Report: Penn St. officials concealed sex abuse

FILE - In this June 18, 2012 file photo, former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky leaves the Centre County Courthouse in Bellefonte, Pa. Former FBI director Louis Freeh, who led a Penn State-funded investigation into the university's handling of molestation allegations against Sandusky, is scheduled to release his highly anticipated report Thursday, July 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

FILE - In this June 18, 2012 file photo, former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky leaves the Centre County Courthouse in Bellefonte, Pa. Former FBI director Louis Freeh, who led a Penn State-funded investigation into the university's handling of molestation allegations against Sandusky, is scheduled to release his highly anticipated report Thursday, July 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

Former FBI director Louis Freeh speaks about the Freeh Report during a news conference, Thursday, July 12, 2012, in Philadelphia. Freeh says the most "saddening and sobering" finding from his group's report into the Jerry Sandusky child sex scandal is Penn State senior leaders' "total disregard" for the safety and welfare of the ex-coach's child victims. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

FILE - In this Oct. 22, 2011 file photo, Penn State coach Joe Paterno stands on the field before an NCAA college football game against Northwestern, in Evanston, Ill. Former FBI director Louis Freeh, who led a Penn State-funded investigation into the university's handling of molestation allegations against former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, is scheduled to release his highly anticipated report Thursday, July 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Jim Prisching, File)

FILE - In this Aug. 6, 1999, file photo, Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, right, poses with his defensive coordinator. Jerry Sandusky, during the college football team's media day in State College, Pa. Former FBI director Louis Freeh, who led a Penn State-funded investigation into the university's handling of molestation allegations against former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, is scheduled to release his highly anticipated report Thursday, July 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Paul Vathis, File)

FILE - In these combo from Nov. 7, 2011 file photos, former Penn State vice president Gary Schultz, left, and former athletic director Tim Curley, right, enter a district judges office for an arraignment in Harrisburg Pa. Former FBI director Louis Freeh, who led a Penn State-funded investigation into the university's handling of molestation allegations against former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, is scheduled to release his highly anticipated report Thursday, July 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Brad Bower, left, Matt Rourke, File)

PHILADELPHIA (AP) ? Joe Paterno and other top Penn State officials hushed up child sex abuse allegations against Jerry Sandusky more than a decade ago for fear of bad publicity, allowing Sandusky to prey on other youngsters, according to a scathing internal report issued Thursday on the scandal.

"Our most saddening and sobering finding is the total disregard for the safety and welfare of Sandusky's child victims by the most senior leaders at Penn State," said former FBI Director Louis Freeh, who was hired by university trustees to look into what has become one of sports' biggest scandals. "The most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children who Sandusky victimized."

After an eight-month inquiry, Freeh's firm produced a 267-page report that concluded that Hall of Fame coach Paterno, President Graham Spanier, athletic director Tim Curley and vice president Gary Schultz "failed to protect against a child sexual predator."

Freeh called the officials' disregard for child victims "callous and shocking."

"In order to avoid the consequences of bad publicity, the most powerful leaders at the university ? Spanier, Schultz, Paterno and Curley ? repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky's child abuse," the report said. Paterno "was an integral part of this active decision to conceal," Freeh said at a news conference.

School leaders "empowered Sandusky to attract potential victims to the campus and football events by allowing him to have continued, unrestricted and unsupervised access" to campus and his affiliation with the football program, the report said. The access, the report states, "provided Sandusky with the very currency that enabled him to attract his victims."

Freeh said officials had opportunities in 1998 and 2001 to step in.

Sexual abuse might have been prevented if university officials had banned Sandusky from bringing children onto campus after a 1998 inquiry, the report said. Despite their knowledge of the police probe into Sandusky showering with a boy in a football locker room, Spanier, Paterno, Curley and Schultz took no action to limit his access to campus, the report said.

The May 1998 complaint by a woman whose son came home with wet hair after showering with Sandusky didn't result in charges at the time. The report says Schultz was worried the matter could be opening "Pandora's box."

Then, in 2001, after a member of Paterno's staff saw Sandusky in a campus shower with a boy, officials did bar him from bringing children to campus and decided not to report him to child welfare authorities.

"There's more red flags here than you could count over a long period of time," Freeh said.

