton, a particle that transmits the force of gravity. Or it may be a heavy version of the neutrino born from a theory called supersymmetry, which calls for every known type of particle to have a more massive twin. How likely is the particle to be real? The evidence for a new particle is weak at the moment. While both experiments have similar blips in their data, random fluctuations happen all the time. These can look like new particles, but vanish as more data is collected. Scientists should know by July whether the particle is real or not. By that time, if the LHC performs well, it will have gathered twice as much data as the scientists have now.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/science/your-cat-might-actually-physics-8218471 No wonder Schroedinger wanted to nuke the little ****s.
Second gravitational wave signal detected Smaller waves from another black hole merger found BY EMILY CONOVER 1:15PM, JUNE 15, 2016 please log in to view this image RIPPLE SIGHTING The cosmic dance of two black holes warped spacetime as the pair spiraled inward and merged, creating gravitational waves (illustrated). LIGO detected these ripples, produced by black holes eight and 14 times the mass of the sun, on December 26, 2015. T. PYLE/LIGO please log in to view this image EMail please log in to view this image Twitter please log in to view this image Facebook please log in to view this image Reddit please log in to view this image Google+ SPONSOR MESSAGE For the second time, scientists have glimpsed elusive ripples that vibrate the fabric of space. A new observation of gravitational waves, announced by scientists with the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, LIGO, follows their first detection, reported earlier this year (SN: 3/5/16, p. 6). The second detection further opens a new window through which to observe the universe. “The era of gravitational wave astronomy is upon us,” says astronomer Scott Ransom of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville, Va., who is not involved with LIGO. “Now that there’s two, you can’t get around that anymore.” Both sets of cosmic quivers were wrought in cataclysmic collisions of black holes. But the latest observation indicates that such merging pairs of black holes are a varied bunch — the newly detected black holes were much smaller than the first pair. And this time, scientists concluded that one in the pair was spinning like a top. “The most important thing is that it’s a second one,” says LIGO spokesperson Gabriela González of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. “But it’s important that it’s different, because it shows that there’s a spectrum of black hole systems out there.” please log in to view this image SKY SITES The two sets of gravitational waves LIGO detected originated within two broad regions of the sky. The different colors indicate the probabilities that the ripples originated within each region — pink is 90 percent, yellow is 10 percent. A. MELLINGER/LIGO The two black holes in the most recent detection were about eight and 14 times the mass of the sun and were located roughly 1.4 billion light-years from Earth, the scientists estimate. When the pair fused, they formed one bloated black hole with a mass 21 times that of the sun. One sun’s worth of mass was converted into energy and carried away by the gravitational waves, LIGO scientists announced June 15 in San Diego during a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. “Gravitational astronomy is real,” LIGO laboratory executive director David Reitze said in a news conference. “The future is going to be full of binary black hole mergers for LIGO.” A paper describing the finding was published online June 15 in Physical Review Letters. As the two black holes spiraled around each other and slammed together, they churned up cosmic undulations that stretched and squeezed space — as predicted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity. These waves careened across the universe, reaching LIGO’s twin detectors in Hanford, Wash., and Livingston, La., on December 26, 2015. Each L-shaped LIGO detector senses the minuscule stretching and squeezing of space across its two 4-kilometer arms. As a gravitational wave passes through, one arm lengthens while the other shortens. Laser light bouncing back and forth in the arms serves as an ultrasensitive measuring stick that can pick up those subtle length changes (SN: 3/5/16, p. 22). As the gravitational waves rumbled past Earth in December, they stretched and squeezed the arms by less than a thousandth the width of a proton. "That's very, very small,” González said. “That's like changing the distance between Earth and the sun by a fraction of an atomic diameter." This tiny deviation, appearing in both detectors nearly simultaneously, was enough to pick out the telltale ripples. Compared with LIGO’s previously detected black hole merger, this one was a more minor dustup. These black holes were less than half the size of those in the first merger (30 and 35 solar masses according to a recently revised estimate). And the signal of their coalescence was more subtle, hiding under the messy wiggles in the data that result from random fluctuations or unwanted signals from the environment. Chirp, chirp When converted into sound waves, the gravitational waves from black hole mergers make a telltale “chirp” noise, which crescendoes and increases in frequency as the black holes spiral inward. The most recent ripples registered in the detector for a full second – significantly longer than the two-tenths of a second seen in the first detection. This created a lengthier, drawn-out chirp. Here, the sounds from both gravitational wave observations are played, followed by the same signals played at an artificially increased pitch to make them easier to hear. LIGO The first detection stunned scientists, due to the