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Remember the artificial panic pervading the CBS "Early Show" just a little over a year ago that, for the first time in history, the North Pole may not be covered with ice sometime during the summer of 2008? Well, not only did it not happen but evidence now shows that Arctic ice has been thickening substantially this year. And who is making that "heretical" claim? Why Andrew Revkin, the New York Times environment writer. On the heels of his recent "heresy" of quoting noted climatologist Mojib Latif's finding that the world will probably be in for a cooling trend for...

With all the hoopla surrounding the new environmental scare movie The Day After Tomorrow, and a media feeding frenzy trying to figure out if the events as portrayed in the film could really happen, we decided it might be helpful to republish the following article. It ran about two years ago as a cover story, in September 2002, and it became one of our best-selling issues on the newsstand. It is an unemotional, reporting tour de force by Brad Lemley that conveys the concerns of a number of scientists at the Woods Hole Institution in Massachussetts that indeed we may...

Is the Earth currently experiencing a warming trend? Yes. Are human activities, including the burning of fossil fuel and forest conversion, the primary — or even significant — drivers of this current temperature trend? The scientifically appropriate answer — cautious and conforming to the known facts — is: probably not. " ** The Earth's climate cycles through 90,000-year Ice Ages interspersed with shorter warm periods." Indeed, the current warming cycle is not unusual: Evidence from around the world shows that the Earth has experienced numerous climate cycles throughout its history. These cycles include glacial periods (more commonly known as Ice...

A new theory to explain global warming was revealed at a meeting at the University of Leicester (UK) and is being considered for publication in the journal "Science First Hand". The controversial theory has nothing to do with burning fossil fuels and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. According to Vladimir Shaidurov of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the apparent rise in average global temperature recorded by scientists over the last hundred years or so could be due to atmospheric changes that are not connected to human emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of natural gas and oil. Shaidurov explained how...

NEW YORK — German scientists say cells from the testes of mice can behave like embryonic stem cells. If the same holds true in humans, it could provide a controversy-free source of versatile cells for use in treating disease. Embryonic stem cells can give rise to virtually any tissue in the body and scientists believe they may offer treatments for diseases like Parkinson's and diabetes and spinal cord injuries. But to harvest the cells, human embryos must be destroyed. Some religious groups and others oppose that. The new research into testicular cells, published online Friday by the journal Nature, comes...

Teaching Darwin Why we're still fighting about biology textbook. by Paul McHugh 03/28/2005, Volume 010, Issue 26 EIGHTY YEARS AGO THIS SUMMER, the Scopes trial upheld the effort of the state of Tennessee to exclude the teaching of Darwinian evolution from Tennessee classrooms. The state claimed Darwinism contradicted orthodox religion. But times change, and recently a federal judge ruled that a three-sentence sticker stating that "evolution is a theory not a fact" must be removed from Georgia high school biology texts because it contradicts orthodox science and represents an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. Both legal mandates--no Darwin yesterday, nothing but...

For Immediate Release: Contact: Jaillene Hunter, (202) 225-3671; (202)-577-5285 February 17, 2005 Jaillene.Hunter@mail.house.gov Weldon/Maloney Introduce Legislation Banning Mercury From Vaccines Legislation Eliminates This Exposure For Children and Pregnant Women (Washington, D.C.) - U.S. Reps. Dave Weldon, M.D. (R-FL) and Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) reintroduced H.R. 881 today eliminating mercury from vaccines. Given increasing concerns about mercury exposures and the body's ability to eliminate mercury, this bill will virtually eliminate the mercury exposure from vaccines. In 1999 the Public Health Service and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended removal of thimerosal from child vaccines. Five years later, thimerosal (50% mercury) remains in...

The Mideast's latest archaeological sensation is all about Edom. The Bible says Edom's kings interacted with ancient Israel, but some scholars have confidently declared that no Edomite state could have existed that early. The latest archaeological work indicates the Bible got it right, those experts got it wrong and some write-ups need rewriting. The findings also could buttress disputed biblical reports about kings David and Solomon. Edom was a rugged land south and east of the Dead Sea in present-day southern Jordan. The Bible reports that Edom had kings before Israel (Genesis 36:31, 1 Chronicles 1:43) and that they barred...

