Higgs boson: The “god” particle

In the late 1960's, the Standard Model (SM) of physics was developed to study elementary particles and forces of nature. It is a menagerie of 17 structureless fundamental particles (6 of them quarks), which are the basic building block of the universe. Quarks exist inside particles called hadrons - composites of either three quarks or a quark-antiquark pair bound together by gluons.

Despite the success of the SM in explaining sub-nuclear physics, it cannot explain how the particles acquire masses. In order to understand the origin of masses, a hypothetical, ubiquitous quantum field was introduced into the model by the Scottish physicist Peter Higgs. Hence, it is called the Higgs field and the particle associated with the field is called the Higgs boson. It is a zero-spin electrically neutral particle. The Higgs boson is sometimes referred to as “God” particle after Nobel physicist Leon Lederman described it as a “goddamn particle.” As the last remaining particle out of 17 particles of the SM that has not been observed, Higgs has become the “most sought after particle in modern physics.”

How does the Higgs boson give mass to the particles? According to the SM, the Higgs field forms the basic underlying structure of the universe and it permeates throughout the cosmos. When a massless particle passes through the Higgs field, it gains mass by interacting with the field, i.e. the particle will cause the field to cluster around it. The more clustering there is, the more mass the particle will accumulate. It will give quarks and gluons their large masses, but little or no mass to the neutrinos and photons.

Experimental hunt to find the Higgs boson is being carried out at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, Geneva. Experiments were also performed at the Tevatron at Fermi Lab near Chicago until its closure last year. The biggest obstacle to finding the Higgs is that before the search began, no one knew exactly in what energy range to look for it. In order to detect it, theorists determined that conditions that existed in the universe nanoseconds after the Big Bang have to be simulated in the lab. This can be achieved by making high energy (greater than 1 trillion electron volt) proton beams crash into each other, hoping that the Higgs will appear “fleetingly in the wreckage.” The LHC is the first accelerator capable of reaching such high energy. But even with the LHC, the journey has not been easy and the search still continues.

If Higgs boson is detected, it would put the half-century old Standard Model and all its predictions on a secure foundation. It would also help to unify two of the fundamental forces of the universe the electromagnetic force that governs interactions between charged particles and the weak nuclear force that's responsible for radioactive decay. The unification will be a step closer towards the Grand Unified Theory of all the forces Einstein dreamed of. It will also open the door to a whole new world of super particles, “overweight twins” of the existing particles, predicted by Supersymmetry an extension of the Standard Model. This will eventually allow us to have a better understanding of cosmology and the origin of dark matter, extra dimensions of String Theory and black holes.

If the Higgs boson is not discovered, it will possibly lead to more subtle and exotic theories, like the Technicolor theory, to explain what gives particles mass. It could also mean that quarks are not fundamental particles, but made up of some more complex but smaller particles.

Whether the “god” particle is detected or not, there is no denial that we are at the threshold of a momentous event, an event that will determine the future course of direction of physics. According to the leader of one of CERN's two experiments scheduled for this year, “we're close to getting something in focus. We know we're close to the stage where we're going to see something."

Quamrul Haider, PhD, is professor and Chairman, Dept of Physics and Engineering Physics, Fordham University, New York.

e-mail: haider@fordham.edu

Apple unveils 4G iPad

Apple Inc's latest iPad sports a crisper display and an array of technology advances that, while less than revolutionary, may prove enough for now to keep rivals like Amazon.com Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd at bay.

While stopping short of vaulting ahead of Motorola and Samsung, the device -- which comes 4G-ready and boasts a quad-core graphics processor -- is capable enough to help safeguard its two-thirds market share. "The screen is a notable feature for non-techie customers, as is the faster connectivity. That's something that mainstream consumers can identify with," said Morningstar analyst Michael Holt. "There's pent-up demand because a new device was widely anticipated. I they've made enough incremental improvements to do well."

Other analysts say the faster processing may begin to draw heavy gamers, encroaching on turf now dominated by gaming-hardware makers such as Microsoft or Sony.

Chief Executive Tim Cook, presiding over his second major product launch after debuting with 2011's voice-enabled iPhone 4S, introduced the highly anticipated third iteration of the tablet, which is available for pre-orders from Wednesday and will hit store shelves March 16.

But he stumped many in the audience by breaking away from the tradition of calling the third-generation tablet the iPad 3, as some had expected, referring to it simply as the "new iPad."

The company said it will continue to sell the iPad 2 but dropped its price by $100. The older tablet now starts at $399 while the new third-generation wi-fi only iPad starts at $499.

