Large Hadron Collider discovers new particle

After a 50 year hunt, scientists have reported strong evidence of a new particle – the pentaquark.



The LHCb experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has reported the discovery of a class of particles known as pentaquarks. The team has submitted a paper reporting these findings to the journal Physical Review Letters.
"The pentaquark is not just any new particle," said LHCb spokesperson Guy Wilkinson. "It represents a way to aggregate quarks – namely the fundamental constituents of ordinary protons and neutrons in a pattern that has never been observed before in over 50 years of experimental searches. Studying its properties may allow us to understand better how ordinary matter, the protons and neutrons from which we're all made, is constituted."
Our understanding of the structure of matter was revolutionised in 1964 when American physicist, Murray Gell-Mann, proposed that a category of particles known as baryons, which includes protons and neutrons, are comprised of three fractionally charged objects called quarks, and that another category, mesons, are formed of quark-antiquark pairs. Gell-Mann was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for this work in 1969. This quark model also allows the existence of other quark groups, such as pentaquarks – composed of four quarks and an antiquark. Until now, however, no conclusive evidence for pentaquarks had been seen.
"Benefitting from the large data set provided by the LHC, and the excellent precision of our detector, we have examined all possibilities for these signals, and conclude that they can only be explained by pentaquark states", says LHCb physicist Tomasz Skwarnicki of Syracuse University. "More precisely the states must be formed of two up quarks, one down quark, one charm quark and one anti-charm quark."



LHCb researchers looked for pentaquark states by examining the decay of a baryon known as Λb (Lambda b) into three other particles, a J/ψ- (J-psi), a proton and a charged kaon. Earlier experiments that have searched for pentaquarks have proved inconclusive. Where the LHCb experiment differs is that it has been able to look for pentaquarks from many perspectives, with all pointing to the same conclusion. It's as if the previous searches were looking for silhouettes in the dark, whereas LHCb conducted the search with the lights on, and from all angles. The next step in the analysis will be to study how the quarks are bound together within the pentaquarks.
"The quarks could be tightly bound," said LHCb physicist Liming Zhang of Tsinghua University, "or they could be loosely bound in a sort of meson-baryon molecule, in which the meson and baryon feel a residual strong force similar to the one binding protons and neutrons to form nuclei."
More studies will be needed to distinguish between these possibilities, and to see what else pentaquarks can teach us. The new data that LHCb will collect in LHC run 2 will allow progress to be made on these questions.

Folding cars. Your parking problems are solved!

Ever tried to squeeze into an impossible parking spot? We all have, but with the latest technology coming out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) the impossible is becoming possible.
A BBC Business News report published this week has revealed the media lab at MIT has designed a ‘folding car’ which is being developed by a Spanish company for commercial use. The design allows for the vehicle´s length to be shrunk to a size approximately the width of a conventional car. In practical terms it will mean three folding cars will fit into a parking space designed for just one.
It´s being claimed that the highly maneuverable and sleek design will reduce traffic congestion, help cities to function better and triple car parking capacity in high-density areas. Did I mention it is an electric car, which is obviously a great result for the environment!
The concept is also being hailed as a potential success story for the burgeoning car-share industry, allowing more shared cars to be available at convenient locations, meaning greater access for customers which (it is hoped) may lead to reduced car ownership.
The question remains; are consumers ready for the technology, or more specifically a dramatic change in mindset?

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Real-Life Mind Meld? Scientists Link Animal Brains

by Charles Q. Choi, Live Science Contributor   |   July 09, 2015 09:02am ET

 

 

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Resistance is futile — scientists are now one step closer to the Borg of "Star Trek," wiring brains together into "brainets" that can solve problems as teams, new experiments with monkeys and rats suggest.
The researchers say these so-called brain-to-brain interfaces could lead to "organic computers" made of multiple animal brains wired together.
Scientists worldwide are developing brain-machine interfaces through which people and lab animals can control robotic arms and exoskeletons using only their minds. These work by converting brain signals to computer signals and vice versa. [10 Things You Didn't Know About the Brain]