Going back to work to start the year was no different than working last week; most Venezuelans are certainly not working and will likely not go to work for at least another week, a phenomenon that I have always marveled at. It is in fact pretty amazing that a country with such low productivity practically shuts down for three weeks every year at Christmas. And let’s not talk about Easter week and carnival week when similar slowdowns take place. But maybe I should lighten up. The slowdown is general. The best part is that politicians also disappear from view for...

The false spider mite has been revealed as the first known animal to make do with only one set of chromosomes, challenging traditional theories of evolution... Using standard sequencing techniques, Weeks's team found the mites' chromosomes to be very different. As far as the researchers could tell, none of the mites carried two identical copies of any particular gene. They conclude that the species is exclusively haploid. Weeks thinks being exclusively haploid might give the animals an evolutionary advantage... This genetic state may be rare simply because diploidy was "frozen" early in evolution and other animals haven't had the...

I have created a public register of "bump lists" here on Free Republic. I define a bump list as a name listed in the "To" field used to index articles. Free Republic Bump List Register

<p>The Pentagon's pursuit of a new kind of nonnuclear super-weapon has sparked a behind-the-scenes revolt among its elite scientific advisers, some of whom reject the scheme as pseudoscience.</p> <p>The military's goal is to develop a bomb that might be far more powerful than existing conventional weapons of the same size. Precisely targeted, such a weapon could take out targets -- such as underground caverns that conceal weapons of mass destruction -- without posing the severe political risks of using nuclear bombs.</p>

The chemical bases of the various AIDS epidemics: recreational drugs, anti-viral chemotherapy and malnutritionPeter Duesberg†, Claus Koehnlein* and David RasnickDonner Laboratory, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA*Internistische Praxis, Koenigsweg 14, 24103 Kiel, Germany†Corresponding author (Fax, 510-643-6455; Email: duesberg@uclink4.berkeley.edu)In 1981 a new epidemic of about two-dozen heterogeneous diseases began to strike non-randomly growing numbers of male homosexuals and mostly male intravenous drug users in the US and Europe. Assuming immunodeficiency as the common denominator the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) termed the epidemic, AIDS, for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. From 1981–1984 leading researchers including those from the CDC proposed...

Time, Mechanics and Zeno Undergo Major Revision by Brooke Jones, Wellington - Aug 11, 2003 A bold paper which has highly impressed some of the world's top physicists and been published in the August issue of Foundations of Physics Letters, seems set to change the way we think about the nature of time and its relationship to motion and classical and quantum mechanics. Much to the science world's astonishment, the work also appears to provide solutions to Zeno of Elea's famous motion paradoxes, almost 2500 years after they were originally conceived by the ancient Greek philosopher. In doing so,...

Researchers Report Record High Temperatures in Compact Fusion Device Step taken towards environmentally safe, cheap and unlimited energy May 28, 2002. A team of researchers has announced the achievement for the first time of temperatures above one billion degrees in a dense plasma. The breakthrough, achieved with a compact and inexpensive device called the plasma focus, is a step toward controlled fusion energy using advanced fuels that release little or no radioactivity. "We have achieved a key condition needed to burn hydrogen-boron fuel," said Eric J. Lerner of Lawrenceville Plasma Physics, one of the researchers. "This fuel produces virtually no...

Florida Physicist Says Dark Matter, Extra Dimensions Related And Possibly Detectable the universe is the "twilight zone" Gainesville -May 19, 2003 A team of scientists that includes a University of Florida physicist has suggested that two of the biggest mysteries in particle physics and astrophysics -- the existence of extra time and space dimensions and the composition of an invisible cosmic substance called dark matter -- may be connected. "For the most part, these two questions have been treated separately in the past, and for the first time we're making a direct link," said Konstantin Matchev, a UF assistant...

Physicists find 'rebel' particle By Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor Physicists have found a new subatomic particle, named Ds (2317). It will help them better understand the building blocks of matter. Inside the BaBar detector The particle consists of an unusual combination of more fundamental particles - quarks. Two quarks form Ds (2317) and, curiously, its properties are not what theory predicted. The announcement was made by physicist Antimo Palano to a packed auditorium at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (Slac) in the US. The discovery was made by the BaBar international consortium, which operates a...

