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1. ljk on January 29, 2008 at 10:32

   Higgs Hiding in Plain Sight?

   By Adrian Cho

   ScienceNOW Daily News

   23 January 2008

   Thousands of particle physicists are spending billions
   to try to spot the elusive Higgs boson, which is key to
   explaining the origins of mass. But evidence of the Higgs
   boson–or at least a Higgs boson–may already be lying
   unnoticed in data from previous experiments, new
   calculations suggest.

   All matter is made up of indivisible bits or particles, and
   at first blush, the prevailing theory–the Standard Model–
   seems to predict that all of them have no mass. Of course,
   that doesn’t make sense–even electrons weigh something.
   But if theorists simply assign masses to the particles, the
   theory goes mathematically haywire.

   Enter the Higgs boson. Physicists suspect that empty space
   is permeated by a Higgs field, which is a bit like an electric field.
   And just as an electric field consists of particles called photons,
   the Higgs field consists of particles called Higgs bosons. The
   Higgs field drags on particles to give them mass, akin to
   molasses tugging on a spoon. In particular, the field gives
   mass to subatomic particles called the W and Z bosons,
   which convey the weak nuclear force and weigh in at a
   staggering 86 and 97 times as much as a proton, respectively.

   Full article here:

   http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/123/3