I was right about Higgs Boson particle all along, says Peter Higgs

#CERN #Higgs Boson particle #Large Hadron Collider #NewsTracker

Brussels: The physicists who theorised the existence of a basic subatomic particle half a century ago are confident recent data is proving they were right all along.
Peter Higgs, whose eponymous “Higgs boson” is the long-sought target of the $10 billion Large Hadron collider in Switzerland, told reporters on Tuesday he was sure a particle detected last July was one he had predicted in 1964.
“I think it will turn out to be (the Higgs boson), but it’s just a question of getting out the additional information.”

The Large Hadron Collider. AP.

Data so far from CERN’s LHC particle accelerator seemed unlikely to reveal a more exotic set of particles, Higgs said, and “fit too well” with a single particle that gives mass to matter envisaged by the Standard Model of physics.
“As far as I can see from the results now it’s not yet totally confirmed, but it’s practically sure – I’m ready to bet on it,” Belgian physicist Francois Englert, who also theorised the particle, said before giving a speech to the European Parliament in Brussels.
Although the scientists predicted the presence of the particle years earlier, it took a multinational effort of over 100 countries to build the LHC, which two years into its operation yielded a result.
Higgs said that this type of collaborative research helped not only science, but the economy as a whole, and he was worried about proposed cuts to European Union science funding.
“What you do by cutting the science budget is to reduce your supply of young trained scientists who will do other things which are obviously more useful for your economy,” he said.
“You may be cutting down on things which will provide a stimulus for your economy in the not too distant future.”
For Higgs, who at 83 has retired from active research, the sudden attention brought on by the LHC discovery last July has been a little overwhelming.
“It has resulted in piles of piles of letters and emails on my floor at home,” he said, explaining he had needed to enlist help from a team of colleagues just to sort through it.
The bashful professor has no hard feelings that he’s not yet been tapped for the Nobel Prize in physics, saying he “was reprieved” and “got a stay of execution”.
Touted by some as a possible winner in 2013, Higgs said that winning the Nobel for his work might leave the prize committee the unenviable task of having to choose between a number of co-discoverers, but he acknowledged he was in the running.
“As for what happens next year, I certainly feel vulnerable.”
Reuters

App by Indians top iPad grosser in Asia

Bangalore: Magzter,an online magazine store developed by two Chennai-based entrepreneurs Girish Ramdas and Vijayakumar Radhakrishnan,has become the top grosser on the Apple iPads app stores across much of Asia.
Since last Thursday,Magzter has overtaken international favourites and long standing grossers like Angry Birds,Clash of Clans,NY Times,Frontline Commando,FIFA 13,Need for Speed and Quick Office Pro HD.On Tuesday,Clash of Clans had briefly recovered its No 1 spot,but when TOI last looked at the list of top grossers (those making the most money ) on the iPad,Magzter was back at the top.The iPad has over 700,000 apps.Even in the number of daily downloads,Magzter has crossed other reading apps like Flipboard,Pulse and Zite, Ramdas,CEO of Magzter,said.The newsstand,which was launched just 17 months ago,already has 4.5 million users globally.
India-made apps have previously seen success on the downloading side.Rohit Singals NightStand alarm clock app for the iPhone was downloaded three million times in a few days in 2007.But these have been primarily free apps.Magzter is perhaps the first Indian app to feature in the top grosser list across many app stores.The majority of Magzters users are in the US,the market that the company is most focused on.New York is the worlds biggest publishing hub.So that is where we have registered our headquarters, Ramdas said.
But Ramdas has never worked in the US.He grew up and has worked throughout in Chennai.He graduated from the College of Engineering,Guindy,in Chennai.In 2000,he founded an IT services company called Dot Com Infoway in the city and later started a magazine called Galatta focused on the south Indian film industry.In 2009,he created an iPhone app for the magazine and followed it up with an iPad app.These apps later inspired him to create the global online magazine newsstand.
Magzter has more than 1,500 magazines in its store.About 400 of them are Indian magazines.We have readers from all over the world who buy magazine subscriptions every day.Cross border selling is helping the digital magazine industry by generating more global readers, Radhakrishnan,president of Magzter said.Radhakrishnan did a Bachelor's degree in computer science from Madras University and a Master's degree in management from BITS,Pilani.He later worked with Ramdas in Dot Com Infoway.
Magzter has received massive traction over the past 45 days thanks to the addition of some Facebook sharing features.Sales have risen by 80% in November,compared to October.
Magzters popularity is also because of the ease with which publishers can use it to publish replica versions of physical magazines or even to create highly interactive magazines.We give complete control to publishers and they get to decide what they want to give to their readers, Radhakrishnan said.Magazine prices are also heavily discounted,by as much as 50% in many cases,because of the cost effectiveness of the online medium.Magzter,compared to some of its other online newsstand competitors,has another big advantage.It allows you to buy a magazine on one platform,say Apples iOS,and read it on another one of your devices that runs on,say,the Android or Windows 8 platform.Magzter is now trying to quickly build on its success.

MAG MAGIC

Magzter,developed by Girish Ramdas (left) and Vijayakumar Radhakrishnan,has more than 1,500 magazines in its store The majority of Magzter users are in the US Magazine prices are discounted by as much as 50%

Mechanism behind origin of life on Earth found

Washington: Researchers have found that a molecular network with self-perpetuating capability may have triggered a possible mechanism by which life got a foothold on the early Earth.It sheds light on a possible mechanism by which life may have gotten a foothold in the chemical soup that existed on early Earth.
Researchers have proposed several theories for how life on Earth could have gotten its start,even before the first genes or living cells came to be.One theme all theories have in common is a network of molecules that have the ability to work together to jumpstart and speed up their own replication two necessary ingredients for life.
However,many researchers find it hard to imagine how such a molecular network could have formed spontaneously from the chemical env ronment of early Earth.
Some say its equivalent to a tornado blowing through a junkyard and assembling the random pieces of metal into a Boeing 747, said co-author Wim Hordijk from the National Evolutionary Synthesis Centre in Durham,North Carolina.If you look at the structure of the networks of molecules,very often theyre composed of smaller subsets of molecules with the same self-perpetuating capabilities, he said.PTI