LONDON (Reuters) - British scientists equipped with state of the art detectors deep underground in northern England have begun a search for one of the most tantalizing secrets of the universe -- known as Dark Matter.   "If we are successful in our quest then we are looking at a place in the history books," Neil Spooner of Sheffield University said on Tuesday. "This will be one of the great discoveries of our time." Teams of scientists around the world are racing to be the first to discover the truth about Dark Matter, which cannot be seen because it does...

    Researchers develop 'microwave rocket'  Yomiuri Shimbun A group of Tokyo University researchers has successfully applied electromagnetic waves--normally used to heat food in microwave ovens--as the propulsion force for a "microwave rocket," the first time such an experiment has succeeded. According to the group led by Kimiya Komurasaki, an associate professor at the department of advanced energy, the development could enable cost and size reductions in rockets as they could use air in the atmosphere as a means of propulsion, rather than having to carry fuel. The group fired the microwaves at the rocket's base, rapidly heating the...

Scientists levitate gold coins Scientists have shown that levitation is not just a trick from a Harry Potter book. Researchers at the University of Nottingham have used magnetism to make solid objects such as coins float in the air. Scientists have already proven strong, varying magnetic fields could exert an upward force on objects in their path. The Nottingham team found this effect could be dramatically enhanced in cold, magnetised oxygen. Magnetic levitation occurs when the magnetic force is strong enough to overcome gravity and balance a body's weight. Cold oxygen provides extra buoyancy through the "magneto-Archimedes" effect -...

Albert Einstein might be astonished to learn that NASA physicists have applied his relativity theory to a concept he introduced but later disliked namely that two particles that interact could maintain a connection even if separated by a vast distance. Researchers often refer to this connection as "entanglement." Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., have discovered that this entanglement is relative, depending on how fast an observer moves with respect to the particles, and that entanglement can be created or destroyed just by relative motion. This might change the way entanglement is used on future spacecraft that move...

Indiana University Scientists First To Detect Rare Nuclear Fusion Violating Charge Symmetry BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Scientists at the Indiana University Cyclotron Facility in Bloomington have made the first unambiguous detection of a rare process, the fusion of two nuclei of heavy hydrogen to form a nucleus of helium and an uncharged pion. The pion is one of the subatomic particles responsible for the strong force that holds every nucleus together. The achievement will be announced Saturday (April 5) at the meeting of the American Physical Society in Philadelphia. "Scientists have searched for this rare fusion process since the 1950s," said...

Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories have re-created a star's fire. In a series of experiments using the lab's Z machine over the past nine months, they demonstrated the ability to generate tiny bursts of nuclear fusion, the same energy that fuels H-bombs and stars, the researchers said at a meeting of the American Physical Society in Philadelphia. "We're trying to create a star in the laboratory," said Jeff Quintenz, head of Sandia's fusion research program. The research is driven by a need to duplicate the conditions on a nuclear battlefield. But it also means Z's unique technological approach has demonstrated...

Surprise To Physicists -- Protons Aren't Always Shaped Like A Basketball PHILADELPHIA -- When Gerald A. Miller first saw the experimental results from the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, he was pretty sure they couldn't be right. If they were, it meant that some long-held notions about the proton, a primary building block of atoms, were wrong. But in time, the findings proved to be right, and led physicists to the conclusion that protons aren't always spherically shaped, like a basketball. "Some physicists thought they did the experiment wrong," said Miller, a University of Washington physics professor. "Even I thought...

It's A Nova ? It's A Supernova ? It's A HYPERNOVA ANN ARBOR, Mich. --- Two billion years ago, in a far-away galaxy, a giant star exploded, releasing almost unbelievable amounts of energy as it collapsed to a black hole. The light from that explosion finally reached Earth at 6:37 a.m. EST on March 29, igniting a frenzy of activity among astronomers worldwide. This phenomenon has been called a hypernova, playing on the name of the supernova events that mark the violent end of massive stars. With two telescopes separated by about 110 degrees longitude, the Robotic Optical Transient Search...

