The Nutlog Archive 10th February Changes at Slashdot. Via New Scientist.
Scientists claim to discover a new state of matter.
Or a very old state of matter, depending on how you look at it. In this 'quark-gluon plasma' quarks roam free in a kind of cosmic soup. In normal forms of matter, quarks are bound together by other particles called gluons to form more complex particles such as protons and neutrons. It is argued that 'cosmic soup' was the form of matter in existence just after the Big Bang. Eventually quarks bonded together to form more complicated particles, which then formed molecules, giving rise to the kinds of physical matter we all experience now.