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n2doc's JournalLHCb confirms existence of exotic hadrons
Cian O'Luanaigh
The Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) collaboration today announced results that confirm the existence of exotic hadrons – a type of matter that cannot be classified within the traditional quark model.
Hadrons are subatomic particles that can take part in the strong interaction – the force that binds protons inside the nuclei of atoms. Physicists have theorized since the 1960s, and ample experimental evidence since has confirmed, that hadrons are made up of quarks and antiquarks that determine their properties. A subset of hadrons, called mesons, is formed from quark-antiquark pairs, while the rest – baryons – are made up of three quarks.
But since it was first proposed physicists have found several particles that do not fit into this model of hadron structure. Now the LHCb collaboration has published an unambiguous observation of an exotic particle – the Z(4430) – that does not fit the quark model.
The Belle Collaboration reported the first evidence for the Z(4430) in 2008. They found a tantalizing peak in the mass distribution of particles that result from the decays of B mesons. Belle later confirmed the existence of the Z(4430) with a significance of 5.2 sigma on the scale that particle physicists use to describe the certainty of a result.
LHCb reports a more detailed measurement of the Z(4430) that confirms that it is unambiguously a particle, and a long-sought exotic hadron at that. They analysed more than 25,000 decays of B mesons selected from data from 180 trillion (180 ×1012) proton-proton collisions in the Large Hadron Collider.
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http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/2014/04/lhcb-confirms-existence-exotic-hadrons
Elizabeth Warren, Kingmaker?
—By Erika Eichelberger
Democrats' chances of keeping control of the Senate in 2014 don't look great. FiveThirtyEight polling guru Nate Silver recently predicted that "Republicans are now slight favorites to win at least six seats and capture the chamber," and the Washington Post's Monkey Cage blog gives the GOP an 80 percent chance of taking the Senate in 2014. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) isn't up for election this year. But the liberal darling is throwing her name—and her fundraising mojo—behind an effort to preserve the Dems' majority.
Warren has already raised $1.2 million this election season for 22 Senate candidates, including Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), according to Warren's political operation. That's a lot of dough. "Most members of Congress are not capable of raising that much for their colleagues…She's a rock star," says Viveca Novak, the editorial director of the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks the influence of money on politics. And in late March, the Massachusetts senator expanded her 2014 efforts even further, joining up with the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), a liberal PAC, to endorse two lucky Senate candidates: Rick Weiland, who is running to replace outgoing Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota, and Rep. Bruce Braley, who is vying to take the place of retiring Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa).
Landing a Warren endorsement is great news for candidates without a lot of name recognition at the national level, says John Halpin, a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress. Weiland, the South Dakota candidate, says Warren's endorsement has been "extremely helpful" so far, adding that after Warren and the PCCC sent out their fundraising pitch, "there was quite a spike [in donations] in the first couple of days." (The Weiland campaign does not yet have final fundraising numbers for the initial Warren-PCCC push.)
Officials with the Braley campaign say the same thing. The campaign couldn't give out fundraising details, but an Iowa Democrat familiar with Braley's campaign says, "Let me put it this way. There's a reason why the [Warren] endorsement was rolled out before the March 31 fundraising deadline."
more
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/04/elizabeth-warren-pccc-senate-democrats
Comcast named Worst Company in America on the same day it files TWC merger paperwork
Talk about incredible timing! On the same day that Comcast and Time Warner Cable are filing their merger proposal paperwork with the Federal Communications Commission, Consumerist has announced that Comcast has won its annual poll for the “Worst Company in America.”
For the record, this is now the second time that Comcast has won this particular dishonor, as it last won Consumerist’s “Golden Poo” trophy back in 2010. This year’s award is very special for the company, however, because it comes just as it’s trying to do a major public relations charm offensive to convince American consumers and politicians that it should be allowed to merge with Time Warner Cable in a proposed deal worth $45 billion. If the results from Consumerist’s poll and of multiple customer satisfaction surveys are any indication, however, it looks like the American public isn’t buying it.
It will be interesting to see whether Comcast addresses the fact that both it and its proposed merger partner are seemingly hated by their own customers but for the time being it looks like the company is ignoring the negative noise and is focussing its efforts on heavily lobbying both lawmakers and regulators in Washington, D.C. to help the merger go through without a hitch. After all, just because you’re the “Worst Company in America” doesn’t mean you aren’t well-connected.
http://bgr.com/2014/04/08/comcast-worst-company-in-america/
In Photos: Four Years of Greece's Great Depression
By Dimitris Michalakis
This coming May will mark four years since the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund took control of the Greek economy. Although massively important, it’s an anniversary not many people will want to celebrate.
As more of a memento than a celebration, photographer Dimitris Michalakis has put together a selection of 40 photographs that he’s taken over the past four years. The series depicts the social impact of austerity in Greece, and serves as a snapshot into almost half a decade dominated by headlines about “social polarity,” “debt” and “economic crisis.”
Greece has seen a revival of what in the 1930s was termed “The Great Depression.” The economic crisis has led to a restructuring of the conditions surrounding both production and consumption, as well as of the social fabric.
Many demonstrations led to violent conflicts. They resulted in damages to buildings of great historical and architectural value, with city streets resembling bombed landscapes.
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http://news.vice.com/articles/in-photos-four-years-of-greeces-great-depression?trk_source=homepage-in-the-news
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