Has the 'God Particle' been Found?

God particle is 'found': Scientists at Cern expected to announce on Wednesday Higgs boson particle has been discovered

• Scientists 'will say they are 99.99% certain' the particle has been found

• Leading physicists have been invited to event - sparking speculation that Higgs Boson particle has been found

• 'God Particle' gives particles that make up atoms their mass

Scientists at Cern will announce that the elusive Higgs boson 'God Particle' has been found at a press conference next week, it is believed.

Five leading theoretical physicists have been invited to the event on Wednesday - sparking speculation that the particle has been discovered.

Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider are expected to say they are 99.99 per cent certain it has been found - which is known as 'four sigma' level.

The particle accelerator: It is within these tubes that physicists are hunting for the 'God' particle

Physicists first predicted that the Higgs Boson subatomic particle exists 48 years ago.

Peter Higgs, the Edinburgh University emeritus professor of physics that the particle is named after, is among those who have been called to the press conference in Switzerland.

Invite: Peter Higgs, the professor the particle is named after, has been asked to attend the press conference at Cern

The management at Cern want the two teams of scientists to reach the 'five sigma' level of certainty with their results - so they are 99.99995 per cent sure - such is the significance of the results.

Tom Kibble, 79, the emeritus professor of physics at Imperial College London, has also been invited but is unable to attend.

He told the Sunday Times: 'My guess is that is must be a pretty positive result for them to be asking us out there.'

The Higgs boson is regarded as the key to understanding the universe. Physicists say its job is to give the particles that make up atoms their mass.

Without this mass, these particles would zip though the cosmos at the speed of light, unable to bind together to form the atoms that make up everything in the universe, from planets to people.

The collider, housed in an 18-mile tunnel buried deep underground near the French-Swiss border, smashes beams of protons – sub-atomic particles – together at close to the speed of light, recreating the conditions that existed a fraction of a second after the Big Bang.

If the physicists’ theory is correct, a few Higgs bosons should be created in every trillion collisions, before rapidly decaying.

An aerial view of the Swiss-French border, indicating the route of the Large Hadron Collider

This decay would leave behind a ‘footprint’ that would show up as a bump in their graphs.

However, despite 1,600 trillion collisions being created in the tunnel - there have been fewer than 300 potential Higgs particles.

Now it is thought that two separate teams of scientists, who run independent experiments in secret from each other, have both uncovered evidence of the particle.

However, the two groups, CMS and ATLAS, are expected to stop short of confirming its existence.

Inside: The giant project is the most enormous piece of scientific apparatus ever constructed, and is buried 100m beneath the ground

By ROB COOPER

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2167188/God-particle-Scientists-Cern-expected-announce-Higgs-boson-particle-discovered-Wednesday.html#ixzz1zVROwzw9

Almost seems like they wished it did?! Why the Obsession? Bizarre..... "2nd Find 'confirms' End-Date of Mayan Calendar - 21 December 2012"

• Second inscription that confirms date of 'end' of Mayan calendar

• 'End date' marks end of 5,125-year-old cycle of time

• 1,300 year old carvings described as biggest hieroglyphic find in decades

• Inscription found on blocks abandoned by looters

Marcello A. Canuto, director of Tulane's Middle American Research Institute, examines hieroglyphics at the La Corona dig site in Guatemala

Archaeologists have found carvings in a stone staircase at the La Corona dig site in Guatemala which confirm the ‘end date’ of the Maya calendar, December 21, 2012.

It is only the second known inscription which confirms this 'end date'. 

New Age sects around the world have interpreted this as a potential doomsday event - with sales of blast shelters rising in the U.S. and believers taking refuge in a village in France.

The Mayan tablets are the subject of wild internet conspiracy theories, with predictions our world will be swallowed by a black hole, hit by an asteroid or devoured by ancient gods.

The 1,300-year-old inscription is described as one of the most significant hieroglyphic finds in decades.

Most of the inscription, carved into a stone abandoned by looters, deals with political history - but there is a reference to 'the end' in a passage about a king's return.

‘This was a time of great political turmoil in the Maya region and this king felt compelled to allude to a larger cycle of time that happens to end in 2012,’ says David Stuart of the University of Texas at Austin, who led a dig at the site.

But many ethnic Mayans dismiss the apocalyptic predictions as largely a Western idea.

