Key particle weighs in a bit heavy, confounding physicists

The grand explanation physicists use to describe how the universe works may have some major new flaws to patch after a fundamental particle was found to have more mass than scientists thought.

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The most precise-ever measurement of W boson mass suggests the standard model needs improvement

After 10 years of careful analysis and scrutiny, scientists of the CDF collaboration at the U.S. Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announced today that they have achieved the most precise measurement to date of the mass of the W boson, one of nature's force-carrying particles. Using data collected by the Collider Detector at Fermilab, or CDF, scientists have now determined the particle's mass with a precision of 0.01%—twice as precise as the previous best measurement. It corresponds to measuring the weight of an 800-pound gorilla to 1.5 ounces.

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Research places new limits on the bizarre behavior of neutrinos

In a laboratory under a mountain, physicists are using crystals far colder than frozen air to study ghostly particles, hoping to learn secrets from the beginning of the universe. Researchers at the Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) announced this week that they had placed some of the most stringent limits yet on the strange possibility that the neutrino is its own antiparticle. Neutrinos are deeply unusual particles, so ethereal and so ubiquitous that they regularly pass through our bodies without us noticing. CUORE has spent the last three years patiently waiting to see evidence of a distinctive nuclear decay process, only possible if neutrinos and antineutrinos are the same particle. CUORE's new data shows that this decay doesn't happen for trillions of trillions of years, if it happens at all. CUORE's limits on the behavior of these tiny phantoms are a crucial part of the search for the next breakthrough in particle and nuclear physics—and the search for our own origins.

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Researchers find a new way to measure flying baseballs

As the Major League Baseball season gets underway, a burning question for many fans of the third most popular sport in the United States is how many homeruns they will see this season. 

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Astrophysicists theorize a new type of neutron star

A pair of researchers, one with Manly Astrophysics, the other with Universidad de Murcia, has proposed the existence of a new type of neutron star. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, Arthur Suvorov and Kostas Glampedakis suggest that an exotic type of neutron star could be created if there is an ultra-strong magnetic field created during a collision between neutron stars.

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The relationship between active areas and boundaries with energy input in snapping shells

New research looks at how the geometry of shells relates to the energy input required to actuate snap-through instability.

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New algorithm could be quantum leap in search for gravitational waves

A new method of identifying gravitational wave signals using quantum computing could provide a valuable new tool for future astrophysicists.

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