Higgs Boson: Time Traveler?

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As if theoretical physics wasn't weird enough. They've given us black holes, the Big Bang, the possibility of multiple dimensions, and invisible dark matter that is, as I write this, pushing the stars and planets apart. Now, a particle that is so dangerous that it might be traveling back in time to prevent itself from being discovered?

That is the outlandish but strangely fun premise of a paper by distinguished physicists Holger Bech Nielsen and Masao Ninomiya featured in a New York Times article this week.

The particle in question is the elusive Higgs boson, sometimes called the "God Particle" for its importance in all we know about matter in the universe. The Higgs boson is predicted in the Standard Model that describes the four major forces of particle interactions - electromagnetism, strong and weak nuclear force, and gravitation. The Higgs boson is the only particle predicted by the Standard Model that has not been observed.

There have been so many failures, in fact, that Nielson and Ninomiya think the deck just might be stacked against us. They postulate that the discovery of the particle is so dangerous that its effects ripple back through time and prevent the discovery from happening.

As the NY Times article points out, it would be like you going back in time to save your grandfather from being hit by a bus. There is no time-traveling paradox, like there would be if you went back in time to kill your grandfather, so the theory seems to hold some water. Except for the fact that it sounds completely nuts.

Then again, has theoretical physics ever really made sense?

~Rheanna Sand

Gobble, gobble

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Many of us canucks will celebrate this long weekend by stuffing ourselves silly with copious amounts of food. Then, fall asleep at the table while grandma regales the crowd with a rendition of "Girls just wanna have fun" (oh, is that only in my family?)

The centerpiece of any good Thanksgiving is the turkey, the bird that is now bred so fat it can't fly, breed or barely stand. But, man, it tastes good. Then after you can't possibly fit in one more bite, the sleepiness sets in....

But does turkey really make us sleepy? Or are our families just boring?

The amino acid tryptophan has long thought to be the culprit behind that post-indulgence tiredness. Tryptophan is an essential part of any diet and can eventually be metabolized in the brain into melatonin - a sleep hormone. But, turkey has about the same levels of tryptophan as many other meats. And, more importantly, turkey is consumed with potatoes, yams, wine and squash - full of carbohydrates.

Turkey does make you sleepy and it is because of tryptophan.... but it has more to do with the combination of carbohydrates and tryptophan that contributes to our food-fatigue. Carbohydrates release insulin, insulin causes uptake of sugar in the blood as well as long neutral branched chain amino acids (LNAA for short). It is the ratio of tryptophan/LNAA in the blood that causes the brain to uptake more tryptophan, which is then converted to melatonin.

Whew, that was way more complicated than just knowing that little bit of trivia that makes you sound smart over the dinner table.

Now, let's eat!

Happy Thanksgiving!

-- Torah Kachur

The sky isn't falling...

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NASA made history again this week…but not everyone sees it for the well-designed, perfectly executed, and totally awesome experiment that it was.

The spacecraft LCROSS completed its mission in the wee hours of Friday morning. It launched a rocket into the Cabeus crater near the south pole of the moon, analyzed the debris, and then crashed itself into the same crater. The instruments on board were designed to pick up infrared signatures of water and carbon-containing compounds. The impacts were minuscule, the scientific components were off the shelf, the budget was a fraction of most NASA missions, and yet…someone started a "save the moon" campaign?

Yes, that's right. One Huffington Post blogger questioned who gave NASA "permission" to so violently assault our moon. Please. Do not feel sorry for the moon. It has no feelings.

Besides…have you SEEN the moon? Those aren't acne scars. The lunar surface is peppered by cosmic debris on a daily basis. This pair of impacts do not compare to the beating its taken in its lifetime.

The explosions were so harmless, people on Earth really didn't get the spectacle they were hoping for. The NASA TV video is actually quite anticlimactic (may I suggest the animation below that is much more entertaining to watch).

The data, though, will help scientists figure out how much water and other useful substances are up there. We might have a colony up there someday, and this brings us one step closer.

Some may question the purpose behind such an endeavor. Others, including myself, see it as a worthwhile use for technology that is, sadly, most often used by the military. I say, if there are going to be rockets and bombs, and let's face it, there will always be rockets and bombs, why not use them for cool space experiments?

~Rheanna Sand

Hot New Hominid

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Move over, Lucy…there's a new girl in town. Her name is Ardi, and she's taller, has opposable toes, and weighs 110 pounds. Bitch.