Rather than the end of time itself, the inscriptions refer to the start of a new era.

The 'apocalypse' refers to the end of a cycle of 5,125 years since the beginning of the Mayan Long Count calendar in 3113 B.C.

'The story started with claims that Nibiru, a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians, is headed toward Earth,' says Nasa, 'These fables were linked to the end of one of the cycles in the ancient Mayan calendar at the winter solstice in 2012.'

‘This text talks about ancient political history rather than prophecy,’ says Marcello A. Canuto, dco-director of the excavations at La Corona. 

A newly discovered Mayan tablet reveals the 'end date' for the Mayan Calendar - it's only the second artifact to specify the date

The carved blocks were found at the La Corona dig site in Guatemala

The hieroglyphics were found on blocks abandoned by looters at the La Corona dig site

Since 2008, Canuto and Tomás Barrientos of the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala have directed excavations at La Corona, a site previously ravaged by looters. 

‘Last year, we realized that looters of a particular building had discarded some carved stones because they were too eroded to sell on the antiquities black market,’ said Barrientos, ‘so we knew they found something important, but we also thought they might have missed something.’ 

The find has been described as the most significant hieroglyphic discovery in decades

Marcello A. Canuto, director of Tulane's Middle American Research Institute, examines hieroglyphics at the La Corona dig site in Guatemala

DO THE MAYANS PREDICT DOOMSDAY IN 2012? THE CULTS AND THE REALITY

Inscriptions on Mayan tablets found in temples such as Tortuguero refer to 'the end' - and many internet conspiracy theories have predicted our world will be swallowed by a black hole, hit by an asteroid or devoured by ancient gods.

Cults have gathered in the tiny French village called Bugarach where they hope to survive the apocalypse.

Hundreds of books have been published on the subject since the Seventies, predicting Earth's demise at the hands of a mysterious planet Nibiru, or a black hole.

'The story started with claims that Nibiru, a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians, is headed toward Earth,' says Nasa, 'These fables were linked to the end of one of the cycles in the ancient Mayan calendar at the winter solstice in 2012.'

But many ethnic Mayans dismiss the apocalyptic predictions as largely a Western idea.

Rather than the end of time itself, the inscriptions refer to the start of a new era.

The 'apocalypse' refers to the end of a cycle of 5,125 years since the beginning of the Mayan Long Count calendar in 3113 B.C.

What Canuto and Barrientos found was the longest text ever discovered in Guatemala. 

Carved on staircase steps, it records 200 years of La Corona history, states David Stuart, director of the Mesoamerica Center at The University of Texas at Austin, who was part of a 1997 expedition that first explored the site. 

Most of the inscription, carved into a stone abandoned by looters, deals with political history - but there is a reference to 'the end' in a passage about a king's return.

While deciphering these new finds in May, Stuart recognized the 2012 reference on a stairway block bearing 56 delicately carved hieroglyphs. 

It commemorated a royal visit to La Corona in AD 696 by the most powerful Maya ruler of that time, Yuknoom Yich'aak K'ahk' of Calakmul, only a few months after his defeat by long-standing rival Tikal in AD 695. 

Thought by scholars to have been killed in this battle, this ruler was visiting allies and allaying their fears after his defeat. 

‘This was a time of great political turmoil in the Maya region and this king felt compelled to allude to a larger cycle of time that happens to end in 2012,’ says Stuart. 

So, rather than prophesy, the 2012 reference places this king's troubled reign and accomplishments into a larger cosmological framework. 

‘In times of crisis, the ancient Maya used their calendar to promote continuity and stability rather than predict apocalypse,’ says Canuto. 

Mayan temples in Guatemala: Researchers have found walls adorned with unique paintings - one depicting a line-up of men in black uniforms, and hundreds of scrawled numbers - many calculations relating to the Mayan calendar

Mayan carvings at La Corona: The 1,300-year-old inscription is described as one of the most significant hieroglyphic finds in decades

By ROB WAUGH

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2166375/Second-inscription-confirming-end-date-Mayan-calendar-2012-Guatemala.html#ixzz1zDLxV7wM

Nonsense News..... 65% Americans say Obama better suited to handle 'Alien Invasion'

Would President Obama handle an alien invasion better than Romney? (Eric Pfeiffer/Yahoo! News/AP)

In the event that Bill Pullman isn't available, two-thirds of respondents to a new survey say that President Barack Obama would be better suited to handle an alien invasion than presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

"We wanted the pulse on people's opinions," said Brad Dancer, senior vice president of research and digital media for National Geographic, who conducted the survey for the new series "Chasing UFOs." "We wanted to get a sense of how Americans view UFOs, what people believe and how mainstream pop culture may or may not be playing into their opinions on it."

