Physicists propose collider 'time travel'

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Physicists propose collider 'time travel' NASHVILLE (UPI) -- Two U.S. physicists say if their theory is right, the Large Hadron Collider, the world largest atom smasher, could be the world's first time machine. Vanderbilt University researchers Tom Weiler and Chui Man Ho say the machine could be capable of causing matter to travel backward in time, a university release said Tuesday. "Our theory is a long shot," Weiler said, "but it doesn't violate any laws of physics or experimental constraints." One of the major goals of the collider is to discover the elusive Higgs boson, the particle that physics theories invoke to explain why particles like protons, neutrons and electrons have mass. If the collider succeeds in producing the Higgs boson, some scientists predict it will create a second particle, called the Higgs singlet, at the same time. Weiler and Ho's theory says these singlets should have the ability to jump into an extra, fifth dimension where they can move either forward or backward in time and reappear in the future or past. "One of the attractive things about this approach to time travel is that it avoids all the big paradoxes," Weiler said. "Because time travel is limited to these special particles, it is not possible for a man to travel back in time and murder one of his parents before he himself is born, for example. "However, if scientists could control the production of Higgs singlets, they might be able to send messages to the past or future," he said. The test of the researchers' theory will be whether the physicists monitoring the collider begin seeing Higgs singlet particles and their decay products spontaneously appearing in the collider. If they do, Weiler and Ho say they believe it will mean they have been produced by particles that travel back in time to appear before the collisions that produced them. Copyright 2011 by United Press International
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Rare Andean cat's range expanding NEW YORK (UPI) -- The rare Andean cat, a house cat-sized animal resembling a small snow leopard, has been found living outside its namesake mountain range, U.S. researchers said. Once thought to exclusively inhabit the South American Andes at high elevations, the cat has been discovered living on the Patagonian steppes in Argentina at much lower altitudes, a study by the Wildlife Conservation Society said Wednesday. The finding confirms a range extension of the threatened cat, which normally lives at altitudes above about 9,800 feet but has been seen living on the steppe at elevations as low as 2,100 feet. The Andean cat is listed as endangered on the World Conservation Union's Red List and may number only 2,500 individuals throughout its entire range, the society's release said. "These confirmed records show the lowest elevations ever reported for the Andean cat," society conservationist Andres Novaro said. "According to genetic studies underway … this new population appears to represent an evolutionary lineage distinct from the highland population." The research team surveyed about 12,000 square miles of Argentina's Mendoza and Neuquen provinces in 2007-2009 in search of the elusive cat. "Discovering a new population of Andean cats is an important finding for this elusive and rare species," said Mariana Varese, acting director of society's Latin America and Caribbean program. "Determining the range of the Andean cat in the Patagonian steppe will provide conservationists with a foundation for later conservation plans." Copyright 2011 by United Press International
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New method extracts oil from tar sands UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. (UPI) -- U.S. researchers say they've come up with an environmentally friendly way of extracting oil from tar sands, a method that can also help in cleaning oil spills. Scientists at Penn State say the method uses ionic liquids to separate heavy, viscous oil from sand, a university release reported Wednesday. Tar sands, also known as bituminous sands or oil sands, represent about two-thirds of the world's estimated oil reserves, but extracting the petroleum causes environmental damage. Part of that damage comes from contaminated wastewater used in current separation processes, which can seep into and pollute groundwater. The Penn State separation method uses very little energy and water, the researchers say, instead using ionic liquids -- salt in a liquid state -- that are recycled and reused. The separation takes place at room temperature without the generation of waste process water, they say. "Essentially, all of the bitumen is recovered in a very clean form, without any contamination from the ionic liquids," Paul Painter, Penn State professor of polymer said. "Because the bitumen, solvents and sand/clay mixture separate into three distinct phases, each can be removed separately and the solvent can be reused." The process can also be used to extract oil and tar from beach sand after oil spills such as the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico last year. Unlike other methods of cleanup, the Penn State process completely removes the hydrocarbons, and the cleaned sand can be returned to the beach instead of being sent to landfills, the researchers said. Copyright 2011 by United Press International
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Study looks at prehistoric climate change EDMONTON, Alberta (UPI) -- Canadian researchers say the impact of peatlands on prehistoric climate change has been overestimated but they could affect the current global warming trend. University of Alberta researchers say northern peatlands, a boggy mixture of dead organic material and water covering more than 1.5 million square miles, sequester carbon in the form of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. As old peat is buried and begins to decompose it emits large amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, a university release said Tuesday. The largest northern peatlands are located in the subarctic regions of Canada and Russia. University researchers studied radiocarbon dates of ancient peatlands to examine how they first colonized northern regions at the end of the last ice age, a period of rapid global warming. Atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane rose dramatically 10,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age, and scientists believed that northern peatlands were a large, if not the principle, source of the dramatic increase in atmospheric methane. But the research showed peatlands did not colonize the north until 500 to 1,000 years after the abrupt increases in atmospheric methane, suggesting other sources, such as tropical wetlands, were the main cause. The researchers said their findings show how easily huge, complex areas of the planet and their effect on climate can be misunderstood. Copyright 2011 by United Press International
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