Recently, neurobiologist Miguel Nicolelis at Duke University Medical Center and his colleagues developed the first brain-to-brain interfaces, arrays of microscopic wires implanted in the brains of rats that allowed real-time intercontinental transfer of data between pairs of the rodents. One set of rats would learn to solve movement- or touch-based problems, and their brain activity was recorded as patterns of electrical stimulation that were transferred into the brains of another set of rats, helping the recipient animals solve those problems more quickly.
Now, Nicolelis and his colleagues have used brain-to-brain interfaces to create what they call brain networks, or brainets, that can work together to complete simple tasks.
In one set of experiments, the scientists linked rhesus macaque monkeys together into either a two-brain brainet, a B2, or a three-brain brainet, a B3. The primates all sat in separate rooms, sharing brain activity relating to their senses and movements.
The researchers next had the monkeys control the movements of a realistic virtual monkey arm on a video display. The amount of control each primate had over the arm depended on the experiment. For example, in one experiment, the monkeys in a B2 could each control only one of two dimensions of the arm's movement (such as up and down, or left and right), while in another, the monkeys in a B3 could each control two of three dimensions of movement (towards and away, for example).
If the monkeys successfully guided the arm to touch a moving target, they got a small reward of juice. The scientists found that with long-term training, the monkeys increasingly coordinated their behavior and synchronized their brain activity, leading to improved performance.

Monkeys in separate rooms faced a computer monitor that showed a virtual arm. Researchers found that the animals synchronized their brain activity and worked together in these "brainets" to complete simple tasks.
Credit: Drawings by Miguel A.L. Nicolelis

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In another set of experiments, the researchers connected three or four adult rats into a brainet to solve basic computational problems. The scientists first implanted arrays of microscopic wires in the primary somatosensory cortex of the rats, the brain region linked with the sense of touch. They next showed they could mildly electrically stimulate this part of the brain, generating what Nicolelis said was probably a tactile feeling of some kind. [5 Crazy Technologies That Are Revolutionizing Biotech]
In one experiment, when given this stimulation cue, thirsty rats learned they could get water if they synchronized the electrical activity of their brains. It's not known what exactly the rats do to change their brain activity, Nicolelis said.
Over time, rat brainets learned how to complete the simple computational task of pattern recognition. The rats recognize different patterns of brain stimulation, synchronizing their brain activity when they received one kind of stimulus and desynchronizing it if they received another, the researchers said.
The study revealed that such pattern recognition skills could be used to predict an increased or decreased chance of rain. The rats received patterns of electrical stimulation that represented increasing or decreasing air temperature and increasing or decreasing air pressure. Decreasing air pressure and increasing air temperature often signal early evening spring thunderstorms in North Carolina, where the research took place. The brainets predicted the chance of rain with 41 percent accuracy, much higher than chance, and better than single rats that received this data.
"The rats could divide tasks across animals, so their individual workload was much smaller," Nicolelis said. "We didn't expect that in the beginning."
One potential clinical application of this research is to link paralyzed patients with healthy volunteers to help them learn how to move again, or help patients learn how to control robotic limbs or exoskeletons, Nicolelis said.
"We hope to be able to report data on such research in a few months," Nicolelis said. "One day this could also help stroke patients, epilepsy patients and patients with other neurological disorders. Also, this could be done non-invasively, instead of having to use implants like we did in our experiments with monkeys and rats."
The scientists detailed their findings online today (July 9) in two studies in the journal Scientific Reports.

This article is about the use and knowledge of techniques and processes for producing goods and services. For other uses, see Technology (disambiguation).

A steam turbine with the case opened. Most electricity is produced by thermal power stations with turbines like this one. Electricity consumption and living standards are highly correlated.^[1] Electrification was voted the most important engineering achievement of the 20th century.^[2]

Technology (from Greek τέχνη, techne, "art, skill, cunning of hand"; and -λογία, -logia^[3]) is the collection of techniques, methods or processes used in the production of goods or services or in the accomplishment of objectives, such as scientific investigation. Technology can be the knowledge of techniques, processes, etc. or it can be embedded in machines, computers, devices and factories, which can be operated by individuals without detailed knowledge of the workings of such things.
The human species' use of technology began with the conversion of natural resources into simple tools. The prehistoric discovery of how to control fire increased the available sources of fo

Progress towards an obesity pill

Researchers have developed a compound that causes the metabolism of mice to respond as if a meal has been eaten, so they burn fat to make room for new calories. Human trials could follow in the next few years.

