At www.thebunsenburner.com/news/an-impostor-particle-cern-scientists-may-no… and www.thebunsenburner.com/news/did-scientists-discover-the-higgs-boson-or-… … CERN scientists were not willing to confirm the existence of the particle during their announcement last week but they did suggest that the data fits well with predictions. Yet, in the newly published report the CERN team say that it doesn't matter much if it is Higgs or not – they have a particle, possibly a 'shadow' Higgs, even an imposter. It fits the Standard Model and that is what it is all about – confirming the consensus. Further data on the particle is expected in coming months – not over by a long way.
At www.thebunsenburner.com/news/fossilized-cells-found-in-china-may-challen… … rather, aspects of evolution. Not the theory itself. The discovery of microscopic fossils dated 600 million years ago as the potential of upsetting another consensus – the gradual process of evolution, in a clearly mapped out chronology. A paper in the journal Science claims the fossils preserve stages in the life cycle of an amoeba like organism and represents the pattern of cell division in animals and humans, embryology that until now was thought to only rpresent early animals – but apparently these cells are thought to precede the advent of animal life. It may of course that is the point of dispute – did life begin in the Cambrian? The consensus is that it did but the discovery in China dates back to the Ediocaran geological period, a very old fossil bed containing very well preserved fossils. They in fact date to the boundary event between the Ediocaran and the Cambrian.
Dark matter – a skeleton of dark matter has been detected according to a paper in Nature, www.phenomenica.com/2012/07/invisible-dark-matter-skeleton-of-universe-d…