inquiring into strange matters - 11.25.02
Scientists announce new excuse
School children, procrastinators and other slackards around the globe were heartened today by the discovery of a new excuse: their homework, alarm clock, or (theoretically, at least) their ambition, was eaten by strange quark matter. [see Did quark matter strike Earth? 11.22.02 - Whitehouse - BBC]
Apparently 'strange quark matter' has been bopping about the universe ever since the big bang, causing anomalous seismic events, crushing unwitting stars, and maybe-just-maybe spontaneously combusting your odd heavy metal band drummer. It's all quite strange.
But while careful review of data from the world's seismic stations has produced some interesting leads about strange quark matter, scientists have made much less progress in studying the behavior of 'typical whitebread quark matter'. "We're just not very interested" admitted Dr. Heinrich Klusterflëopper, senior researcher at the Oppenheimer Institute for Particle Decimation, "I mean, they probably just take their kids to soccer practice, watch TV or maybe kick back with a couple of beers. It'd be really hard to get the DOD to fund research about that."