Sandusky is awaiting sentencing after being convicted of 45 criminal counts for abusing 10 boys. The scandal led to the ouster of Paterno and Spanier. Curley and Schultz are awaiting trial on charges accusing them of lying to a grand jury and failing to report abuse. They have pleaded not guilty.

Trustee Anthony Lubrano, a critic of the board's dismissal of Paterno in November, said the board was still formulating a response.

Freeh also said Sandusky's conduct was in part a result of the school's lack of transparency, which stemmed from a "failure of governance" on the part of officials and the board of trustees. He said the collective inaction and mindset at the top of the university trickled all the way down to a school janitor who was afraid for his job and opted to not report seeing sex abuse in a school locker room in 2000.

The report also singled out the revered Penn State football program ? one built on the motto "success with honor" ? for criticism. It says Paterno and university leaders allowed Sandusky to retire in 1999, "not as a suspected child predator, but as a valued member of the Penn State football legacy, with future 'visibility' at Penn State'," allowing him to groom victims.

Investigators, however, found no evidence linking his $168,000 retirement package in 1999 to the 1998 police investigation. Freeh called the payout unprecedented but said there was no evidence it was an attempt to buy Sandusky's silence.

Sandusky's trial last month included gut-wrenching testimony from eight young men who said he abused them as boys, sometimes on campus, and included testimony that showed he used his prestige as a university celebrity to manipulate the children.

By contrast, Freeh's team focused on Penn State and what its employees did ? or did not do ? to protect children.

More than 430 current or former school employees were interviewed since November, including nearly everyone associated with the football program under Paterno. The Hall of Fame coach died of lung cancer in January at age 85, without telling Freeh's team his account of what happened.

The report included a series of emails among school administrators following accusations against Sandusky in 1998 and 2001.

After Curley opted not report Sandusky for an alleged assault of a boy in the football locker room showers in 2001, Schultz called the decision to try and get Sandusky to seek professional help "humane." But he also noted that "the only downside for us is if the message isn't (heard) and acted upon and we then become vulnerable for not having reported it."

The emails also point to Paterno being aware of the 1998 accusation.

With the report now complete, the NCAA said Penn State now must address four key questions concerning "institutional control and ethics policies," as outlined in a letter sent to the school last fall.

"Penn State's response to the letter will inform our next steps, including whether or not to take further action," said Bob Williams, the NCAA's vice president of communications. "We expect Penn State's continued cooperation in our examination of these issues."

The U.S. Department of Education is examining whether the school violated the Clery Act, which requires reporting of certain crimes on campus, including ones of a sexual nature. The report said Penn State's "awareness and interest" in Clery Act compliance was "significantly lacking."

Only one form used to report such crimes was completed on campus from 2007 through 2011, according to the Freeh findings. And no record exists of Paterno, Curley or assistant coach Mike McQueary reporting that McQueary saw Sandusky in a shower with a boy in 2001, as they would be obligated to do under the Clery Act.

As of last November, Penn State's policies for Clery compliance were still in draft form and had not been implemented, the report found.

U.S. Department of Education said it was still examining whether Penn State violated the Clery Act, but declined to comment on Freeh's report.

Mary Krupa, an 18-year-old Penn State freshman who grew up in State College, said the conclusion that the school's highest officials were derelict in protecting children didn't shake her love of the town or the school.

"The actions of five or six people don't reflect on the hundreds of thousands" of students and faculty who make up the Penn State community, she said while walking through the student union building on campus.

Freeh said he regretted the damage the findings would do to Paterno's "terrific legacy" but there was no attempt to pin the blame on the late coach.

"What my report says is what the evidence and the facts show," he said.

Christian Beveridge, a masonry worker who grew up near Penn State, said the findings will ruin Paterno's legacy but not the closeness that people in town and fans feel for him.

"He built this town," said Beveridge, 40, resting in the shade on campus during a break. "All of his victories, he'll be remembered by everyone in town for a long time, but there will be that hesitation."

___

Armas reported from Scranton and Scolforo from Harrisburg. Tim Reynolds in Miami contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-07-12-Penn%20State-Abuse/id-ad4e351813034205b0fe9dac89e16bf4

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Exclusive: Riggers sought evacuation before deadly Chevron blast

LONDON (Reuters) - Chevron Corp. left workers pleading to be evacuated from a gas exploration platform off Nigeria which kept drilling while smoke poured from a borehole until an explosion killed two people as the rig became engulfed in flames, according to accounts from four of the platform's workers.