Researchers from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California, USA, have developed a compound they describe as "an entirely new type" of pill that is able to prevent obesity in mice. Called fexaramine, it can stop weight gain, lower cholesterol and minimise inflammation.
Unlike most diet pills on the market, such as appetite suppressants or caffeine-based diet drugs, fexaramine won't dissolve into the blood. It remains within the intestines causing fewer side effects. It is so effective that researchers hope it can be fast-tracked for human trials within the next few years – perhaps by 2018, as predicted on our timeline.
“This pill is like an imaginary meal,” says Ronald Evans, director of Salk’s Gene Expression Laboratory and senior author of the study, which is published this week in Nature Medicine. “It sends out the same signals that normally happen when you eat a lot of food, so the body starts clearing out space to store it. But there are no calories and no change in appetite.”


Evans’ laboratory has spent nearly two decades studying the farensoid X receptor (FXR), a protein that plays a role in how the body releases bile acids from the liver, digests food and stores fats and sugars. The body turns on FXR at the beginning of a meal to prepare for an influx of food. FXR not only triggers the release of bile acids for digestion – but also changes blood sugar levels and causes the body to burn some fats in preparation for the incoming meal.
Pharmaceutical companies aiming to treat obesity, diabetes, liver disease and other metabolic conditions have developed systemic drugs that activate the FXR protein, turning on many pathways that it controls. But these drugs affect several organs and come with all kinds of side effects. Evans’ team has shown that switching on FXR only in the intestines – rather than the intestines, liver, kidneys and adrenal glands all at once – can have a very different outcome.
“The body’s response to a meal is like a relay race, and if you tell all the runners to go at the same time, you’ll never pass the baton,” says Evans. “We’ve learned how to trigger the first runner so that the rest of the events happen in a natural order.”

Progress towards an obesity pill

Researchers have developed a compound that causes the metabolism of mice to respond as if a meal has been eaten, so they burn fat to make room for new calories. Human trials could follow in the next few years.

 

Researchers from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California, USA, have developed a compound they describe as "an entirely new type" of pill that is able to prevent obesity in mice. Called fexaramine, it can stop weight gain, lower cholesterol and minimise inflammation.
Unlike most diet pills on the market, such as appetite suppressants or caffeine-based diet drugs, fexaramine won't dissolve into the blood. It remains within the intestines causing fewer side effects. It is so effective that researchers hope it can be fast-tracked for human trials within the next few years – perhaps by 2018, as predicted on our timeline.
“This pill is like an imaginary meal,” says Ronald Evans, director of Salk’s Gene Expression Laboratory and senior author of the study, which is published this week in Nature Medicine. “It sends out the same signals that normally happen when you eat a lot of food, so the body starts clearing out space to store it. But there are no calories and no change in appetite.”


Evans’ laboratory has spent nearly two decades studying the farensoid X receptor (FXR), a protein that plays a role in how the body releases bile acids from the liver, digests food and stores fats and sugars. The body turns on FXR at the beginning of a meal to prepare for an influx of food. FXR not only triggers the release of bile acids for digestion – but also changes blood sugar levels and causes the body to burn some fats in preparation for the incoming meal.
Pharmaceutical companies aiming to treat obesity, diabetes, liver disease and other metabolic conditions have developed systemic drugs that activate the FXR protein, turning on many pathways that it controls. But these drugs affect several organs and come with all kinds of side effects. Evans’ team has shown that switching on FXR only in the intestines – rather than the intestines, liver, kidneys and adrenal glands all at once – can have a very different outcome.
“The body’s response to a meal is like a relay race, and if you tell all the runners to go at the same time, you’ll never pass the baton,” says Evans. “We’ve learned how to trigger the first runner so that the rest of the events happen in a natural order.”