Z Produces Fusion Neutrons, Sandia Scientists Confirm; Huge Pulsed Power Machine Enters Fusion Arena PHILADELPHIA, Pa. (April 7, 2003) -- Throwing its hat into the ring of machines that offer the possibility of achieving controlled nuclear fusion, Sandia National Laboratories' Z machine has created a hot dense plasma that produces thermonuclear neutrons, Sandia researchers announced today at a news conference at the April meeting of the American Physical Society in Philadelphia. The neutrons emanate from fusion reactions within a BB-sized deuterium capsule placed within the target of the huge machine. Compressing hot dense plasmas that produce neutrons is an important...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- April 2, 2003 -- In a discovery that is likely to impact fields as diverse as atomic physics, chemistry and nanotechnology, researchers have identified a new physical phenomenon, electrostatic rotation, that, in the absence of friction, leads to spin. Because the electric force is one of the fundamental forces of nature, this leap forward in understanding may help reveal how the smallest building blocks in nature react to form solids, liquids and gases that constitute the material world around us. Scientists Anders Wistrom and Armik Khachatourian of University of California, Riverside first observed the electrostatic rotation in...

Ultra-simple Desktop Device Slows Light To A Crawl At Room Temperature Though Einstein put his foot down and demanded that nothing can move faster than light, a new device developed at the University of Rochester may let you outpace a beam by putting your foot down on the gas pedal. At 127 miles per hour, the light in the new device travels more than 5 million times slower than normal as it passes through a ruby just a few centimeters long. Instead of the complex, room-filling mechanisms previously used to slow light, the new apparatus is small and, in the...

Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2003 10:24:29 -0800 From: Jim Warren Subject: Autodesk's founder reports gross errors by Limbaugh, CNN, Snopes Cc: [Snopes and a whole bunch of CNN circular file email addresses; Mr. Warren doesn't seem to know the news biz very well --DMTW] [If you know John, you know him to be a most ardent stickler for facts. Here, John is not reporting hearsay; he's reporting about what's happened on his own server, and images he provides thereon. --jim] At 12:34 AM +0100 3/29/03, John Walker wrote: Subject: Sniping at Snopes.comAlmost everybody's experienced the phenomenon of encountering a description...

Flat Lens Could Significantly Enhance Object Resolution by Nicolle Wahl Toronto - Mar 28, 2003 By constructing artificial materials that break long-standing rules of nature, a U of T researcher has developed a flat lens that could significantly enhance the resolution of imaged objects. This, in turn, could lead to smaller and more effective antennas and devices for cell phones, increased space for data storage on CD-ROMs and more complex electronic circuits. "This is new physics," says George Eleftheriades, a U of T professor specializing in electromagnetic technology at the Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering...

Astronomers Deal Blow To Quantum Theories Of Time, Space, Gravity Huntsville - Mar 28, 2003 For the second time in as many months, images gathered by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) are raising questions about the structures of time and gravity, and the fabric of space.Using two HST images, astronomers from Italy and Germany looked for but did not find evidence supporting a prevailing scientific theory that says time, space and gravity are composed of tiny quantum bits. Using existing theories, the team led by Dr. Roberto Ragazzoni from the Astrophysical Observatory of Arcetri, Italy, and the Max Planck Institute...

In living organisms, enzymes called hydrogenases harness plentiful metals to turn water into hydrogen and vice versa. Stripped of their proteins, they may show chemists a surprising shortcut to producing the fuel of the future In his recent State of the Union address, President George W. Bush touted hydrogen as the automotive fuel of the future, one that will reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil while cutting greenhouse-gas and other noxious emissions. "A single chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen generates energy, which can be used to power a car producing only water, not exhaust fumes," he said in requesting...

The Big Rip: New Theory Ends Universe by Shredding EverythingBy Robert Roy BrittSenior Science Writerposted: 12:04 pm ET06 March 2003 A rather harrowing new theory about the death of the universe paints a picture of "phantom energy" ripping apart galaxies, stars, planets and eventually every speck of matter in a fantastical end to time.Scientifically it is just about the most repulsive notion ever conceived.The speculative but serious cosmology is described as a "pretty fantastic possibility" even by its lead author, Robert Caldwell of Dartmouth University. It explains one possible outcome for solid astronomical observations made in the late 1990s...