The high-end model of Apple's latest iPad starts at $629 and will be capable of operating on a high-speed 4G "LTE," or Long-Term Evolution, network. At speeds roughly 10 times faster than current 3G technology, that may help banish the sometimes shaky video quality of older devices.

Wall Street had anticipated many of the features Cook showed off on Wednesday, including a higher-definition "retina display" screen - containing several times as many pixels within the same area - and a better camera.

Shares of Apple closed barely higher, up 43 cents at $530.69. They hovered around $530 throughout the unveiling event, which was attended by Marc Benioff, CEO of enterprise cloud computing company Salesforce.com Inc; Jeremy Stoppelman, CEO of online business review site Yelp Inc; and influential venture-capitalist John Doerr, among other industry luminaries.

Some had held out hope of a positive Apple surprise, recalling late CEO Steve Jobs and his now-iconic "one more thing" at the very end of such announcements. Others said the upgrades and tweaks to the iPad could only go so far in fending off hard-charging competition.

"While the hardware is notably enhanced, with an impressive retina display, better camera and faster processor, there are still some areas of improvement that Apple needs to work on, in order to stay ahead of its encroaching competitors," said Fred Huet, managing partner at Greenwich Consulting.

"As tablets are increasingly being used for personal media consumption, it is promising to see a better screen resolution. But will this be enough to ensure Apple's competitive lead in the marketplace? No.”

Others say Apple is betting a 4G-equipped iPad will tempt more U.S. consumers to pay for higher-quality video on the go. That, in turn, should give Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc a revenue boost, analysts say.

Google recasts Android Market with new name

Google Inc is renaming its online storefront for music, books and digital goods, its latest move to raise its profile in the market for electronic content sales and to better compete with Apple Inc and Amazon.com Inc.

The company has retired the Android Market name for its store that sells apps, videos, music and electronic books on the Web and on mobile devices. From Tuesday, the store will be rebranded as the Google Play Store.

The change is designed to make it clearer to consumers that Google offers a broad catalogue of content in addition to the apps programmed for smartphones and tablets based on its Android operating system.

"Some people see the Android icon on their homescreen and they think it's just for apps," said Chris Yerga, engineering director for Android Digital Content, in an interview with Reuters on Monday.

The name is being introduced three and a half years after Google launched its Android Market as a central outlet for consumers to download the mobile apps created for the growing number of Android-based smartphones.

Android is the world's No.1 smartphone operating system, used in smartphones sold by Motorola, Samsung and HTC, among others.

There are more than 450,000 Android-compatible apps available from third-party software developers versus 550,000 apps available for Apple iOS devices such as the iPhone and iPad.

Bijoya Citizen initiative against repression of women

Although we celebrated International Women's Day yesterday, we cannot ignore the fact that violence against women is still quite high in this country.

Amnesty International in its Annual Report 2011 published that according to Bangladesh government figures violence against women topped all crimes reported to the police in the first six months in 2011 alone. Of 7,285 complaints made, 1,586 were rape cases.

To make a difference in this grave issue, a group of people from home and abroad launched an online initiative called Bijoya.

Bijoya (http://bijoya.crowdmap.com) is an online citizen initiative to report incidents against women in Bangladesh with the help of technologies such as SMS, e-mail, tweets, Facebook and web.

This initiative lets people use easy and affordable technologies available to them to report any incidents against women in Bangladesh. Bijoya authorities also keep the identity of reporter anonymous if asked to.

It was launched on December 16 last year to coincide with the Victory Day of Bangladesh.

Shehzaad Shams from UK came up with the idea while he was working in Amnesty International Secretariat in London and approached his colleague Buddha Halder with the idea for his feedback.

Shams said they worked intensively in the role of technology, human rights and social change at Amnesty International (Shams left Amnesty later).

“I had been thinking for a long time on how to transfer what we know better such as technology and social change, for the betterment of Bangladesh. Having worked on various projects on behalf of Amnesty, we thought to take this personal citizen initiative out of our CSR (Citizen Social Responsibility)” Shams said.

The crowdmap identifies most vulnerable locations in the country where incidents against women are on a rise. Law enforcement agencies and local government authorities with other established sources of information and evidence can take actions and preventive measures in order to ensure security and safety of women.

NGOs and women's organisations can also use this map in their development work for women and girls.

With Bijoya, its officials hope to see triumph of women in Bangladesh over social evils such as dowry, rape, harassment, eve teasing, acid throwing, domestic and other violence.

Partha Sarathi Kar, a Sylhet-based open source specialist and editor of the monthly e-Prithibi magazine, set up the technical backbone of Bijoya while Shams and Halder provided the directions from London.

