DynaSoar writes "While its cousin/competitor site, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN remains offline http://science.slashdot.org/science/08/09/24/1451233.shtml Fermilab's Digital Hadron Calorimeter continues to produce significant results. Recently Fermilab announced discovery of the Omega-sub-b baryon, a 'doubly-strange' particle http://www.fnal.gov/pub/presspass/press_releases/CDF-Omega-observation.html . This baryon, containing two strange quarks and one bottom quark, has six times the mass of a proton. "The Omega-sub-b is the latest entry in the "periodic table of baryons." Baryons are particles formed of three quarks, the most common examples being the proton and neutron.... The observation of this "doubly strange" particle, predicted by the Standard Model, is significant because it strengthens physicists' confidence in their understanding of how quarks form matter. In addition, it conflicts with a 2008 result announced by CDF's sister experiment, DZero. In August 2008, the DZero experiment announced its own observation of the Omega-sub-b based on a smaller sample of Tevatron data. This result contradicted some predictions of the Standard Model, suggesting a 'new physics'. The new result leads to the possibility that the prior results are not accurate." To observe this particle, analysis of DHC data required pouring through a trillion (10^15) observations, finding only 16 instances of the predicted outcome." Link to Original Source
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