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Scientists capture antimatter atoms in particle breakthrough
By Thair Shaikh, CNN
November 18, 2010 12:21 p.m. EST
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* Antihydrogen atoms were trapped in a magnetic field
* Matter and antimatter annihilate each other on contact
* "It's taken us five years to get here," says Professor Jeffrey Hangst
* CERN's next ambition is to create a beam of antimatter
(CNN) -- Scientists have captured antimatter atoms for the first time, a breakthrough that could eventually help us to understand the nature and origins of the universe.
Researchers at CERN, the Geneva-based particle physics laboratory, have managed to confine single antihydrogen atoms in a magnetic trap.
This will allow them to conduct a more detailed study of antihydrogen, which will in turn allow scientists to compare matter and antimatter.
Understanding antimatter is one of the biggest challenges facing science -- most theoretical physicists and cosmologists believe that at the Big Bang, when the universe was created, matter and antimatter were produced in equal amounts.
However, as our world is made up of matter, antimatter seems to have disappeared.
Understanding antimatter could shed light on why almost everything in the known universe consists of matter.
Antimatter has been very difficult to handle because matter and antimatter don't get on, destroying each other instantly on contact in a violent flash of energy.
It's taken us five years to get here, this is a big milestone
--Professor Jeffrey Hangst
In a precursor to today's experiment, in 2002 scientists at CERN produced antihydrogen atoms in large quantities, but they had an incredibly short lifespan -- just several milliseconds -- because the antihydrogen came into contact with the walls of their containers and the two annihilated each other.
In this latest experiment the lifespan of the antihydrogen atoms was extended by using magnetic fields to trap them and thus prevent them from coming into contact with matter.
The researchers created 38 antihydrogen atoms and held on to them for about a tenth of a second, which is long enough to study them says Professor Jeffrey Hangst, one of the team of CERN scientists who worked on the program.
Hangst and his colleagues produced a magnet field which was strongest near the walls of the trap, falling to a minimum at the center, causing the atoms to collect there in a vacuum.
"We could have held them for much longer... I am just full of joy and relief, it's taken us five years to get here, this is a big milestone," Hangst told CNN.
To trap just 38 atoms, they had to run the experiment 335 times, says Nature which published the report findings.
Hangst added: "This was ten thousand times more difficult than creating untrapped antihydrogen atoms.
"This will help us understand the structure of space and time. For reasons that no one yet understands, nature ruled out antimatter... this inspires us to work that much harder to see if antimatter holds some secret."
Malcolm Longair, professor of natural philosophy at Cambridge University, told CNN that CERN's results were a considerable achievement.
"At the Big Bang we believe the temperatures were very very high and we understand in theory why antimatter disappeared but there is no physical theory to back it up."
Antimatter was first predicted in 1931 by the British physicist Paul Dirac, who theorized that antimatter is ordinary matter in reverse.
CERN's next ambition is to create a beam of antimatter which they hope will allow them to unpeel more of the mysteries surrounding it.Scientists capture antimatter atoms in particle breakthrough
By Thair Shaikh, CNN... more
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WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama absolved CIA officers from prosecution for harsh, painful interrogation of terror suspects Thursday, even as his administration released Bush-era memos graphically detailing — and authorizing — such grim tactics as slamming detainees against walls, waterboarding them and keeping them naked and cold for long periods.
Human rights groups and many Obama officials have condemned such methods as torture. Bush officials have vigorously disagreed.
In releasing the documents, the most comprehensive accounting yet of interrogation methods that were among the Bush administrations most closely guarded secrets, Obama said he wanted to move beyond "a dark and painful chapter in our history."
Past and present CIA officials had unsuccessfully pressed for more parts of the four legal memos to be kept secret, and some critics argued the release would make the United States less safe.
Michael Hayden, who led the CIA under George W. Bush, said CIA officers will now be more timid and allies will be more reluctant to share sensitive intelligence.
"If you want an intelligence service to work for you, they always work on the edge. That's just where they work," Hayden said. Now, he argued, foreign partners will be less likely to cooperate with the CIA because the release shows they "can't keep anything secret."
On the other side, human rights advocates argued that Obama should not have assured the CIA that officers who conducted interrogations would not be prosecuted if they used methods authorized by Bush lawyers in the memos.
Obama disagreed, saying in a statement, "Nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past."WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama absolved CIA officers from prosecution for... more
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asherp
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3 years ago
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CIA director Michael Hayden has come under stiff challenge for portraying Al-Qaeda as on the defensive after global setbacks, even in its safe havens along the Afghan-Pakistani border.
Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, Jay Rockefeller, said Friday that Hayden's upbeat appraisal was not consistent with intelligence assessments provided to his committee over the past year.
"In fact, I have seen nothing, including classified intelligence reporting, that would lead me to this conclusion," Rockefeller said in a scathing letter to the Central Intelligence Agency director.
Hayden's assessment -- one of the most positive since the September 11, 2001 attacks -- comes less than a year after US intelligence warnings that Al-Qaeda had regrouped in the border area and was plotting attacks against the west.
"On balance, we are doing pretty well," Hayden told the Washington Post in an interview published Friday, while warning that Al-Qaeda remains a serious threat.
CIA director Michael Hayden has come under stiff challenge for portraying Al-Qaeda as... more
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Rostam
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3 years ago
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CIA director Michael Hayden has closed door hearings on the interrogation tape destructions today with the Senate Panel, tomorrow with the House Committee.
I expect his case got a lot more tricky to make given an ex-CIA agent's interview with ABC saying waterboarding was "authorized from the top, and effective to boot" (not a direct quote, but that was the jist of it).
Ugh.CIA director Michael Hayden has closed door hearings on the interrogation tape... more
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Tori
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4 years ago
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Michael Hayden, Director of the CIA, has ordered an inquiry into the work of John Helgerson and his office. Who's that? He's the Inspector General of the CIA, whose job is to monitor and provide reports on the work of the CIA.
Apparently, agency operatives are pissed about Helgerson's aggressive investigations of the C.I.A.s detention and interrogation programs - they say he's launched a crusade against those who participated in them.
Seems like less than ideal working conditions - you're just doing your job, but when there's an investigation some don't like, one is launched against you?! Hayden says it's not an investigation, just an inquiry to help the group to do their job even better. That clarification makes it all better, right?Michael Hayden, Director of the CIA, has ordered an inquiry into the work of John... more
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Tori
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4 years ago
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