surprisingly large masses of the black holes and the whopping signals their gravitational waves left in the data. But the new black hole merger is more in line with expectations. “This is comfort food,” says physicist Emanuele Berti of the University of Mississippi in Oxford, who is not involved with LIGO. “If you had asked me before the first detection, I would have bet that this would have been the first kind of binary black hole to be observed, not the monster we saw.” There’s little question about whether the signal is real — a false alarm of this magnitude should occur only once in 200,000 years. “It’s very, very exciting,” says physicist Clifford Will of the University of Florida in Gainesville. It “looks like a very solid discovery.” In a new twist, the scientists found that one of the two merging black holes was spinning. It was rotating at a speed at least 20 percent of its maximum possible speed. Using gravitational waves to study how pairs of black holes twirl could help scientists understand how they form. The scientists used their data to put general relativity through its paces, looking for deviations from the theory’s predictions. But the black holes’ behavior was as expected. LIGO also saw hints of a third black hole collision on October 12. The evidence was not strong enough to claim a definitive detection, though. LIGO is currently offline, undergoing improvements that will allow the detectors to peer even further out into space. Scientists expect it to be back up and running this fall, churning out new detections of gravitational waves. “Now we know for sure that we’ll see more in the future,” González says. please log in to view this image REGULAR RIPPLES LIGO’s newest glimpse of gravitational waves occurred on December 26, 2015. This followed the first observation of the spacetime tremors on September 14. LIGO also saw a hint of gravitational waves on October 12, but the signal wasn’t strong enough to claim detection. The experiment is currently offline and will resume taking data this fall.
First CRISPR clinical trial gets green light from US panel The technique's first test in people could begin as early as the end of the year. Sara Reardon 22 June 2016 Article tools Rights & Permissions please log in to view this image STEVE GSCHMEISSNER/SPL Human T cells (blue) will soon be modified using the CRISPR technique in a clinical trial to attack cancer cells (pink). CRISPR, the genome-editing technology that has taken biomedical science by storm, is finally nearing human trials. On 21 June, an advisory committee at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) approved a proposal to use CRISPR–Cas9 to help augment cancer therapies that rely on enlisting a patient’s T cells, a type of immune cell. “Cell therapies [for cancer] are so promising but the majority of people who get these therapies have a disease that relapses,” says study leader Edward Stadtmauer, a physician at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Gene editing could improve such treatments and eliminate some of their vulnerabilities to cancer and the body’s immune system, he says. Related stories Leukaemia success heralds wave of gene-editing therapies CRISPR, the disruptor Gene-editing method tackles HIV in first clinical test This first trial is small and designed to test whether CRISPR is safe for use in people, rather than whether it effectively treats cancer or not. It will be funded by a US$250-million immunotherapy foundation formed in April by former Facebook president Sean Parker. The trial itself does not yet have a budget. The University of Pennsylvania will manufacture the edited cells, and will recruit and treat patients alongside centres in California and Texas. The researchers will remove T cells from 18 patients with several types of cancers and perform three CRISPR edits on them. One edit will insert a gene for a protein engineered to detect cancer cells and instruct the T cells to target them, and a second edit removes a natural T-cell protein that could interfere with this process. The third is defensive: it will remove the gene for a protein that identifies the T cells as immune cells and prevent the cancer cells from disabling them. The researchers will then infuse the edited cells back into the patient. On the move “Last year’s excitement over CRISPR was in anticipation of this,” says Dean Anthony Lee, an immunologist at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, and a member of the NIH’s Recombinant DNA Research Advisory Committee (RAC), which reviewed the proposal. CRISPR, he says, makes genome engineering easy enough that such trials can move forward quickly. The RAC reviews all proposals for human trials involving modified DNA that are conducted in the United States. Stadtmauer’s team will now have to convince US regulators and review boards at their own institutions to allow the trial. Immunologist Carl June at the University of Pennsylvania, who is a science adviser on the project, says that it could begin by the end of the year. Other trials may not be far behind. Editas Biotechnologies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for instance, has said that it wants to use CRISPR in a clinical trial for a rare form of blindness as soon as 2017. However, RAC members say that they have not yet been approached about reviewing the trial. Other techniques CRISPR has courted most attention because of its ease of use, however the T-cell trial will not be the first test of the efficacy of using gene editing to fight diseases. In 2014, June led a trial using a different gene-editing system called zinc-finger nuclease. His group took blood from 12 people with HIV and removed the gene that encodes a protein on T cells that the virus targets. They hoped that this would prevent infection of the cells. The results were encouraging, and the technique is now being used