Chevron, the second largest U.S. oil major, said it did not receive requests to evacuate the KS Endeavour rig and that staff on board had the right to call a halt to work if they believed conditions were unsafe.

"There were no evacuation requests received before the KS Endeavour incident occurred," the U.S. energy company said in an emailed response to questions from Reuters.

Testimony from some of the 154 workers who were present alleges that, instead of addressing fears that equipment failures and smoke presaged disaster, Chevron flew extra staff to the platform just before the January 16, 2012, blowout.

Chevron says a nationwide Nigerian strike that included staff at airports had disrupted its normal crew changes but that at no time were approved safe manning levels exceeded.

The fire that followed the blast burned on the rig for 46 days until March 2. Chevron drilled a relief well to stem the gas leak, sealing it on June 18. It said in an email to Reuters on July 2 that an investigation with the Nigerian authorities had concluded that an entry of high pressure gas in the wellbore had caused the failure of equipment and fire.

The two who died in the explosion were the installation manager for the rig, Bruno Marce, a French national, and Indian driller Albert Devadas. They worked for KS Drilling, a subsidiary of Singapore-based KS Energy, a sub-contractor employed by Field Offshore Design Engineering (FODE) Ltd to drill a gas exploration well for Chevron off Nigeria.

Transcripts of accounts from three workers were given to Reuters by the offshore oil branch of Britain's Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) trade union which said the documents were genuine but withheld the names of the witnesses to protect their employment prospects. Those accounts were backed by subsequent interviews in Nigeria with a worker who was also on the rig.

FODE declined comment, citing confidentiality clauses in its contract with KS Drilling preventing it making public any information about work for Chevron.

The accounts convey rising panic from some of those on the platform, who fearing a blowout, checked each morning the volume of smoke billowing from the drilling borehole.

"Chevron knew for over a week that the well was unstable yet they refused to evacuate us," said one of the rig workers who gave his account to the RMT union.

A Nigerian worker who was aboard the rig at the time of the blast said many wanted to be evacuated.

Speaking at a hotel in Yenagoa, the oil capital of the Niger Delta's oil-rich Bayelsa state, Omietimi Nana, 28, a maintenance worker for FODE said: "We were told we may be evacuated, it was mentioned but it didn't happen. I don't know who made the decision not to evacuate but certainly many people wanted to be evacuated because of the situation," he said.

The most senior witness to give testimony to the RMT, a Frenchman, said a series of pump failures throughout the drilling operation led to a massive build-up of pressure that triggered the blowout.

The Frenchman said rig engineers held a site meeting and advised Chevron to evacuate staff while well pressure control measures were applied.

"That advice was not heeded and additional personnel were even brought onboard to get ahead of what was believed to be impending strike action," the Frenchman, who was at that meeting, said.

Nana added: "About three days before the accident, the drilling company workers told us they wanted to stop drilling because of the gas pressure but they spoke with Chevron who told them to carry on."

The French witness said an earlier failed attempt in late December to drill an exploration well near the same was abandoned after the discovery of a gas leak.

He said that "in an attempt to learn from experience" Chevron began drilling a second well "despite repeated failure of the pumps" and often having to stop drilling in order to service the top-drive, the device on the rig that provides rotational force.

Chevron acknowledged that the first exploration well was abandoned but denied it was because of a gas leak.

"SCARED LIKE HELL"

The second well, drilled 300 meters from the first, at a depth of 12,945 feet, soon began to lose pressure integrity, the French witness said.

"At almost every point in time, we saw thick smoke coming out of the open hole, and we were all scared like hell because we could see a disaster happening any moment yet they (Chevron) did not evacuate us - why, I do not know," the witness said.

"This is the reason so many of us survived because we were all aware that it was going to happen, but just didn't know when," he said.

FODE maintenance worker Nana said: "Everyone was talking about how the mud weight had been lost but by then it was too late to stop the gas rising to the surface."

Within days, said the French witness, rising gas pressure overwhelmed the mud weight in the wellbore spewing gas over the rig, sending workers scrambling for the lifeboats.

"The blowout occurred on Monday at 5.30 a.m., and if Bruno (Marce, the rig manager who died) had not advised as he did that the lifeboats be kept serviced and in functional condition then none of us would have made it out alive," said the eyewitness.

"Bruno was shouting, but with a very strange voice, over the public address system that everyone should abandon the rig, I really felt for him for if not for his timely intervention myself and others would not have been alive today," he said.

