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."

Comments

Re:Soudan, US

[j. andrew rogers]

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.

The US is a federation of 50 sovereign states (each with the size and economy to match), and saying "Foo City, US" would be like saying "Foo City, EU" (though Europe has the advantage of many languages to broaden the name space). Geographical namespaces in the US are only unique at the State level, just like in Europe, and there are many, many naming collisions between cities, towns, and other geographical identifiers in the US across states. There are a few city names in the US that seem to be used in a significant fraction of all the States, so specifying which State things are in is useful. I do not think EU-ians would be happy if we used the naming convention for the EU that you are suggesting is a good idea for the US. Apparently you don't know or care about world geography.

Old news for yankees

[paulatz]

neutrinos mass have been confirmed twice in the last 5 years by an two experiments held in Italy an Japan. Still US won't believe that until they do it themselves, just the same, but better.