in clinical trials for several other conditions. And last week, researchers at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London began a safety study with 10 children using a similar technique called TALENS. Instead of using a patient’s own cells, the system uses T cells from a donor that have been edited to remove genes that would cause the patient’s body to reject them. The gene editing then directs the T cells to attack the cancer and protects the cells from damage by other immunotherapy drugs. Although CRISPR is easier to use than the other techniques, and better at editing multiple genes at once, June says that the main challenge will be overcoming CRISPR's propensity for ‘off-target’ edits. These are instances in which the system cuts or mutates unintended parts of the genome. And despite precautions, the immune system could still attack the edited cells. Once bitten, twice shy During the RAC meeting, one of the committee’s greatest concerns was a potential conflict of interest. Among other financial involvements, June has ties to the pharmaceutical company Novartis, holds patents on T-cell technologies, and could stand to benefit from the success of this trial. June declined to give details on the exact nature of his conflicts of interest, but says that his university is taking steps to manage it, such as preventing him from being involved in selecting patients. Several RAC reviewers suggested that the University of Pennsylvania not be allowed to recruit patients at all and to leave it to other institutions: this language did not make it into their final approval. However, the RAC members say they are being extra careful with this study. “Penn has a very extensive conflict and has a history,” says Laurie Zoloth, a bioethicist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Looming over the discussion is the name Jesse Gelsinger, who died at age 18 while participating in an early gene-therapy trial conducted by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania in 1999. A subsequent investigation found numerous problems with the study, including unreported animal data on the therapy’s ill effects and the fact that the investigators had a financial stake in the study’s outcome. The incident is generally considered to have set gene therapy back by decades. “Any first use in humans we have to be extraordinarily careful,” Zoloth says. So a lot is riding on this trial. But Mildred Cho, a bioethicist at Stanford University in California and an RAC member, says that safety work in animals for a new therapy will take researchers only so far. “Often we have to take the leap of faith.”
Is AI The Worst Mistake In Human History? Published on June 28, 2016 Featured in: Big Ideas & Innovation, Editor's Picks, Entrepreneurship, Technology LikeIs AI The Worst Mistake In Human History? 1,282 Comment 131 ShareShare Is AI The Worst Mistake In Human History? 296 please log in to view this image John Battelle please log in to view this image FollowJohn Battelle Founder, EIC, CEO, NewCo One of the most intriguing public discussions to emerge over the past year is humanity’s wrestling match with the threat and promise of artificial intelligence. AI has long lurked in our collective consciousness — negatively so, if we’re to take Hollywood movie plots as our guide — but its recent andvery real advances are driving critical conversations about the future not only of our economy, but of humanity’s very existence. In May 2014, the world received a wakeup call from famed physicist Stephen Hawking. Together with three respected AI researchers, the world’s most renowned scientistwarned that the commercially-driven creation of intelligent machines could be “potentially our worst mistake in history.” Comparing the impact of AI on humanity to the arrival of “a superior alien species,” Hawking and his co-authors found humanity’s current state of preparedness deeply wanting. “Although we are facing potentially the best or worst thing ever to happen to humanity,” they wrote, “little serious research is devoted to these issues outside small nonprofit institutes.” That was two years ago. So where are we now? Insofar as the tech industry is concerned, AI is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed. Which is to say, the titans of tech control most of it. Google has completely reorganized itself around AI and machine learning. IBM has done the same, declaring itself the leader in “cognitive computing.” Facebook is all in as well. The major tech players are locked in an escalating race for talent, paying as much for top AI researchersas NFL teams do for star quarterbacks. This story is sent first to readers of NewCo’s new weekly newsletter, now read by thousands of smart folks just like yourself. Want to get it first? Subscribe free here. Let’s review. Two years ago, the world’s smartest man said that ungoverned AI could well end humanity. Since then, most of the work in the field has been limited to a handful of extremely powerful for-profit companies locked in a competitive arms race. And that call for governance? A work in progress, to put it charitably. Not exactly the early plot lines we’d want, should we care to see things work out for humanity. When it comes to managing the birth of a technology generally understood to be the most powerful force ever invented by humanity, exactly what kind of regulatory regime should prevail? Which begs the question: When it comes to managing the birth of a technology generally understood to be the most powerful force ever invented by humanity, exactly what kind of regulation do we need? Predictably, last week The Economist says we shouldn’t worry too much about it, because we’ve seen this movie before, in the transition to industrial society — and despite a couple of World Wars, that turned out alright. Move along, nothing to see here. But many of us have an uneasy