When heard about Bijoya, Fatema Samina Yasmin, expressed her interest to voluntarily get involved with the initiative. She works at the Institute of Governance Studies, BRAC University.

Shams then approached Shahid Uddin Akbar of Bangladesh Institute of ICT in Development (BIID) who agreed to include Bijoya as one of their strategic projects on technology and social change.

Bijoya recently partnered with Maya (www.maya.com.bd) as their 'incident reporting partner'.

Shams also informed that talks are underway to forge alliances with some women's NGOs, blogs and leading newspapers and IT companies.

Bijoya has harassmap.org of Egypt and uShahidi as foreign partners, Shams said.

“This is a purely citizen initiative and we believe it is possible to make this work in the long run if institutional partners join hands in informing and involving general citizens”, he added.

Govt mulls writing WB to settle Padma bridge financing

Finance Minister AMA Muhith said on Thursday the government is considering writing to the World Bank chief to settle the issue of the Padma bridge project financing.

“The government is now discussing about the strategy and content of the letter,” the finance minister told reporters at his Secretariat office in the morning.

The minister's comment on the latest development of the Padma bridge project came when Xiaoyu Zhao, the vice president (operations 1) of Asian Development Bank, met Muhith at his office Thursday.

Earlier, highly placed sources said the government hoped that the WB president would settle the Padma bridge financing issue before he ends his tenure with the institution in June.

Another official said earlier the government has also been negotiating with several officials of the USA, the major shareholder of the WB, so that the lending agency settles the issue quickly.

Besides that, the government has also been continuing talks through the WB executive director who represents Bangladesh and some other South Asian countries.

An official at the WB Dhaka office said earlier if the Canadian government report does not support the corruption allegation, the issue might be settled soon.

In another development, the Canadian government is likely to submit to the WB the findings of an investigation into the alleged corruption in appointing consulting firm for the mega bridge project by this month, a finance ministry official said.

The WB in August last year postponed its $1.2 billion fund for the $2.9 billion Padma bridge project on graft allegations.

In January, the institution increased the loan effectuation deadline by six months for the second time.

On Wednesday, the finance minister after a meeting with Li Jun, new Chinese ambassador to Dhaka, stressed that the government wants to finalise the agreement by October this year and start the project work by November no matter whether the financier is the WB or any country.

The Padma bridge is one of the main election pledges of the present government.

Indian rail minister denies reports of resignation

Indian Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi on Thursday denied media reports on his resignation hot on the heels of his party Trinamool Congress chief’s demand for sacking him after had hiked passenger train fare.

Trivedi however made it clear that he would resign the moment Prime Minister Manmohan Singh or Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee asks him to do, our New Delhi correspondent reports.

Trivedi said he would have to answer questions in the parliament on Thursday and he would be doing that.

“I will not leave my duty,” he told Bengali news channel Star Ananda when asked about media reports that he had already resigned. Trivedi is a lawmaker of Trinamool Congress.

The minister said either the Prime Minister or Mamata Banerjee has to tell him to resign. “It will not take me a minute to go,” he said.

His remarks to media persons outside the parliament Thursday morning came hours after Mamata faxed a letter to the prime minister demanding that industrialist-cum-politician Trivedi be dismissed and her trusted aide Mukul Roy be appointed as the new railway minister.

Mukul Roy is at present junior minister in the shipping ministry and was divested of his railway portfolio as junior minister last year.

Mamata’s letter to Singh came soon after Trivedi had effected an across-the-border hike in passenger train fare in the rail budget presented in the parliament, which drew strong condemnation from Trinamool Congress including the West Bengal chief minister.

“We cannot accept this rail fare hike. We will not allow the fare to be hiked,” Mamata told a public meeting at Nandigram in East Midnapore district Wednesday evening.

India’s Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee told the Lok Sabha that the prime minister had not received any resignation letter from Trivedi.

“As and when any new information comes and as and when appropriate action is taken, it will be shared with Parliament,” Mukherjee told the Lok Sabha Thursday morning in reply to questions from opposition BJP about Trivedi’s status.

The Prime Minister was quoted by Times Now news channel as saying that he might consider Mamata’s request for replacing Trivedi as and when something like this develops.

Meanwhile, Trivedi justified his budget on Wednesday in which he proposed a hike in passenger fare.

What he had done was in the interest of the railways and the country, he said, adding that he, as a disciplined soldier of the party, “will abide by whatever the leader says and the discipline of the party”.

Trivedi had said Wednesday that Mamata did not know that he was going to hike the rail fare.

