THE Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland, will start running again after a three-year shutdown and delays due to the covid-19 pandemic. The particle collider – known for its role in the discovery of the Higgs boson, which gives mass to all other fundamental particles – will return in 2022 with upgrades that give it a power boost. Work has been under way to conduct tests on the collider and calibrate new equipment. Now, it is gearing up for experiments that could give physicists the data needed to expand the standard model, our best description of how particles and forces interact. Phil Allport at the University of Birmingham in the UK says the upgrades could allow new measurements that give us insight into the way the Higgs boson decays, leading to a better understanding of how it fits into the standard model. “These measurements shed light on what’s happening at the highest energies that we can reach, which tells us about phenomena in the very early universe,” he says. They will also allow us to test ideas that try to account for things that aren’t fully described by the standard model, he says…

The study of Bible prophecy does not make you clairvoyant or a soothsayer. Don’t ask me for stock tips. But I have to admit to one rather astounding truth. I have a supernatural source for understanding the future. So do you. It’s called the Bible. The Bible does not say if a new pestilence (or plague) will break out in the year 2022. But it does say that as the time of the Lord’s return approaches, pestilences (plural) will increase.  It also speaks of increases in rumors of war and of war itself…

With Mars now suspected of being home to “significant amounts of water” – deep underground – speculation is rife that Earth contains oceans undiscovered within the planet. The observations of the Red Planet were collected by the orbiter between May 2018 to February 2021. Previously, other orbiters have searched for water just beneath the Martian surface and detected small amounts under Martian dust. The findings were released in mid-December. Some scientists project it supports ancient beliefs of the creation account of Earth – even Noah’s Flood. Still others contend that solar radiation played a key part in delivering water to Earth, solving a vexing mystery about where our planet’s seas and oceans came from. Luke Daly at the University of Glasgow in Scotland and his colleagues think they have solved the issue…

If I could not convince Americans to abandon faith entirely, I would have a third strategy ready: to have faith in faith. To be “spiritual but not religious.” To believe that so long as we have faith in a “higher power,” a spiritual feeling of some sort, that is all the “religion” we need. Our enemy is having great success here. As I reported yesterday, 63 percent of American adults believe “having faith matters more than which faith you have.” This is a quintessential postmodern approach: we can be tolerant of all faiths while requiring none. We think we can derive the benefits of believing in God or the gods without choosing any particular religion and its demands on us. Imagine, however, applying this logic to…

Inhabiting the Pine Barrens of Southern New Jersey, United States, is a creature known as the Jersey Devil. This legendary being has been described as a kangaroo-like creature with the head of a goat, horse, or dog – depending on the source. It also has bat wings, horns, cloven hooves, claws, and a forked tail. It can move with impressive speed and emits a blood-curdling scream to make its presence known. In the beginning, it would feast upon cattle and sheep, then it moved on to terrorizing people with its unearthly scream in the surrounding rural area and beyond. According to legend, the appearance of the Jersey Devil foretells disaster in the form of shipwrecks, war, crop failures, or other unfortunate events. However, no human has ever reported being directly harmed by the beast…

The vaccination certificate of the future will get under your skin according to researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A colour pattern with the vaccination dose is injected into the skin and not visible to the naked eye. The colour contains quantum dots no larger than a few nanometers. In December 2019, Robert S. Langer and his team developed and patented a technique whereby transdermal patches could be used to label people with invisible ink in order to store medical and other information subcutaneously. The research “was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research”. When the quantum dots are illuminated by UV light, an electron in the quantum dot can be excited to a state of higher…