sense that this time is different — it’s one thing to replace manual labor with machines and move up the ladder to a service and intellectual property-based economy. But what does an economy look like that’s based on the automation of service and intellect? The Economist’s extensive review of the field is worthy reading. But it left me unsettled. “The idea that you can pull free physical work out of the ground, that was a really good trick.” That’s Max Ventilla, the former head of personalization for Google, who left the mothership to start the mission and data-driven education startup AltSchool. In an interview for an upcoming episode of ourShift Dialogs video series, Ventilla echoedThe Economist’s take on the shift from manual labor to industrialized society and the rise of the fossil fuel economy. But he feels that this time, something’s different. “Now we’re discovering how to pull free mental work out of the ground,” he told me. “(AI) is going to be a huge trick over the next 50 years. It’s going to create even more opportunity — and much more displacement.” Hawking’s call to action singled out “an IT arms race fueled by unprecedented investments” by the world’s richest companies. A future in which super-intelligent AI is controlled by an elite group of massive tech firms is bound to make many of us uneasy. What if the well-intentioned missions of Google (organize the world’s information!) and Facebook (let people easily share!) are co-opted by a new generation of corporate bosses with less friendly goals? As you might expect, the Valley has an answer: OpenAI. A uniquely technological antidote to the problem, OpenAI is led by an impressive cadre of Valley entrepreneurs, including Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Reid Hoffman, and Peter Thiel. But instead of creating yet another for-profit company with a moon-shot mission (protect humanity from evil AI!), their creation takes the form of a research lab with a decidedly nonprofit purpose: To corral breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and open them up to any and everyone, for free. The lab’s stated mission is “to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return.” OpenAI has managed to convince a small but growing roster of AI researchers to spurn offers from Facebook, Google, and elsewhere, and instead work on what might best be seen as a public commons for AI. The whole endeavor has the whiff of the Manhattan Project — but without the government (or the secrecy). And instead of racing against the Nazis, the good guys are competing with … well, the Valley itself. One really can’t blame the big tech companies for trying to win the AI arms race. Sure, there are extraordinary profits if they do, but in the end they really have no choice in the matter. If you’re a huge, data-driven software business, you either have cutting-edge AI driving your company’s products, or you’re out of business. Once Google uses AI to make its Photos product magical, Facebook has to respond in kind. Smart photostreams are one thing. But if we don’t want market-bound, for-profit companies determining the future of superhuman intelligence, we need to be asking ourselves: What role should government play? What about universities? In truth, we probably haven’t invented the institutions capable of containing this new form of fire. “It’s a race between the growing power of the technology, and the growing wisdom we need to manage it,” said Max Tegmark, a founder of the Future of Life Institute, one of the small AI think tanks called out in Hawking’s original op-ed. Speaking to theWashington Post, Tegmark continued: “Right now, almost all the resources tend to go into growing the power of the tech.” Who determines what is “good”? We are just now grappling with the very real possibility that we might create a force more powerful than ourselves. Now is the time to ask ourselves — how do we get ready? It’s not clear if OpenAI is going to spend most of its time on building new kinds of AI, or if it will become something of an open-source clearing house for the creation of AI failsafes (the lab is doing early work in both). Regardless, it’s both comforting and a bit disconcerting to realize that the very same people who drive the Valley’s culture may also be responsible for reigning it in. Over the weekend, The New York Times op-ed pages took up the issue, noting AI’s “white guy problem” (it’s worth noting the author is afemale researcher at Microsoft). Take a look at the founding team of OpenAI: A solid supermajority of white men. “It’s hard to imagine anything more amazing and positively impactful than successfully creating AI,” writes Greg Brockman, the founding CTO of OpenAI. But he continues with a caveat: “So long as it’s done in a good way.” Indeed. But who determines what is good? We are just now grappling with the very real possibility that we might create a force more powerful than ourselves. Now is the time to ask ourselves — how do we get ready? Can a small set of top-level researchers in AI provide the intellectual, moral, and ethical compass for a technology that might well destroy — or liberate — the world? Or should we engage all stakeholders in such a decision — traditionally the role of government? Regardless of whether the government is involved in framing this question, it certainly will be involved in cleaning up the mess if we fail to plan properly. Back when AI was in early development, its single most powerful critique was its “brittle” nature: it didn’t work because it failed to be aware of all possible inputs and parameters. Now that we stand on the brink of strong AI, we’d be wise to include a diversity of opinion — in particular those who live outside the Valley, those who don’t look and think like the Valley, and those who disagree with our native techno-optimism — in the debate about how we manage its impact.