The witness said that by the time he had reached the lifeboat the rig was smothered in gas. When the lifeboat operator called rig manager Bruno Marce for permission to launch there was no reply, he said. The gas exploded and the lifeboat launched.

"By the time we hit the water the entire rig was engulfed by fire," he said, describing metal debris raining down.

A second eyewitness described a deafening release of gas followed by "a loud bang and an orange flash as the gas ignited."

The witnesses described how crew on a barge adjacent to the platform jumped into the water and scrambled into a life raft. The raft quickly began to melt from the heat of the fire, forcing them into the sea to be rescued by fishermen three hours later.

"If it were not for the fisherman those guys would have died in the water," the French witness said.

CHEVRON RESPONSE

Asked to respond to the principal points of the allegations, Chevron said it was at no time asked to evacuate staff and that all personnel present had the power to order a work stoppage if they felt they were in danger.

"Our employees and contractor are fully empowered to exercise stop work authority (SWA) when they sense an unsafe work environment," Chevron said, explaining that an SWA gives anyone aboard a rig the power to order a stop to operations in the event safety guidelines are breached.

"At no time was an evacuation initiated by anybody on the rig before the incident occurred," Chevron said.

The union said it believed workers were worried they would lose their jobs if they quit the rig without permission.

"It appears the Endeavour workforce were reluctant to abandon the rig after the evacuation request was denied for fear of losing their jobs," said Jake Molloy, head of OILC, the offshore energy branch of the RMT, which had members on the rig.

Molloy said the installation manager's efforts to prepare lifeboats demonstrated that the danger was known.

"That fear is evident in the actions of the offshore installation manager who, as part of some bizarre ?risk assessment process', opted to ensure the lifeboats were in a state of readiness for what appears to be an inevitable evacuation," the union official said.

Chevron said its rules required that lifeboats should be kept ready at all times and the crew held weekly drills, one of which was scheduled by the Offshore Installation Manager (OIM) Bruno Marce for the morning of the day before the blow-out happened.

"Like any other personnel, the OIM has full responsibility to stop the operation if he feels conditions are not safe," Chevron said.

The company said it had launched a prompt, full rescue effort and the evacuation had been orderly and structured, although it acknowledged fishermen had picked up some workers.

"Search and rescue operations began immediately upon being made aware of the abandon ship alarms being sounded," it said. Nearby vessels were directed to aid the rescue.

"152 of the 154 personnel on board the KS Endeavour and the Mako barge were evacuated immediately. Aircraft operations were impacted initially by darkness and by visibility conditions," it said.

(Additional reporting by Joe Brock in Nigeria, Editing by Richard Mably, Anthony Barker and Giles Elgood)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-riggers-sought-evacuation-deadly-chevron-blast-141547476--sector.html

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South Korea moots 'scientific' whaling

4 July 2012 Last updated at 16:11 ET By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News, Panama City

Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard and New Zealand's Foreign Minister Murray McCully give their reaction (whaling footage courtesy of Greenpeace)

South Korea is proposing to hunt whales under regulations permitting scientific research whaling, echoing the programmes of its neighbour, Japan.

Hunting would take place near the Korean coast on minke whales. How many would be caught is unclear.

The South Korean delegation to the International Whaling Commission (IWC) said the research was needed "for the proper assessment of whale stocks".

Many governments at the IWC meeting condemned the Korean announcement.

There are several different stocks, or groups, of minke whales in the region, and one of the them, the so-called J-stock, is severely depleted.

Given that fact, "we believe that scientific whaling on this stock borders on the reckless," New Zealand's delegation head, Gerard van Bohemen said.

But Joon-Suk Kang, the head of the South Korean delegation, said the programme was necessary to answer questions about minke whale stocks that non-lethal research had been unable to solve.

Continue reading the main story

The Legalities of Whaling

• Objection - A country formally objects to the International Whaling Commission (IWC) moratorium, declaring itself exempt. Example: Norway
• Scientific - A nation issues unilateral "scientific permits"; any IWC member can do this. Example: Japan
• Indigenous (also known as Aboriginal subsistence) - IWC grants permits to indigenous groups for subsistence food. Example: Alaskan Inupiat

He said the proposal was not finalised, and that whaling would not begin until plans had been discussed by an international group of expert scientists convened by the IWC.