PITTSBURGH -- The race for smaller, faster, and more powerful computers and consumer electronics took a new spin as researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) became the first to control electrons using electrical, rather than magnetic, fields. In its Jan. 23 edition, Science Express, the online portal of the magazine Science, published a report on the breakthrough of Jeremy Levy and David Awschalom. Levy is an associate professor of physics and astronomy at Pitt and director of its Center for Oxide-Semiconductor Materials for Quantum Computing ( http://cosmqc.net ). Awschalom is a...

Quantum physics predicts the existence of an underlying sea of zero-point energy at every point in the universe. This is different from the cosmic microwave background and is also referred to as the electromagnetic quantum vacuum since it is the lowest state of otherwise empty space. This energy is so enormous that most physicists believe that even though zero-point energy seems to be an inescapable consequence of elementary quantum theory, it cannot be physically real, and so is subtracted away in calculations. A minority of physicists accept it as real energy which we cannot directly sense since it is the...

    Gravity test confines string theory dimensions   19:00 26 February 03   NewScientist.com news service   Gravity has been tested over a shorter distance than ever before. Using a delicate apparatus to measure gravitational forces over just a tenth of a millimetre, a team of physicists has found that they are roughly as Newton's laws predict. The result narrows down the possible nature of hidden extra dimensions, which would boost gravity over small scales. It is extraordinarily difficult to measure gravity over short distances, because weights that are small enough to be manipulated and held so close together only exert...

Extra Dimensions Showing Hints Of Scientific Revolution Chicago - Feb 19, 2003 The concept of extra dimensions, dismissed as nonsense even by one of its earliest proponents nearly nine decades ago, may soon help solve seemingly unrelated problems in particle physics, cosmology and gravitational physics, according to a panel of experts who spoke Feb. 15 at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Denver. "It doesn't happen often that you get a confluence of ideas and experiments that come together and it's something that obviously would change your whole way of looking at the universe,"...

PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY--In, then out, then in again. In 1998, the United States withdrew from a previous incarnation of the $5 billion International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) experiment, which will use a doughnut-shaped magnetic bottle to confine a superhot hydrogen plasma and induce it to undergo nuclear fusion. But last week, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham announced that the United States would seek to become a partner in ITERagain, as part of its push for long-term energy independence. "I am pleased to announce today that President Bush has decided that the United States will join the international negotiations on ITER,"...

Jan. 31 — From an idea that was only considered practicable 10 years ago, scientists say they have succeeded in teleporting laser photons over two kilometers (1.25 miles), the biggest distance yet achieved. In science fiction, teleportation entails taking someone and creating a replica of him or her a long distance away, and destroying the original. It remained confined to pulp literature until a decade ago. The perceived barrier to it was something called the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. This principle states that the more accurately you try to scan or measure an atom or other object in order to...

<p>PRINCETON, N.J., Jan. 30 (UPI) -- The United States will join negotiations to build and operate a major international fusion research project, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said Thursday.</p> <p>Known as ITER -- from the Latin word meaning "the way" -- the project is intended to build on previous fusion concepts involving magnetic containment of high-temperature plasma, a state of matter so hot that even atoms cannot hold together.</p>

Employing a facet of quantum mechanics that Albert Einstein called "spooky action at a distance," scientists have taken particles of light, destroyed them and then resurrected copies more than a mile away. Previous experiments in so-called quantum teleportation moved particles of light about a yard. The findings could aid the sending of unbreakable coded messages, which is limited to a few tens of miles. The new experiment used longer wavelengths of light than earlier ones, letting the scientists copy the light through standard glass fiber found in fiber optic cables. "The central issue is to move to telecom fibers and...

Santa Barbara, Calif. -- Researchers at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) and at the University of Pittsburgh have provided "proof of concept that quantum spin information can be locally manipulated using high-speed electrical circuits," according to the abstract of their paper being published Jan. 23 on the "Science Express" website, Science Magazine's rapid portal for publication of significant research findings to appear subsequently in print in Science. The findings are significant because they demonstrate a solid-state quantum logic gate (i.e, control mechanism) that works with gating technologies in today's electronics, today's computers. This research also moves esoteric...

