links for 2010-04-08

• For One Tiny Instant, Physicists May Have Broken a Law of Nature
  Parity was long thought to be a fundamental law of nature. It essentially states that the universe is neither right- nor left-handed — that the laws of physics remain unchanged when expressed in inverted coordinates. In the early 1950s it was found that the so-called weak force, which is responsible for nuclear radioactivity, breaks the parity law. However, the strong force, which holds together subatomic particles, was thought to adhere to the law of parity, at least under normal circumstances.

  Now this law appears to have been broken by a team of about a dozen particle physicists, including Jack Sandweiss, Yale's Donner Professor of Physics.
  [..]
  It was the equally gargantuan magnetic field produced by the plasma — the strongest ever created — that alerted the physicists that one of nature's laws might have been broken.

  (tags: physics science nature)
• Arab Reform Initiative
  The Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian Regime: The Test of Parliamentary Elections as a Condition for Political Transition
  (tags: egypt politics muslim-brotherhood NDP mubarak elections)