Sunday, July 21, 2013

One Scoop of Neutrino Flavor Please

Summary: Scientists have discovered that neutrinos can change their flavor. "Experiments have now established that one particular type, known as the muon "flavour", can flip to the electron type during flight." This has a huge bearing on the mystery of the anti-matter/matter unbalance. It could potentially hint that neutrinos and their anti-neutrino partners display CP-violation (a type of asymmetry).


BBC News

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Neptune's New Moon

Summary: US astronomer Mark Showalter has used pictures from Hubble to spot a new icy moon of Neptune. It was too tiny for Voyager to have picked up but with Hubble's higher resolution he was able to track the white blur across many years of images. It is Neptune's smallest moon measuring only 20 km (12 miles) across and completing one revolution around Neptune every 23 hours.


BBC News

Music app

Summary: Not strictly science, but something you would appreciate. Fuelled by the ever present challenge of trying to sync a song on two or more laptops/mp3 players at the same time, college students in the UK have created an app that solves this for you. The app allows users to tap into a virtual network that will start the song on all connected devices at the same time. Allowing you and your friends to have an awesome dance party.
The app becomes available in August of this year.