CERN manages expectations around Higgs rumours

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CERN manages expectations around Higgs rumours

CERN, Europe’s particle-physics laboratory, is taking a cautious approach on persistent rumours (see, for example, the ViXra blog) that two experiments at its Large Hadron Collider — ATLAS and the Compact Muon Solenoid, or CMS — have independently found evidence for the Higgs particle with a mass of 125 giga­electronvolts (GeV) — right in the ballpark predicted by the standard model of particle physics.  Read more

NASA releases new images of nearby asteroid

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NASA releases new images of nearby asteroid

Running on adrenaline and coffee, a team of planetary radar engineers and scientists at the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California’s Mojave Desert is preparing for a third look at close-passing asteroid 2005 YU55 today after producing detailed images on 6 and 7 November (see right).  Read more

US science talks with China debated by lawmakers

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US science talks with China debated by lawmakers

Science became the ping-pong ball in a back-and-forth over foreign policy at a US House of Representatives hearing on Capitol Hill today. The wider issue being debated by lawmakers and officials in the Obama administration was whether the United States should engage closely with communist China in the hope of changing it, or follow a policy of isolation and detachment.  Read more