The Fermi team sent protons and antiprotons into a head-on collision, which produced slightly more muons than antimuons.
So, for some reason, there is a slight excess of matter over antimatter, and when the matter and antimatter subsequently annihilate each other, a tiny excess of matter remains. And so The Glorious Accident was set in motion.
The world’s deepest drill is about to get taller—tall enough to dig into Earth's mantle. Already, the Chikyu research vessel is capable of fetching samples at depths of 23,000 feet below the seabed, two to four times that of any other drill. In 2007, off the coast of Japan, it became the first mission to study subduction zones, the area between tectonic plates that is the birthplace of many earthquakes. Over the next three years, scientists will tack on at least an extra mile of drill and attempt the most ambitious mission ever: piercing the Earth’s mantle. There, scientists expect to find the same conditions as those in the early Earth—and perhaps the same life-forms that thrived then.
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-03/deepest-drill
Saudi Arabia’s booming economy and soaring demand for electricity is increasing the kingdom’s reliance on oil to produce power. By 2012, it may be using 1.2 million barrels a day – more than twice current levels -- to meet its electricity needs. This increasing use of oil is occurring because the Saudis’ natural gas production cannot keep up with power demand.
