Sujeet

Indians developed the concept of negative numbers in the 7th century, but Europeans dismissed it until the 17th century, when mathematicians began adopting negative numbers in their work.

Physicists at CERN may have glimpsed the tiniest composite particle ever detected: a fleeting bound state known as toponium. Working with the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), researchers examined extensive data from high-energy proton-proton collisions (primarily from 2016–2018 runs at 13 TeV center-of-mass energy). These smash-ups frequently generate top quarks—the heaviest known elementary particles, roughly 184 times more massive than a proton. Top quarks decay almost instantly (in about 10⁻²⁵ seconds), far too quickly for them to form stable bound states, or so physicists long assumed. Yet quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the theory governing the strong nuclear force, predicts that right at the production threshold for a top quark–antiquark (t¯t) pair—where the available energy is just barely enough—a transient bound state could form briefly before decay. This hypothetical bound state is dubbed toponium (a top–antitop quarkonium analog to charmonium or bottomonium). In their analysis, CMS observed a striking excess of t¯t pairs precisely at this threshold energy. The deviation achieved five-sigma statistical significance (or higher in refined follow-ups), rendering a random fluctuation extremely unlikely (probability < 1 in 3.5 million). Modeling the excess with a simplified toponium hypothesis yields a production cross-section of approximately 8.8 picobarns (with ~15% uncertainty), fitting the data well—including angular and spin-correlation patterns consistent with a pseudoscalar (spin-0) color-singlet state. If validated, toponium would complete the quarkonium family: - Charmonium (c¯c) discovered in 1974 (~0.6 fm size). - Bottomonium (b¯b) discovered in 1977 (~0.4 fm, previously the smallest known hadron). Owing to the top quark's immense mass, toponium's Bohr radius would be much smaller—potentially an order of magnitude tinier than bottomonium—making it the smallest hadron (composite particle) ever observed. The finding has been bolstered by independent confirmation from the ATLAS experiment (reported in mid-2025), which saw a similar threshold excess in its own dataset, strengthening the case for this quasi-bound state. Caution persists: alternative interpretations (e.g., a new Higgs-like scalar boson near twice the top mass) remain possible, and further theoretical QCD modeling is needed to fully distinguish scenarios. Ongoing analyses and future high-luminosity LHC data will help clarify. Still, this breakthrough reveals that even nature's most ephemeral heavy particle can momentarily "bind" under the strong force—forming, for an infinitesimal instant, what could be the universe's most minuscule structured object. ["Elusive romance of top-quark pairs observed at the LHC." CERN, 2025]

Supposedly smart city Lucknow, under Triple engine visionary leadership Space tech cleanliness

🚨 UNESCO threatens to take away World Heritage Tag from Jaipur due to encroachments, poor conservation, and inadequate management.

Supposedly smart city Lucknow, under Triple engine visionary leadership Space tech cleanliness

Researchers at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) and Kyungpook National University in South Korea have achieved a major milestone by 3D printing an artificial cornea using a specialized "bioink" made from decellularized corneal stroma and stem cells. The work, led by teams including Professor Dong-Woo Cho (POSTECH) and collaborators like Professor Hong Kyun Kim (Kyungpook National University School of Medicine), was published in 2019. They developed a biocompatible bioink derived from decellularized corneal stroma (the extracellular matrix from corneal tissue with cells removed) combined with stem cells. This allowed them to 3D-print an artificial cornea that closely mimics the natural structure. Key innovation: By precisely controlling shear stress (the frictional force during extrusion through the printer nozzle), they aligned collagen fibrils into the characteristic lattice pattern of a human cornea. This alignment is critical for the cornea's transparency and mechanical properties—something challenging or impossible with purely synthetic materials, as random collagen organization causes opacity or weakness. [Kim, H., Jang, J., Park, J., Lee, K.-P., Lee, S., Lee, D.-M., Kim, K. H., Kim, H. K., & Cho, D.-W. (2019). Shear-induced alignment of collagen fibrils using 3D cell printing for corneal stroma tissue engineering. Biofabrication, 11(3), 035017. DOI: 10.1088/1758-5090/ab1a8b]

Oleum gas leaks from chemical unit in Palghar district of Maharashtra: Officials