Physicists leveled heavy criticism Thursday on a report from last week that claimed the speed of gravity had been determined by observation and was equal to the speed of light. One physicist called the interpretation of the finding "nonsense". Others were more diplomatic, suggesting that the experiment, involving observations of the bending of light from a distant galaxy as the light sped by the planet Jupiter, had instead measured other phenomena. The brewing controversy, which illustrates the fits and spurts with which science sometimes grudgingly moves forward, appears to have ground to a stalemate for now as the two scientists...

The speed of gravity has been measured for the first time. The landmark experiment shows that it travels at the speed of light, meaning that Einstein's general theory of relativity has passed another test with flying colours. Ed Fomalont of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Sergei Kopeikin of the University of Missouri in Columbia made the measurement, with the help of the planet Jupiter. "We became the first two people to know the speed of gravity, one of the fundamental constants of nature," the scientists say, in an article in New Scientist print edition. One important...

For many in the northern hemisphere, the appearance of icicles adds a little sparkle to the holiday season and makes the fire seem that little bit warmer. But when ice storms strike as they did in Canada and the American north-east in 1998, power lines can become so encrusted with ice that they collapse, leaving millions without electricity. Surrounding every power line with a heating element is one option. But Victor Petrenko, at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, thinks he has a smarter idea - use the ice itself as the element. Working with a consortium of US and Canadian...

PRESS RELEASE Date Released: Monday, December 09, 2002 Los Alamos National Laboratory New theory unravels magnetic instability Reconnection, the merging of magnetic field lines of opposite polarity near the surface of the sun, Earth and some black holes, is believed to be the root cause of many spectacular astronomical events such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections, but the reason for this is not well understood. Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory now have a new theory that may explain the instability and advance the understanding of these phenomena. Theorists Giovanni Lapenta of Los Alamos National Laboratory's Plasma Theory...

An international team researching particle physics at Tohoku University has observed a new kind of neutrino--one of the building blocks of the universe--and almost certainly confirmed that the particles have mass, it was learned Tuesday. The neutrinos are different from the type detected by Tokyo University professor emeritus and Nobel laureate Masatoshi Koshiba and others, according to the researchers. Working at Tokohu University's Research Center for Neutrino Science neutrino observation facility, the researchers detected antielectron neutrinos, which are the antimatter of one of three types of neutrinos. They almost certainly confirmed that the neutrinos they detected had mass--just as the...

[Referenced pictures displayed at end] Two Australian scientists believe they have found evidence of a parallel universe of strange matter within our own Solar System. Dr Robert Foot and Dr Saibal Mitra, of the University of Melbourne, report that close-up observations of the asteroid Eros by the Near-Shoemaker probe indicate it has been splattered by so-called "mirror matter". Mirror matter is not anti-matter, it is altogether weirder. It is somehow a "reflection" of normal matter, a sort of parallel series of particles required to restore the balance of the Universe. Sounds far-fetched - some believe so. However, experiments are underway...

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A promising new algorithm that can predict interactions between proteins whose structures are unsolved has been developed by Jeffrey Skolnick, Ph.D., University at Buffalo Distinguished Professor and director of the Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics. The research is published in today's (Nov. 15, 2002) issue of Proteins. Called MULTIPROSPECTOR, the new algorithm takes protein interaction prediction to a new level because it works on proteins on which little structural information exists, providing three-dimensional models of the protein-protein complex and identifying the amino acid residues that interact. According to Skolnick, the new method takes the entire field of...

Scientists have recreated a temperature not seen since the first microsecond of the birth of the universe and found that the event did not unfold quite the way they expected, according to a recent paper in Physical Review Letters. The interaction of energy, matter, and the strong nuclear force in the ultra-hot experiments conducted at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) was thought to be well understood, but a lengthy investigation has revealed that physicists are missing something in their model of how the universe works. "It's the things you weren't expecting that are really trying to tell you something...