Sunday, 5 October 2014

The European Union Times

Sub-atomic particle observed, both matter & antimatter

Posted: 04 Oct 2014 01:38 PM PDT

After 80 years of painstaking experimentation, scientists have directly observed a sub-atomic particle that is its own antiparticle. The breakthrough promises a leap forward in quantum computing and potentially shows the path to finding dark matter.
The particles are called the Majorana fermions, after the Italian scientist who proposed their existence back in 1937. Quantum theory was in its infancy at the time, and scientists first theorized that antimatter existed: an opposite particle to the commonly-observed electrons and other particles were necessary for quantum equations to work.
Although since then many forms of antimatter have been observed, the Majorana fermion remained elusive for decades, partially because it virtually doesn’t interact with regular particles. A team of researchers at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands reported a possible discovery of evidence of the Majorana back in 2012, but other scientists pointed out that their results could have been caused by other phenomena.
Now a team led by Professor Ali Yazdani of Princeton University and his team, which included colleagues from University of Texas-Austin, seem to have pinpointed the particle in an experiment that required months of careful adjustments, a two-story tall microscope floating in an ultralow-vibration lab at the campus and an environment of almost absolute cold. They published the results in the October 2 issue of the journal Science.
The setup was first proposed by Russian-born physicist Aleksey Kitaev, now a professor at the University of California-Santa Barbara, who predicted in 2001 that Majoranas would emerge on the ends of a superconductuve wire under certain magnetic conditions. Given a certain length of the wire, these particles would not annihilate each other due to spatial separation.
The Yazdani team undertook to do exactly that in 2013 after winning a $3 million grant from the Office of Naval Research. They took an ultra-pure crystal of lead, in which atoms naturally align into ridges and placed on one of them a wire of iron, a ferromagnetic material, which was just one atom wide and about three atoms wide. The crystal was then cooled to -272 degrees Celsius, just one degree above absolute zero, to induce superconductivity.
It took almost two years of meticulous work to precisely match the conditions required for the Majorana fermions to emerge, after which the scanning-tunneling microscope was able to detech an electrically neutral signal at the ends of the wire – just as predicted.
“This is the most direct way of looking for the Majorana fermion since it is expected to emerge at the edge of certain materials,” Yazdani said. “If you want to find this particle within a material you have to use such a microscope, which allows you to see where it actually is.”
The experiment not only confirms that the world indeed works the way quantum physicists thought it did, but has potential for practical applications in quantum computing. A quantum computer operates qubits, basic elements that can represents not only ones and zeroes, but also a quantum state of superposition that is a one and a zero at the same time. The biggest potential field of application of quantum computing is encryption and code breaking.
But quantum superposition states notoriously easily collapse into conventional behavior, so scientists are yet to find the right material to serve as qubits. Stable Majoranas could do the trick (which probably explains why the US military showed such an interest in the research).
“This is more exciting and can actually be practically beneficial,” Yazdani said, “…because it allows scientists to manipulate exotic particles for potential applications, such as quantum computing.”
The team is particularly excited that they could produce Majoranas without the use of any exotic materials.
“We realized that Majoranas could be present even in the common form of magnetism found in iron,” said Allan MacDonald, a physicist who led the Austin team.
The observation of the Majorana fermion has opened the door for other theories as well. Scientists are already seriously considering that neutrinos and anti-neutrinos could be one particle and a kind of a Majorana. The properties and behavior of a neutrino are not dissimilar to that of the Majorana fermiones.
Furthermore, Majoranas are a strong candidate for dark matter – the mysterious substance that comprises most of the universe yet remains elusive because it doesn’t interact with regular mater in any way but through gravity.
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Catalonia pushes ahead with independence vote

Posted: 04 Oct 2014 01:14 PM PDT

The Catalan government says it will push ahead with its scheduled plan to hold an independence referendum, despite a Spanish Constitutional Court order to suspend the vote.
Catalan President Artur Mas established a seven-member committee late on Thursday to supervise the referendum on Catalonia’s independence from Spain which is due to be held on November 9.
Earlier on Wednesday, the creation of the supervisory commission had been ratified in the Catalan parliament.
President Artur Mas’ decree comes shortly after a ruling by Spain’s Constitutional Court on September 29 to block Catalonia’s referendum on independence after a request from Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.
Rajoy’s government had lodged a formal appeal with the court, asking it to declare the referendum illegal.
Despite all controversies, a ‘Yes’ vote for independence in the non-binding referendum will not automatically lead to the secession of the region. The vote would only give the Catalan president the mandate to negotiate independence with the Spanish administration.
Catalonia, a wealthy region in northeast Spain, has a population of 7.6 million people, accounting for nearly one-fifth of the country’s economy, and has been seeking independence for years.
Polls indicate that a huge majority of Catalans demand an independence referendum, encouraged by a similar referendum in Scotland last month. The Scottish referendum, however, did not end in favor of pro-independence voters.
Source

