Cosmic Log - Subatomic mystery leads to standoff: "Two months ago, physicists on the CDF detector team at Fermilab's Tevatron collider, just outside Chicago, reported a mysterious 'bump' in the distribution of data from their proton-antiproton collisions, hinting at a non-standard twist in the Standard Model that has governed particle physics for decades.
The anomaly could have been caused by a glitch in the analysis of results from the CDF detector, or it could have been caused by a previously undetected breed of subatomic particle. If the latter turned out to be the case, that would send theorists back to the drawing board — lending weight to exotic concepts such as the existence of a 'fifth force' known as technicolor. Such a finding might also suggest that the Higgs boson, the so-called 'God Particle,' needn't exist.
Since then, additional data from the CDF detector added to the team's confidence. They thought it was increasingly likely that something strange was really happening. But the CDF isn't the only detector at the Tevatron. There's a second detector, known as DZero, which should have seen the bump as well. In fact, the main reason why there are two detectors is so that one detector's data can be confirmed by the other. So researchers around the world anxiously awaited word from the DZero team.
Now the DZero tribe has spoken: They don't see the bump. "Nope, nothing here — sorry," New Scientist quoted DZero co-spokesperson Dmitri Denisov as saying.
The discrepancy may be due to the different computer models that the teams used to interpret what they were seeing in the masses of data from the collider. It's also possible that as more readings are added to the analysis, the margins of uncertainty will narrow down and result in more consistent conclusions. But in any case, it's way too early to write off the Standard Model, or to declare that the God (Particle) is dead."
RTWT. And I kind of like my title...
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