In view of Mamata’s demand for replacing Trivedi, the top leaders of Congress, including the prime minister, Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi and Pranab Mukherjee, had a meeting among themselves late Wednesday night.

Congress sources said it was felt at that meeting that since Railway portfolio was with Trinamool Congress, the second biggest constituent of India’s ruling UPA with 19 members in Lok Sabha and providing crucial life-and-blood support to the coalition government, it was the prerogative of Mamata-led party to decide who will be the minister of that ministry.

This was the first time in eight years that a proposal was made to hike rail passenger fare to help tide over the acute fund constraint of India's biggest public sector undertaking that employs 1.4 million people.

Pollens of Past Gardens of Judah bloom

An ancient royal garden has come back into bloom in a way, as scientists have reconstructed what it would've looked like some 2,500 years ago in the kingdom of the biblical Judah.

Their reconstruction, which relied on analyses of excavated pollen, reveals a paradise of exotic plants.

The luxurious garden had been discovered at Ramat Rahel, an archaeological site located high above the modern city of Jerusalem, about midway between the Old City of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. This site was inhabited since the last century of the Kingdom of Judah (seventh century B.C.) until the early Muslim reign in Palestine (10th century), a period that saw many wars and exchanges of power, with the garden evolving under each civilization.

Since excavators discovered the garden, they could only imagine its leafy, flowery inhabitants. That is until now.

The garden relied on an advanced irrigation system, which collected rainwater and distributed it using artsy water installations, including pools, underground channels, tunnels and gutters.

These water installations ended up being the key to the team's new discovery; the researchers found grains of pollen that likely got trapped in plaster when the installations were renovated and the plaster still wet. The result was preserved pollen grains.

In samples dating back to the Persian period (between the fifth and sixth centuries B.C.), the team found grains from local fruit trees, ornamentals and imported trees from distant lands.

"This is a very unique pollen assemblage," study researcher Dafna Langgut, a pollen expert at Tel Aviv University, said in a statement.

For instance, they found evidence of willow and poplar trees, which would have required irrigation to survive in the garden. They also found pollen associated with ornamentals, such as myrtle and water lilies; native fruit trees, including grape vine, common fig and olive; and imported citron, Persian walnut, cedar of Lebanon and birch trees. The researchers think the ruling Persian authorities likely imported these exotics from remote parts of the empire to flaunt their power.

Co2 The Culprit Marine ecosystems threatened

If carbon dioxide emissions don't begin to decline soon, the complex fabric of marine ecosystems will begin fraying and eventually unravel completely, two new studies conclude.

The diversity of ocean species thins and any survivors' health declines as the pH of ocean water falls in response to rising carbon dioxide levels, scientists from England and Florida reported February 18 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. What's more, affected species aren't restricted to those with shells and calcified support structures features particularly vulnerable to erosion by corrosive seawater.

Jason Hall-Spencer of the University of Plymouth, England, and his colleagues have been collecting data from marine sites off Italy, Baja California and Papua New Guinea, where high concentrations of carbon dioxide percolate out of the seabed from volcanic activity below. Directly above these CO2 seeps, pH plummets to at least 7.8, a value that is expected to occur widely by 2100 and which is substantially lower than the normal level for the area, 8.1. These sites offer a preview of what may happen to seafloor ecosystems as CO2 levels continue to rise, causing ocean water pH to drop.

Compared with nearby normal-pH sites, species richness in low-pH zones was diminished by 30 percent, Hall-Spencer reported. “Coral and some algae are gone. And the sea urchins are gone,” he said. Fish may be present, but unlike in areas with a normal pH, they won't deposit their eggs there.

Although seagrasses appear to survive just fine in the low-pH seawater, close inspection showed that fish had nibbled the fronds, Hall-Spencer found. He identified one likely explanation: At low pH, these grasses no longer produced the phenolic defense compounds that typically deter munching by grazing animals.

Did You Know? What does lightning do to the atmosphere?

There are lightning strikes somewhere on earth 100 times a second. And every time lightning strikes, it generates Ozone gas. This strengthens the Ozone Layer in the upper atmosphere you know, the one with the big hole that heightens our need for sunscreen.

A cloud to ground bolt of lightning carries between 100 million and 1 billion volts. It can reach 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit 3-4 times hotter than the surface of the sun!

Water Worlds The wall of globes

Where in the world is all the water vapor? It may be hard to tell at first glance, but this wall of globes represents a simulation of monthly averaged distribution of total column water vapor on the planet. Such simulations are important, because understanding the distribution of water vapor on Earth is critical for understanding our planet's climate.