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Neutrino Mass Confirmed
biohack writes "BBC News reports that results from the MINOS experiment have confirmed that neutrinos have mass. To look for neutrino oscillations, scientists created muon neutrinos in a particle accelerator at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab). After passing through a particle detector at Fermilab, a high intensity beam of neutrinos travelled to another particle detector 724km (450 miles) away in a disused mine in Soudan, US. The set up established that fewer particles were being detected at the Soudan site than had been sent from Fermilab, which confirmed that some neutrinos changed their flavor on the way - an effect called neutrino flavor oscillation, which requires them to have mass. 'To put it simply, if they are heavy, it means that there is a lot more mass in the Universe than we thought there was,' said Professor Jenny Thomas from University College London."
That kind of sloppiness is rare for the BBC, but typical for US media. It's probably because so many USians don't know or care about world geography. It would sound weird/inaccurate to hear news about "San Francisco, USA" without mentioning California. But this is exactly how it sounds when US news mention a city in another country and ignore the state/province/region/department where it's located. Here's a good example of a double-whammy courtesy of CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/30/bush.cancu"CANCUN, Mexico (CNN) --" (Cancún is in the state of Quintana Roo)
"Mexico's Vicente Fox, a conservative in the final months of his presidency, is host to Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the Yucatan resort."
They didn't do their homework here. Yucatán is the state NW of Quintana Roo. The Yucatán Peninsula contains these two states plus Campeche:
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/americas/mexico_poQuantum mechanics: the dreams that stuff is made of.
"The White House is not an intelligence-gathering agency," -- Scott McClellan, Whitehouse spokesman.