Nearly 65 percent of respondents said Obama would be better suited to handle a theoretical alien invasion than Romney.

In fact, Obama trumped Romney across the board, winning a majority of support from women (68 percent), men (61 percent) and those aged 18 to 64 (68 percent).

Romney's strongest bracket was with senior citizens, where he split the vote with Obama at 50 percent each.

During a May visit to the White House by the actor Will Smith and his family,Obama was quizzed by Smith's 13-year-old son, Jaden, about the possibility of extraterrestrial life. In an interview with the BBC, Smith recounted Obama's reaction to his son:

"OK, I can neither confirm or deny the existence of extraterrestrials," Obama reportedly said from the White House Situation Room. "But I can tell you if there had been a top secret meeting, and if there would have been a discussion about it, it would have taken place in this room."

By Eric Pfeiffer

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/sixty-five-percent-americans-obama-better-suited-handle-171143465.html

Is this 1931 all over Again? Paul Krugman, Nouriel Roubini, Niall Ferguson and More think so...

File photo

The September 21, 1931 edition of the Mail and Empire reports Britain's exit from the gold standard.

Is the world about to repeat the economic catastrophe of 1931?

A growing chorus of economists of all stripes thinks so.

Getty Images

Sound familiar? asks economist Paul Krugman.

“Suddenly normally calm economists are talking about 1931, the year everything fell apart,” writes Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman in the New York Times.

“The parallels between Europe in the 1930s and Europe today are stark, striking, and increasingly frightening, write Bradford DeLong and Barry Eichengreen in the new preface to Charles Kindleberger, The World in Depression 1929-1939.

“We see unemployment, youth unemployment especially, soaring to unprecedented heights. Financial instability and distress are widespread. There is growing political support for extremist parties of the far left and right.”

• George Soros warns euro at risk if this week's summit fails
• Why people are going crazy about George Soros’ new speech on the eurozone
  
  

In May 1931, Austrian bank Creditanstalt, founded in Vienna by the Rothschild banking dynasty, suffered a run. Its collapse after a merger with an insolvent rival sparked a crisis that left Germany and central Europe strewn with failed banks, caused defaults in Europe and Latin America, knocked the pound off the gold standard, and forced the New York Federal Reserve by October to raise its discount rate by 2 percentage points.

“Austria’s troubles shouldn’t have been big enough to have large effects on the world economy, but in practice they created a panic that spread around the world. Sound familiar?” wrote Krugman.

The ominous clouds on the horizon are uniting economic pundits who normally find little common ground.

Nouriel Roubini@Nouriel

Krugman's new oped bit.ly/KXh0mn Like Niall Ferguson & me in our FT oped he relates today to 1931. For once Paul and Niall agree!

25 Jun 12

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In their piece for the Financial Times entitled Berlin Is Ignoring the Lessons of the 1930s, historian Niall Ferguson and economist Nouriel Roubini argue that a silent run on the banks in the eurozone periphery has been going on for two years now. Greeks have withdrawn more than €700m from their banks in the past month.

Bloomberg

Nouriel Roubini argues that a silent run on the banks in the eurozone periphery has been going on for two years now.

Bloomberg

Historian Niall Ferguson calls for an EU-wide system of deposit insurance.

Their solution to the crisis would be a program of bank recapitalization in the periphery and the core funded by the European Financial Stability Facility and its successor, the European Stability Mechanism.

As well, an EU-wide system of deposit insurance needs to be created to avoid a run on eurozone banks – which the pair see as a certainty if Greece exits the euro.

“The EU was created to avoid repeating the disasters of the 1930s. It is time Europe’s leaders – and especially Germany’s – understood how perilously close they are to doing just that,” they wrote.

By Pamela Heaven

http://business.financialpost.com/2012/06/25/is-this-1931-all-over-again-paul-krugman-nouriel-roubini-niall-ferguson-and-more-think-so/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NP_Top_Stories+%28National+Post+-+Top+Stories%29&utm_content