The Koreans' eventual stated aim is to prepare the ground for a resumption of "coastal whaling" - a rather vague concept that Japan is also pursuing, and that would see whale hunting return as a normal activity.

'Breach of faith'

The region around the port of Ulsan, in the south-east of South Korea, has a whale-eating tradition that appears to date back thousands of years, judging by prehistoric cave art.

Fishermen in the region already catch whales in fishing nets. Officially, this happens accidentally, but local environment groups say the minkes are deliberately caught, and that the meat is easily bought in markets and restaurants.

Dr Kang said that fishermen in the area are now complaining that a growing whale population is eating more and more fish.

Any government is entitled under the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) to embark unilaterally on a scientific hunting programme, although Japan is the only one that currently does so.

Anti-whaling governments and conservation groups argue that Japan's programmes in the North Pacific and Antarctic are an abuse of process, as the regulation was originally designed to allow for the taking of a few whales here and there, and not hundreds per year.

They argue that the real purpose is to provide a supply of whale meat, albeit to a dwindling customer base.

"Scientific whaling is an obsolete and sad consequence of a document drafted 60 years ago," said Monaco's IWC commissioner, Frederic Briand.

"There's no reason to do it, given the enormous body of scientific literature [on cetaceans] obtained via non-lethal means."

South Korea was one of the first countries to take the scientific whaling route after the global moratorium on commercial hunting came into place in 1986, but the programme was in operation for just a single season.

Then, the country came under intense diplomatic pressure to stop, and Dr Kang admitted to BBC News that his government is now likely to feel a similarly huge pressure not to start.

However, Korea, Japan, Iceland and Norway all complain regularly that anti-whaling governments have no intention of ever agreeing to a resumption of hunting anywhere, however healthy the stocks, and that this amounts to a breach of promises made when the moratorium came into existence.

Troubled waters

Earlier, Japan lodged a proposal to allow coastal whaling by four villages around the coast - among them Ayukawa, which was devastated by the 2011 tsunami.

It has tabled similar bids for many years, and they have always been defeated by anti-whaling governments, who view the move as a way of breaking the whaling moratorium.

Here, Australia's Donna Petrochenko was one of many taking the same line, telling the meeting: "This is commercial whaling, clear and simple."

Japan put its proposal to one side and it will be discussed again later in the meeting, although it is doubtful whether it will go to a vote, given that Japan clearly does not have the three-quarters share of the vote it would need to win.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18716300#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

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A new particle has been discovered -- chances are, it is the Higgs boson

Public release date: 4-Jul-2012
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Contact: Yivsam Azgad
news@weizmann.ac.il
972-893-43856
Weizmann Institute of Science

The long and complicated journey to detect the Higgs boson, which started with one small step about 25 years ago, might finally have reached its goal. This was reported by LHC particle accelerator scientists today at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, CERN, near Geneva.

The Higgs boson is the final building block that has been missing from the "Standard Model," which describes the structure of matter in the universe. The Higgs boson combines two forces of nature and shows that they are, in fact, different aspects of a more fundamental force. The particle is also responsible for the existence of mass in the elementary particles.

Weizmann Institute scientists have been prominent participants in this research from its onset. Prof. Giora Mikenberg was for many years head of the research group that searched for the Higgs boson in CERN's OPAL experiment. He was then leader of the ATLAS Muon Project one of the two experiments that eventually revealed the particle. Prof. Ehud Duchovni heads the Weizmann Institute team that examines other key questions at CERN. Prof. Eilam Gross is currently the ATLAS Higgs physics group convener. In the Weizmann team three scientific "generations" are represented: Mikenberg was Duchovni's supervisor, who was, in turn, Gross's supervisor.

Gross: "This is the biggest day of my life. I have been searching for the Higgs since I was a student in the 1980's. Even after 25 years, it still came as a surprise. No matter what you call it we are no longer searching for the Higgs but measuring its properties. Though I believed it would be found, I never dreamed it would happen while I was holding a senior position in the global research team."

Most of us experience the world as a diverse and complex place. But the physicists among us are not content with visible reality. They are striving to get to the bottom of that reality and to see whether it is, as they think, based on the absolute simplicity displayed by the early universe. They expect to observe a range of particles that are different "ensembles" of a handful of elementary particles. The scientists are hoping to see a unification of the four fundamental forces of nature that act on these particles (the weak force responsible for radioactivity, electromagnetic force, the strong force responsible for the existence of protons and neutrons, and gravitation).

