When Grass Was Green And Grain Was Yellow

Happy September Equinox, dear friends![*]

As I post this, the Sun should be passing over the subsolar point on the equator, and the [imaginary] line connecting the center of Earth and Sun will be perpendicular to the Earth's [less imaginary] axis of rotation! Huzzah for Mabon! Pretty soon, the days and nights will be equal length -- at least for those of us up here in the North![**]

Meanwhile, we have just completed our day of physics here in Tokai. A day in which my former thesis adviser and our current International Co-Spokesperson[***] narrowly declined to bet his wife and kids against neutrinos travelling faster than light. It is worth nothing that, except for a small string of about five e-mails, no one mentioned this potentially enormous discovery at an experiment very similar to our own. Yeah, I don't believe it, either.

Completely unrelated, I mentioned in my previous post that Day One of this trip to Japan contained both a typhoon and an earthquake. The quake turned out to be a magnitude 5.2, just slightly weaker than the 5.8 that hit Virginia last month. I think that it felt stronger to me because, as this map shows, we were sitting practically on top of the epicenter.

After getting off to that exciting start, here is a summary of how the rest of my trip is shaping up thus far:

Day One: Welcome to Japan. Typhoon, then earthquake.
Day Two: Boring day: No typhoon, no earthquake.
Day Three: Less quiet: No typhoon, but another earthquake.

We had a M5.0 about an hour or so ago, during the last session of the afternoon. The speaker paused for a moment and sat down. Then, before the shaking had fully subsided, the discussion resumed. Methinks we are getting acclimated. For my part, I simply turned to the person next to me and calmly asked: "What do you think? 5.1?" Turns out, I was not far off.

Also, it seems that my "Keeper for a Day" pictures were a bit of a success. With adorable animals like that, I am not surprised! There were some requests for more pictures from the outing, so here are a couple of extras -- enjoy!!

1. Feeding a capybara. These "little" guys are the largest species of rodents living in the world today. Cute, too... and fun to pet!
   
   
   
   
2. A boy and his tenrec. These awesome animals are a bundle of contradictions -- spiny, yet soft; able to go very flat, or roll into a ball! Getting some cuddle time with one was an excellent experience... as you can likely tell from the smile on my [poorly lit] face!
   
   
   
   
3. Finally (for now), the lemur pictures were so popular that I had to throw in one more. Here you go, gentle readers: A lemur and I share a quiet bonding moment. (At least until the food was gone.)
   
   
   

Tis all for now, my friends! Until we meet again, have yourselves a merry little equinox!

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[*] To avoid North/South confusion, I have adopted the convention of referring to September and March equinoxes, rather than Autumnal and Vernal ones.

[**] Not so much "huzzah" on this one, as I greatly prefer Summer to Winter. Perhaps a return to Argentina is in order?

[***] Who happen to be the same person.

(no subject)

A rare post from my phone.

In Japan, sitting in a room full of fellow British scientists, a room that we "illicitly" commandeered for its video conferencing equipment. Watching a seminar being broadcast from Switzerland, on the latest OPERA results. Not a single one of us believes them, of course. Heck, we have popcorn for this midnight movie. Lots of laughs and jeers at the screen that cannot hear us.

But..... on the extremely rare chance that they are right? Well, then this post will help me remember what I did on the day that the entire world changed forever.

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ETA: Last line of the talk was "We do not attempt any theoretical or phenomenological interpretation of these results." Wise man. If true, this blows everything we know out the window. We are on to the question period now. From both a packed audience and submitted online.