jma34 - Slashdot User

Comment Let's set the record straight (Score 2) 180

by jma34 on Friday June 10, 2011 @01:34PM (#36403162) Attached to: Data Review Brings Major Setback In Higgs Boson Hunt

Let's get things straightened out. About a month ago the CDF experiment at the Tevatron at Fermilab found a "bump" in their data. It was statistically significant and was unexplained. This "bump" cannot be the Higgs boson from The Standard Model because it has the completely wrong cross-section. This was a fully public result from the CDF experiment.

About the same time there was a "leaked" abstract from an internal note from the ATLAS experiment at the LHC which claimed to have a signal for a Higgs boson. This was never a public or published result.

Now today we have an announcement from the D0 experiment at the Tevatron that they looked into the CDF bump and see nothing. This isn't a set back for the Higgs since it was never about the Higgs. The ATLAS leaked abstract has never been confirmed even by ATLAS so lets not get our underpants in a knot. Lets also not conflate the two since they don't have anything to do with each other.

Study Finds That Video Games Hinder Learning In Young Boys 278

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday March 17, 2010 @03:35AM from the fun-activities-distract-from-studies,-film-at-11 dept.

dcollins writes "Researchers at Denison University in Ohio have shown that giving PlayStations to young boys leads to slower progress in reading and writing skills. Quoting: 'The study is the first controlled trial to look at the effects of playing video games on learning in young boys. That is to say, the findings aren't based on survey data of kids' game habits, but instead on a specific group of children that were randomly assigned to receive a PlayStation or not ... Those with PlayStations also spent less time engaged in educational activities after school and showed less advancement in their reading and writing skills over time than the control group, according to tests taken by the kids. While the game-system owners didn't show significant behavioral problems, their teachers did report delays in learning academic skills, including writing and spelling.'"

Gamma Ray Mystery Reestablished By Fermi Telescope 95

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday March 03, 2010 @12:23PM from the back-to-the-drawing-board dept.

eldavojohn writes "New observations from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope reveal that our assumptions about the 'fog' of gamma rays in our universe are not entirely explained by black hole-powered jets emanating from active galaxies — as we previously hypothesized. For now, the researchers are representing the source of unaccounted gamma rays with a dragon (as in 'here be') symbol. A researcher explained that they are certain about this, given Fermi's observations: 'Active galaxies can explain less than 30 percent of the extragalactic gamma-ray background Fermi sees. That leaves a lot of room for scientific discovery as we puzzle out what else may be responsible.' And so we reopen the chapter on background gamma-rays in the science textbooks and hope this eventually sheds even more light on other mysteries of space — like star formation and dark matter."

The LHC Is Back Online 123

Posted by kdawson on Sunday February 28, 2010 @10:10PM from the exercising-the-formula-one-around-town dept.

medea and several other readers noted that the LHC came back online early this morning. Here is the tweet from CERN announcing the milestone. As we discussed a few weeks ago, CERN plans to run the LHC at half power or less through 2011.

Comment Re:Thinkpad (Lenovo) sucks my ass (Score 2, Interesting) 291

by jma34 on Sunday April 12, 2009 @09:41PM (#27552271) Attached to: My laptop's battery generally lasts ...

I have an x200 and I absolutely love it. My previous laptop was an HP which got ~2.5 hours when it was brand new but was down to about 10 minutes after a year. My x200 gets about 10 hours of battery life with the wireless on. I have the solid state drive and the large battery. I use it all day in meetings for work without plugging it in. Granted its new right now, it's an portable type laptop while my HP wasn't so the comparison isn't completely fair, but I'm hoping that the battery keeps it up.

Journal Journal: $1/meal/person? I thought that was a NORMAL food budget! 17

Journal by Marxist Hacker 42 on Monday April 23, 2007 @02:26PM

The Governor of Oregon and his wife have taken up The Food Stamp Challenge, a program for rich people here in Oregon to give them a taste (litterally) of how the other half lives. I think it's a good idea- but then I saw the budget: $42 for the week, or $1/person/meal. Well, I've got a 3 person family- and we try to stay under $60/week for our food, under $90 if you throw in food for t

Slashdot Top Deals