The first step in the journey to unify the forces was completed with the almost certain discovery of the Higgs particle: The union of two elementary forces the electromagnetic and weak force, to become the electroweak force.

One aspect of the Higgs boson, named after the Scottish physicist Peter Higgs, manifests itself in the giving of mass to the weak force carriers the "W" and "Z" particles. (The electromagnetic force carrier, the photon, remains massless.)

The Largest Machine in the World

In the effort to discover the Higgs boson, unify the fundamental forces and understand the origin of mass in the universe, scientists built the world's largest machine: a particle accelerator nestled in a 27-km-long circular tunnel, 100 meters beneath the border between France and Switzerland, in the European particle physics laboratory, CERN, near Geneva.

This accelerator, called LHC (Large Hadron Collider), accelerates beams of protons up to 99.999998% the speed of light. According to the theory of relativity, this increases their mass by 7,500 times that of their normal resting mass. The accelerator aims the beams straight at each other, causing collisions that release so much energy, the protons themselves explode. For much less than the blink of an eye, conditions similar to those that existed in the universe in the first fraction of a second after the Big Bang are present in the accelerator.

As a result, particles of matter are turned into energy, in accordance with Albert Einstein's famous equation describing the conversion of matter into energy: E=mc2. The energy then propagates through space and the system cools. (Something similar happened in the early evolution of the universe.) Consequently, energy turns back into particles of matter and the process is repeated until particles that can exist in reality as we know it are formed.

The collisions produce energetic particles, some of which exist for extremely short periods of time. The only way to discern their existence is to identify the footprints they leave behind. For this purpose, a variety of particle detectors were developed, each optimized for capturing particular types of particles.

Statistics

The likelihood of creating the Higgs boson in a single collision is similar to that of randomly extracting a specific living cell from the leaf of a plant, out of all the plants growing on Earth. To cope with this task, Weizmann Institute scientists, headed by Prof. Mikenberg, developed unique particle detectors, which were manufactured at the Institute, and in Japan and China. These detectors have been adapted to detect muon particles. In some of the very rare collisions that produce Higgs particles, the footprint of the Higgs particle that which is recorded in the detectors is four energetic muons. Thus, the detection of such muons provides circumstantial evidence for the existence of the Higgs particle.

The scientists analyzed data from a thousand trillion proton collisions; in these Higgs bosons are created along with many other similar particles. Evidence to suggest the existence of the Higgs arises through searches for anomalies in the collected data (in comparison with the expected data if such a particle does not exist). This search focuses on the estimated mass of the particle: 126 trillion electron volts (Gev). When the scientists do manage to find such anomalies, they must then rule out the possibility that it is due to statistical fluctuation.

The calculations carried out by scientists in recent weeks, in which Prof. Gross played a central role, have revealed, with a high degree of statistical significance, a new particle with a mass similar to the expected mass of the Higgs. The wording is purposely cautious, leaving room for the possibility that a new particle other than the Higgs can be found within this mass range. The probability that this is, indeed, a new particle, is quite low. (But if it were, in truth, a different particle, say some physicists, things will start to get "really interesting.")

CERN

CERN scientists invented and developed the computer language and basic concepts that later served as the basis for the establishment of the Internet. In fact, the first server of the "World Wide Web" was activated in CERN to facilitate communication between scientists from around the globe participating in experiments carried out locally. The organization also served as a model for the establishment of the European Union, and its influence on Europe's technology and economy is reminiscent of the American space program.

The LHC particle accelerator is based on superconducting electromagnets working at very low temperatures: less than two degrees above absolute zero (minus 271 Celsius). It generates about one billion particle collisions per second: If they were people, it would be as if each person on the planet meets every one of the six billion inhabitants of the world every six seconds. Calculating and analyzing data from these collisions is like trying to understand what all the inhabitants of the world are saying, while each is holding 20 telephone conversations at once.

This experimental system includes the world's largest superconducting electromagnets, built in conjunction with Israeli companies. The entire structure includes 10,000 radiation detectors spaced just one millimeter apart, has a volume of 25,000 cubic meters and features half a million electronic channels. Most of the muon radiation detectors were built from components produced in Israel. A unique laser system tracks the exact location of the detectors with an accuracy of 25 microns (half the thickness of a human hair).

