July 9

Microwave map of the cosmos

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A Californian University has thrown more light on why the Big Bang works after nearly 40 years of world-wide research.

Most scientists accept that the universe began with the Big Bang and the existence - in equal amounts - of matter and anti-matter.

The theory has been complicated by the fact that if matter and anti-matter were present in equal amounts they would cancel each other out and there would not be a universe.

Experiments by Stanford University's international team of physicists have provided the most substantial proof yet that matter and anti-matter decay at different rates and this explains the continued predominance of matter.

This process is called charge-parity (CP) violation and derives from research in the 1950s and 1960s by theorists like Andrei Sakharov.

The evidence for CP has rested solely on - increasingly accurate - measurements of the different decay rates of the sub-atomic particle, neutral K meson and its anti-particle.

Now the team working at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (Slac) has observed CP violation in a heavier particle/anti-particle pair related to B meson.

They made their discovery using a 1,200 tonne detector called Babar, designed, built and operated by 600 scientists and engineers, many from the UK.

Babar forces particles to crash into each other and simulate the effects of the Big Bang deep under the Californian landscape.

The findings of the Slac team will be published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Security at the palace has been stepped up

At around 0715 BST Michael Fagan, 31, scaled the walls around the palace and shinned the drain-pipe up to the Queen's private apartments.

Barefooted and wearing a t-shirt the unemployed father of four evaded electronic alarms and palace and police guards before disturbing the Queen by opening a curtain.

Mr Fagan is already due to appear at Bow Street Magistrates' Court tomorrow to face charges oftrespassand stealing half a bottle of wine from Buckingham Palace on 7 June.

The Queen was only able to raise the alarm when he asked for a cigarette.

She calmly called for a footman who held the intruder until police arrived.

The incident happened as the armed police officer outside the royal bedroom came off duty before his replacement - apparently out walking the dogs - arrived.

This is the sixth breach of security at the Queen's London residence this year and raises serious questions about how well protected she is.

Last month a man with a knife burst into the forecourt of Buckingham Palace and last year three German tourists camped in the grounds, believing it to be Hyde Park.

It is the first time that private royal apartments have been penetrated since Queen Victoria's reign, although the Queen Mother disturbed an army deserter in her bathroom during the Second World War.

trespass :wicked or wrong action; do wrong（过失；犯罪）