@Wrathernaut: Heh heh.

@Wrathernaut: Well... did you put your bet in imaginary bucks?

But there's a very real chance these decays could be caused by the Higgs boson

@cicrockets: Sagan should be required viewing.

@cicrockets: This also gets to the question of how the Greeks computed the circumference of the Earth in the first place. Since they didn't have mechanical clocks, they took the measurements at the same local time, noon, rather than simultaneously.

@shift321: The ancient Greeks had a pretty extensive trade empire. They would have had a hard time engaging in the Trojan war if they couldn't sail the Illiac peninsula!

@d.beilfuss:

@chucho87:

@sephycloneno15: They watched the eclipse happen. They could see that the diameter of the earth's shadow was greater than the moon's diameter because of the relative curvatures.

@khrysavek: I was thinking the same thing. But I'm notoriously pedantic.

@KnaveOfDiamonds:

I don't suppose someone has a link to a pre-print. The link provided to Phys Rev Letters requires a subscription.

@Morgan Carpenter: Actually, I'm one of those people who hopes they do create a black hole, because it would be incredibly cool, refute some competing GUT models, and not be at all dangerous.

@crosis101: I thought the X actually carried necessary genes that were not on the Y. But then, I know next to jack about genetics.

@Morgan Carpenter:

@GusF: Also, will they please stop messing with the LHC, already?

@syafiqjabar of Mars:

@Exploriens: Where there are people, there is politics.

@artiofab: Thanks. Pages 1193 and 1194 answer most of these questions.

I would actually be interested in the original paper to get some idea of the methodology and statistical analysis.