###

Prof. Ehud Duchovni's research is supported by the Friends of Weizmann Institute in memory of Richard Kronstein; the Nella and Leon Benoziyo Center for High Energy Physics; and the Yeda-Sela Center for Basic Research. Prof. Duchovni is the incumbent of the Professor Wolfgang Gentner Professorial Chair of Nuclear Physics.

Prof. Eilam Gross's research is supported by the Friends of Weizmann Institute in memory of Richard Kronstein.

Prof. Giora Mikenberg's research is supported by the Nella and Leon Benoziyo Center for High Energy Physics, which he heads. Prof. Mikenberg is the incumbent of the Lady Davis Professorial Chair of Experimental Physics.

The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, is one of the world's top-ranking multidisciplinary research institutions. Noted for its wide-ranging exploration of the natural and exact sciences, the Institute is home to 2,700 scientists, students, technicians and supporting staff. Institute research efforts include the search for new ways of fighting disease and hunger, examining leading questions in mathematics and computer science, probing the physics of matter and the universe, creating novel materials and developing new strategies for protecting the environment.

Weizmann Institute news releases are posted on the World Wide Web at http://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/, and are also available at http://www.eurekalert.org/

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Public release date: 4-Jul-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Yivsam Azgad
news@weizmann.ac.il
972-893-43856
Weizmann Institute of Science

The long and complicated journey to detect the Higgs boson, which started with one small step about 25 years ago, might finally have reached its goal. This was reported by LHC particle accelerator scientists today at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, CERN, near Geneva.

The Higgs boson is the final building block that has been missing from the "Standard Model," which describes the structure of matter in the universe. The Higgs boson combines two forces of nature and shows that they are, in fact, different aspects of a more fundamental force. The particle is also responsible for the existence of mass in the elementary particles.

Weizmann Institute scientists have been prominent participants in this research from its onset. Prof. Giora Mikenberg was for many years head of the research group that searched for the Higgs boson in CERN's OPAL experiment. He was then leader of the ATLAS Muon Project one of the two experiments that eventually revealed the particle. Prof. Ehud Duchovni heads the Weizmann Institute team that examines other key questions at CERN. Prof. Eilam Gross is currently the ATLAS Higgs physics group convener. In the Weizmann team three scientific "generations" are represented: Mikenberg was Duchovni's supervisor, who was, in turn, Gross's supervisor.

Gross: "This is the biggest day of my life. I have been searching for the Higgs since I was a student in the 1980's. Even after 25 years, it still came as a surprise. No matter what you call it we are no longer searching for the Higgs but measuring its properties. Though I believed it would be found, I never dreamed it would happen while I was holding a senior position in the global research team."

Most of us experience the world as a diverse and complex place. But the physicists among us are not content with visible reality. They are striving to get to the bottom of that reality and to see whether it is, as they think, based on the absolute simplicity displayed by the early universe. They expect to observe a range of particles that are different "ensembles" of a handful of elementary particles. The scientists are hoping to see a unification of the four fundamental forces of nature that act on these particles (the weak force responsible for radioactivity, electromagnetic force, the strong force responsible for the existence of protons and neutrons, and gravitation).

The first step in the journey to unify the forces was completed with the almost certain discovery of the Higgs particle: The union of two elementary forces the electromagnetic and weak force, to become the electroweak force.

One aspect of the Higgs boson, named after the Scottish physicist Peter Higgs, manifests itself in the giving of mass to the weak force carriers the "W" and "Z" particles. (The electromagnetic force carrier, the photon, remains massless.)

The Largest Machine in the World

In the effort to discover the Higgs boson, unify the fundamental forces and understand the origin of mass in the universe, scientists built the world's largest machine: a particle accelerator nestled in a 27-km-long circular tunnel, 100 meters beneath the border between France and Switzerland, in the European particle physics laboratory, CERN, near Geneva.

This accelerator, called LHC (Large Hadron Collider), accelerates beams of protons up to 99.999998% the speed of light. According to the theory of relativity, this increases their mass by 7,500 times that of their normal resting mass. The accelerator aims the beams straight at each other, causing collisions that release so much energy, the protons themselves explode. For much less than the blink of an eye, conditions similar to those that existed in the universe in the first fraction of a second after the Big Bang are present in the accelerator.