In case you aren’t up to speed on hominid evolution - "Lucy" is the nickname of a skeleton belonging to the species Australopithecus afarensis, discovered in 1974 in Ethiopia and thought to be a direct ancestor of humans and a possible descendant of chimpanzees.

Lucy lived over 3 million years ago and has many human-like characteristics, like feet designed for upright walking and more specialized teeth and joints. Not to mention a seductive grin…rowr!

"Ardi", the hot new hominid, is a skeleton belonging to the species Ardipithecus ramidus. Also found in Ethiopia, she was first described in 1994, but the comprehensive results were just published in the October 2009 issue of Science.

This stunning report, consisting of 11 separate research papers, shatters the old belief that humans evolved from some chimp-like, knuckle-dragging primate. It seems that apes and chimps have been evolving separately for a lot longer than we thought. That being said, the jury is still out on Glenn Beck.

Ardi has given us a glimpse 4 million years into our past, and has caused quite a stir among scientists and non-scientists alike. It's no surprise - how could you NOT love her larger postcranial dimensions and mediolaterally short pubic ramus? Fierce!

~Rheanna Sand

Gonad is not a dirty word

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Gonad, vulva, rectum, penis - these are anatomical terms, not dirty words. I study worm gonads, and, at a recent lunch, I was wearing my "I (heart) worm gonads" T-shirt that I made. The server came over to introduce her bubbly little self and then....she read my shirt. Then quickly made a face and tartly said "What can I get you".

Is it so hard to assume that anatomical terminology has a place in our society? You can talk about your tummy or your shoulder without too much trouble but as soon as you say "testicular cancer" or "colon", people cringe.

PC is so 90's, we are on the verge of the 10's. It is time to take back our bodies and the terms cleverly devised by Dark Age anatomists to understand how our body works. In order to understand what is going on in our own bodies we need to use the right terminology - without blushing.

So, gonads are fascinating.

-- Torah Kachur

A Science Oasis

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Science is so woven into the fabric of western cultures, we rarely get to see the transformative effect it can have. Case in point: the grand opening of KAUST, the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia on September 23rd.

KAUST is the first educational campus in Saudi Arabia to allow women and men to mix freely, a tangible sign of the recent bloom of progressive ideas in this country. Women can drive their cars on site, and do not have to wear veils in the classroom. The institution does not permit religious police to operate there.

The school is funded by a multi-billion dollar endowment fund from - where else - big Saudi oil, and boasts the middle East's fastest supercomputer, a fully immersive virtual reality system called CORNEA, and a gorgeous beachfront campus on the Red Sea.

Most current students and faculty are international, but the idea is to incorporate more locals over time and hopefully counter the stifling grip conservative clerics and princes have on scientific progress. The namesake of the University, King Abdullah, and his supporters have been pushing for such reforms since he took office in 2005. Only now are they seeing the result of combined efforts across Saudi society: a real science oasis. Or at least, what looks like one - only time will tell whether science can thrive in the face of hard line orthodoxy.

~Rheanna Sand

The Damp Side of the Moon

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Three spacecraft have obtained some astonishing data that completely contradicts a widely held belief in planetary science: there is water on the Moon. And not just a couple of rogue molecules, either. The Moon is actually "painted" with water and hydroxyl (see the blue and orange/green above, respectively).

It's everywhere. And now two enormous mysteries remain: How did it get there? And forgive the phrase, but why on Earth didn't we see it before?

Already scientists are speculating.

The water was discovered by measuring sunlight reflected off the Moon's surface. Researchers observed a dip at the wavelength where water absorbs infrared light, and found that the amount of absorption varied with temperature. According to the researchers:

That suggests the water is being created when protons from the solar wind slam into the lunar surface. The collisions may free oxygen atoms in the minerals and allow them to recombine with protons and electrons to form water.

So why didn't we find it before? Well, we did. Lunar soil brought back from the Apollo mission did show signs of water. But the Apollo scientists, erring on the side of caution, dismissed it as being more likely a result of contamination on re-entry. Which just goes to show you, even skeptics can overdo it.

At an estimated concentration of one quart of water per cubic yard (about a liter per cubic meter), all that remains now is to determine the effect this discovery will have on future attempts to actually colonize and form settlements on the Moon.

For my part, I'm just dying to try a sip.

- Brit Trogen