Or it could be in a child's cupboard billions of years in the future. Our future. Time, size and dimensions are fluid, that is the bit that fries my mind. Anything that can happen does happen. Except Everton winning another trophy.
To douse hot hives, honeybee colonies launch water squadrons New study reveals roles, communication among social insects at time of crisis BY SUSAN MILIUS 6:00PM, JULY 20, 2016 please log in to view this image SUPER GULP When a honeybee colony gets too hot, specialist drinker bees fly off to collect water (one shown tanking up at a pond dotted with duckweed plants). HELGA R. HEILMANN please log in to view this image EMail please log in to view this image Twitter please log in to view this image Facebook please log in to view this image Reddit please log in to view this image Google+ SPONSOR MESSAGE When a honeybee colony gets hot and bothered, the crisis sets tongues wagging. Middle-aged bees stick their tongues into the mouths of their elders, launching these special drinker bees to go collect water. That’s just one detail uncovered during a new study of how a colony superorganism cools in hot weather. Using lightbulbs to make heat waves in beehives, researchers have traced how honeybees communicate about collecting water and work together in deploying it as air-conditioning. The tests show just how important water is for protecting a colony from overheating, Thomas Seeley of Cornell University and his colleagues report online July 20 in the Journal of Experimental Biology. Water collection is an aspect of bee biology that we know little about, says insect physiologist Sue Nicolson of the University of Pretoria in South Africa. Collecting pollen and nectar have gotten more attention, perhaps because honeybees store them. Water mostly gets picked up as needed. Bees often get as much water as they need in the nectar they sip. But they do need extra water at times, such as during overheating in the center of the nest where eggs and young are coddled. When researchers artificially heated that zone in two colonies confined in a greenhouse, worker bees fought back. They used their wings to fan hot air out of the hive. “You can put your hand in the opening of a hive on a hot day and feel the blast of air that’s being pushed out,” Seeley says. Several hundred bees also moved out of the nest to cluster in a beardlike mass nearby. Their evacuation reduces body heat within the nest and opens up passageways for greater airflow, he says. The bees also had a Plan C — evaporative cooling. Middle-aged bees inside a hive walked toward the nest entrance to where a small number of elderly bees, less than 1 percent of the colony, hang out and wait until water is needed. Heat by itself doesn’t activate these bees, especially since they’re not in the overheating core. Seeley now proposes that the burst of middle-aged bees’ repeated begging for water by tongue extension eventually sends the water-collecting bees into action. They return carrying some 80 percent of their weight in water. “The water carrier comes in looking really fat, and the water receivers start out looking very skinny,” Seeley says. “Over a minute when the transfer takes place, their forms reverse.” Then the receiving bees go to the hot zone, regurgitate their load of water and use their tongues to spread it over the fevered surfaces. In a water-deprivation experiment, bees prevented from gathering water could not prevent temperatures from rising dangerously, up to 44° Celsius, in their hive. When researchers permitted water-collector squadrons to tank up again, colonies could control temperatures. Even for multitalented bees, water is necessary for cooling, the researchers conclude. After a severe heat stress, the researchers noticed some bees with plumped-up abdomens hanging inside the colony. “Sometime they would be lined up like bottles of beer in the refrigerator,” Seeley says. Bottled beverages is what they were, he argues, storing water and remaining available if the coming night proved as water-stressed as the day. “Honeybees continue to amaze,” says Dennis vanEngelsdorp of the University of Maryland in College Park, who studies bee health. “Even after centuries of study, we have something new.” If I was a 'drinker bee', it wouldn't be water I'd be siphoning up
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/light-wave-particle You know it all, Red, so let's see if I have got this right. When stuff is a wave it has no mass and there fore doesn't effect gravity (or vice versa). When it's a particle it has mass, then does? Or is that just light? Or do photons NEVER have mass?