As a result, particles of matter are turned into energy, in accordance with Albert Einstein's famous equation describing the conversion of matter into energy: E=mc2. The energy then propagates through space and the system cools. (Something similar happened in the early evolution of the universe.) Consequently, energy turns back into particles of matter and the process is repeated until particles that can exist in reality as we know it are formed.

The collisions produce energetic particles, some of which exist for extremely short periods of time. The only way to discern their existence is to identify the footprints they leave behind. For this purpose, a variety of particle detectors were developed, each optimized for capturing particular types of particles.

Statistics

The likelihood of creating the Higgs boson in a single collision is similar to that of randomly extracting a specific living cell from the leaf of a plant, out of all the plants growing on Earth. To cope with this task, Weizmann Institute scientists, headed by Prof. Mikenberg, developed unique particle detectors, which were manufactured at the Institute, and in Japan and China. These detectors have been adapted to detect muon particles. In some of the very rare collisions that produce Higgs particles, the footprint of the Higgs particle that which is recorded in the detectors is four energetic muons. Thus, the detection of such muons provides circumstantial evidence for the existence of the Higgs particle.

The scientists analyzed data from a thousand trillion proton collisions; in these Higgs bosons are created along with many other similar particles. Evidence to suggest the existence of the Higgs arises through searches for anomalies in the collected data (in comparison with the expected data if such a particle does not exist). This search focuses on the estimated mass of the particle: 126 trillion electron volts (Gev). When the scientists do manage to find such anomalies, they must then rule out the possibility that it is due to statistical fluctuation.

The calculations carried out by scientists in recent weeks, in which Prof. Gross played a central role, have revealed, with a high degree of statistical significance, a new particle with a mass similar to the expected mass of the Higgs. The wording is purposely cautious, leaving room for the possibility that a new particle other than the Higgs can be found within this mass range. The probability that this is, indeed, a new particle, is quite low. (But if it were, in truth, a different particle, say some physicists, things will start to get "really interesting.")

CERN

CERN scientists invented and developed the computer language and basic concepts that later served as the basis for the establishment of the Internet. In fact, the first server of the "World Wide Web" was activated in CERN to facilitate communication between scientists from around the globe participating in experiments carried out locally. The organization also served as a model for the establishment of the European Union, and its influence on Europe's technology and economy is reminiscent of the American space program.

The LHC particle accelerator is based on superconducting electromagnets working at very low temperatures: less than two degrees above absolute zero (minus 271 Celsius). It generates about one billion particle collisions per second: If they were people, it would be as if each person on the planet meets every one of the six billion inhabitants of the world every six seconds. Calculating and analyzing data from these collisions is like trying to understand what all the inhabitants of the world are saying, while each is holding 20 telephone conversations at once.

This experimental system includes the world's largest superconducting electromagnets, built in conjunction with Israeli companies. The entire structure includes 10,000 radiation detectors spaced just one millimeter apart, has a volume of 25,000 cubic meters and features half a million electronic channels. Most of the muon radiation detectors were built from components produced in Israel. A unique laser system tracks the exact location of the detectors with an accuracy of 25 microns (half the thickness of a human hair).

###

Prof. Ehud Duchovni's research is supported by the Friends of Weizmann Institute in memory of Richard Kronstein; the Nella and Leon Benoziyo Center for High Energy Physics; and the Yeda-Sela Center for Basic Research. Prof. Duchovni is the incumbent of the Professor Wolfgang Gentner Professorial Chair of Nuclear Physics.

Prof. Eilam Gross's research is supported by the Friends of Weizmann Institute in memory of Richard Kronstein.

Prof. Giora Mikenberg's research is supported by the Nella and Leon Benoziyo Center for High Energy Physics, which he heads. Prof. Mikenberg is the incumbent of the Lady Davis Professorial Chair of Experimental Physics.

The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, is one of the world's top-ranking multidisciplinary research institutions. Noted for its wide-ranging exploration of the natural and exact sciences, the Institute is home to 2,700 scientists, students, technicians and supporting staff. Institute research efforts include the search for new ways of fighting disease and hunger, examining leading questions in mathematics and computer science, probing the physics of matter and the universe, creating novel materials and developing new strategies for protecting the environment.

Weizmann Institute news releases are posted on the World Wide Web at http://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/, and are also available at http://www.eurekalert.org/

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Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-07/wios-anp070312.php

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Afghan media freedom threatened: rights group

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rim-ceo-says-nothing-wrong-company-140718299--sector.html

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