Now, after analyzing additional gamma-ray signals produced by terrestrial positrons — the antimatter counterpart to electrons — Michael S. Briggs of the University of Alabama in Huntsville and his colleagues think that the antimatter beams do not require special conditions to be generated. Briggs presented the latest findings during a news briefing January 10 at the winter meeting of the American Astronomical Society. Details will also appear in an upcoming Geophysical Research Letters.

“The idea that any planet has thunderstorms that not only produce antimatter but then launch it into space seems like something straight out of science fiction,” commented Steven Cummer of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, who was not part of the study. “That our own planet does this, and has probably done it for hundreds of millions of years, and that we’ve only just learned it, is amazing to me.”

According to Briggs, positrons and electrons form in terrestrial gamma-ray flashes, short bursts of gamma rays produced inside thunderstorms. (First observed in the 1990s, gamma-ray flashes are still not well understood.) When the positrons meet up with the electrons, they annihilate each other, producing gamma rays of a specific energy: 511,000 electron volts.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/01/lightning-antimatter-physics/

All this, some decent stock picks, and regular UK poster and all we get from Bip is whining about his post count!

martin wrote:

Marv wrote:i heard to celebrate this achievement he's taking all his UK buddies to a knicks game and a surf-and-turf dinner.

i ain't going unless drinks are included

i ain't going unless hoochies are included