Science Made Cool

Team Einstein Close Enough For A Field Goal

In the ongoing faster-than-light neutrino struggle between the OPERA experiment at CERN and General Relativity, there's been a major development. A new press release from the OPERA team has identified possible equipment issues as the source of the timing error which suggested that neutrinos were moving faster than light.

If you were hoping to see Einstein overthrown, it's bad news. Loose cables don't equal major paradigm shifts.

This, by the way, is exactly how science is supposed to work.

Life Imitates Art

A team of Russian scientists are boring through miles of ice into a twenty million year old lake in Antarctica. They haven't been heard from for a week now.

It's pretty obvious that the Shoggoths have gotten them.

(Note: Lovecraftian humor aside, I hope that nothing actually has happened to these brave researchers, and that they succeed in getting uncontaminated samples from Lake Vostok.)

Update: As of February 13, they're reporting success, and no Shoggoths. (Of course, that's just what they would say if the Thing has replaced them all.)