North Korean leader missing North possibly planning Unification

Posted: 04 Oct 2014 12:11 PM PDT

We may finally see the end of an evil, repressive, communist regime.
It is impossible to know exactly what is going on in North Korea, but something big has happened.
The third generation Kim dynasty heir, Kim Jong-un, has been missing from public sight for a month, and may be ill, dead, or overthrown. There is much speculation, and contradictory reports are circulating, including the assertion that Pyongyang is sealed off, and no one is being permitted to enter or leave. But one fact is clear and it is dramatic. CNN reports:
With Kim Jong Un out of sight for a month, a covey of North Korea’s high officials popped down to South Korea for a last minute jaunt on Saturday, and delivered a diplomatic bonbon.
The three officials told South Korea that Pyongyang is willing to hold a second round of high-level meetings between late October and early November, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said in a statement Saturday.
High level visits from North Korea to Seoul don’t just happen casually, because some people wanted to attend the closing ceremonies of the Asian Games, the official pretext being offered. I strongly suspect that some kind of deal with the South is being sought by the North, probably out of desperation over their situation, which is very bad, and possibly triggered by Kim Jong un’s illness, death, incapacity, or overthrow.
Politics in North Korea revolve around factions built on personal loyalty. If there is currently a group that wants some form of rapprochement with the South in power, it is always possible that they will be overthrown by a hardline group. However, the willingness of people to leave Pyongyang and visit Seoul suggests that they are reasonably confident of their hold on power.
Source

Failing smell sense likely death sign

Posted: 04 Oct 2014 11:50 AM PDT

A study shows that a declining sense of smell could be sign of death approaching.

Flopping a simple smell test as a senior could predict one’s approaching demise, a new study shows.
Thirty-nine percent of the subjects of the study, which was published on Wednesday, who failed the test died within just five years.
This was compared to the 19 percent among those with moderate smell loss and just 10 percent of those with a healthy sense of smell.
The study saw researchers from the University of Chicago asking the subjects, aged between 57 and 85 to name distinct odors, namely peppermint, fish, orange, rose, and leather.
“We think loss of the sense of smell is like the canary in the coal mine,” said the study’s lead author Jayant Pinto, an associate professor of surgery at the university. “Of all human senses, smell is the most undervalued and underappreciated until it’s gone.”
Professor Tim Jacob of Cardiff University, who was not involved in the research, has said, “This well-conducted study suggests the sense of smell is intimately linked to health and wellbeing.
Martha McClintock, a senior author of the study, said, “Obviously, people don’t die just because their olfactory system is damaged.”
Source

Outbreak Alert! Ebola-positive African migrant infected 10 in Texas

Posted: 04 Oct 2014 11:35 AM PDT

Thomas Eric Duncan

US health officials are monitoring 10 quarantined people who had contact with a Liberian man infected by the deadly Ebola virus. The individuals are being checked regularly as medical officials play down the risk of an outbreak. These 10 people may have infected dozens of others… an Ebola outbreak could start any second in America, it’s a mess!
The 10 individuals are considered to be at ‘high risk,’ and are being checked at regular intervals for symptoms of the disease that has already killed thousands of people in West Africa.
Another 50 people who had indirect contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, the infected visitor who entered the United States from Liberia on September 19, are under daily observation, Dr. David Lakey, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services, told Reuters.
Initially the authorities identified 100 people who had any kind of contact with Duncan and risked exposure to the deadly virus.
In Washington, government officials were pressed by reporters as to how Duncan was able to enter the territory of the United States from Liberia, one of the hardest hit of three West African countries where the Ebola virus has killed an estimated 3,439 people, according to the latest figures released by the World Health Organization.
“There were things that did not go the way they should have in Dallas, but there were a lot of things that went right and are going right,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, a director at the National Institutes of Health, told reporters at a White House press conference.
“So although certainly it was rocky” in terms of how people perceived the response, “the reason I said there wouldn’t be an outbreak is because of what is going on right now,” he said.
Fauci attempted to downplay fears that there would be another Ebola case in the United States, saying that the preventive actions being undertaken by health officials “would make it extraordinarily unlikely that we would have an outbreak.”

Unfortunately he could have spread Ebola in Europe as well, through Belgium’s airport but authorities here are not as jumpy as the American CDC, which is a bad thing because dozens or even hundreds of people are at risk of being infected with the deadly virus.

Symptoms of the Ebola virus, which has hit the West African countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, include fever, vomiting and diarrhea. The disease is contagious and is acquired through contact with bodily fluids such as blood or saliva.
During Friday’s news conference, White House adviser Lisa Monaco was asked whether President Barack Obama would impose a travel ban on West African countries, as some public officials have demanded.
“Right now we believe those types of steps actually impede the response,” Monaco said.
A hazardous materials cleanup crew has been working to decontaminate the Dallas apartment where Duncan had been residing before he was admitted to the hospital almost a week ago. Four family members of Duncan who were quarantined in the apartment have been relocated to an undisclosed location, said Sana Syed, the public information officer for the City of Dallas.
Meanwhile, news of another possible Ebola-positive patient has turned up at the nation’s capital.
On Friday, Howard University Hospital in Washington, DC, announced it was caring for a patient with possible Ebola symptoms who had recently traveled from Nigeria.
“In an abundance of caution, we have activated the appropriate infection control protocols, including isolating the patient,” said hospital spokesperson Kerry-Ann Hamilton in a statement.
The US House Appropriations Committee has set an October 17 deadline for the Obama administration to provide details as to how it is working to protect the mainland from an outbreak.
NBC News said on Thursday that one of its freelance cameramen had contracted Ebola in Liberia, becoming the fifth American to be diagnosed outside of the US with the disease.
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