Among the many particles that resulted from this crash were
bizarre objects called anti-hypertritons. Not only are these things antimatter,
but they're also what's called strange matter. Where normal atomic nuclei are
made of protons and neutrons (which are made of "up" quarks and
"down" quarks), strange nuclei also have so-called Lambda particles
that contain another flavor of quark called "strange" as well. These
Lambda particles orbit around the protons and neutrons.
If all that is a little much to straighten out, just think
of anti-hypertritons as several kinds of weird.
Though they normally don't exist on Earth, these particles
may be hiding in the universe in very hot, dense places like the centers of
some stars, and most likely were around when the universe was extremely young
and energetic, and all the matter was packed into a very small, sweltering
space.
"This is the first time they've ever been created in a laboratory
or a situation where they can be studied," said researcher Carl Gagliardi
of Texas A&M University. "We don't have anti-nuclei sitting around on
a shelf that we can use to put anti-strangeness into. Only a few anti-nuclei
have been observed so far."
These particles weren't around for too long, though – in
fact, they didn't last long enough to collide with normal matter and
annihilate. Instead they just decayed after a fraction of a billionth of a
second.
"That sounds like a really short time, but in fact on
the nuclear clock it's actually a long time," Gagliardi told SPACE.com.
"In that fraction of a billionth of a second that Lambda particle has already
gone around the nucleus as many times as the Earth has gone around the sun since
the solar system was created."
Erich Feldmeier on 05 Dec 11The book is about networked science: the use of online tools to transform the way science is done. In the book I make the case that networked science has the potential to dramatically speed up the rate of scientific discovery, not just in one field, but across all of science. Furthermore, it won't just speed up discovery, but will actually amplify our collective intelligence, expanding the range of scientific problems which can be attacked at all. But, as I explain in the book, there are cultural obstacles that are blocking networked science from achieving its full potential. And so the book is also a manifesto, arguing that networked science must be open science if it is to realize its potential. Making the change to open science is a big challenge. In my opinion it's one of the biggest challenges our society faces, one that requires action on many fronts. One of those fronts is to make sure that everyone - including scientists, but also grant agencies, governments, libraries, and, especially, the general public -- understands how important the stakes are, and how urgent is the need for change.
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