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Science & Technology
Scientists Generate Powerful Antimatter Ray
2007-10-25
Researchers at North Carolina State University have produced the world's most powerful antimatter beam.
"Brace yourself for immediate disintegration!"
"There is a reactor in Munich, Germany, that has been generating those types of radiation beams for some time now, and our analysis of the data shows that we have exceeded what they have reported," Dr. Ayman Hawari, director of the Nuclear Reactor Program at North Carolina State, told the university's Web site.
"What happened to the kaboom?"
The beam, consisting of an intense burst of positrons, was generated at the school's PULSTAR campus nuclear reactor, which first went online in 1972.
"There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!"
A positron is the "mirror image" of an electron — it has the same weight and properties of the most basic atomic particle, but is positively rather than negatively charged. Theoretical physicists believe there are equal amounts of matter and antimatter in the universe, but few antimatter particles have been found "in the wild." North Carolina State researcher hope the positron beam will form the basis of antimatter-based instruments.
"Delays, delays, always with delays!"
Posted by:Fred

#16  We are doomed. He is actually drawing energy from the anti-matter beam. Can he even be destroyed?

Posted by: BigEd   2007-10-25 16:17  

#15  Might this mean that spacecraft anti-matter engines are not far behind? Anyone seen Zephram Cochrane around? I always wanted to visit Tau Ceti.
Posted by: Delphi   2007-10-25 14:02  

#14  a5089, glad to know you like the nigh-invulnerable arachnid. "The Tick" comic books are among some of the absolute funniest material to come out of all the Super-Hero garbage spewed by that industry. The animated series was all right but not allowed to nimbly run the ridgeline of copyright violation like the printed editions do.

Posted by: Zenster   2007-10-25 12:23  

#13  i thought
cigarettes + expresso = french diet


No longer. Smoking is so restricted in France that it is as good as banned and you know what smokers do when they leave tobacco: eat.
Posted by: JFM   2007-10-25 11:51  

#12  Must be the Q-39 module...
Posted by: mojo   2007-10-25 10:27  

#11  The Italian diet: Pasta and antipasto.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2007-10-25 09:47  

#10  Dumbasses, don't they know they can probably just buy some antimatter on ebay?
Posted by: bigjim-ky   2007-10-25 08:52  

#9  anonymous5089,

i thought
cigarettes + expresso = french diet

??
Posted by: Bright Pebbles   2007-10-25 08:52  

#8  LOL a5089...and I thought Americans were supposed to be the fat ones.
Posted by: Spot   2007-10-25 08:32  

#7  To be honest, and to cut some slack to those guys, there's a remote, but quite real, possibility that I'll destroy Earth before them. If I keep getting fatter and fatter, eventually, I'll collapse under my own weight, transform into a black hole due to the gravity, and then suck out the whole solar system. I thought I had to let you know beforehand.
Posted by: anonymous5089   2007-10-25 08:23  

#6  I'm not really comfortable with scientists playing with antimatter; what if they destroy the Earth inadvertently? It's where I keep all my stuff (to quote the Tick)!
Posted by: anonymous5089   2007-10-25 08:20  

#5  Hellloooo! Mr. Amahdnejad! Look up heereee!
Posted by: Mike   2007-10-25 06:40  

#4  "When it absolutely, positively has to get disintegrated overnight ..."
Posted by: Zenster   2007-10-25 02:36  

#3  I for one welcome our new antioverlords.
Posted by: Seafarious   2007-10-25 02:29  

#2  ...researcher hope the positron beam will form the basis of antimatter-based instruments.

Fuck the instruments. What about the anti-matter weapons?!? Mars has been a bit lippy lately and needs removed.
Posted by: DarthVader   2007-10-25 01:28  

#1  I'm going to blow up Iran because it blocks my view of Afghanistan.
Posted by: danking70   2007-10-25 00:07  

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