Neutrons Jump Into Mirror Universe: Scientists

A universe right next door may be stealing our neutrons, or at least giving them quickie vacations, Science Daily reports. A pair of theoretical physicists in Italy came to this conclusion after analyzing the "loss rate" of certain neutrons in a French experiment. The vanishings seemed to depend on the strength and direction of an applied magnetic field—which sounds scientific, but can't actually be explained by known physics.

So the researchers hypothesized that the particles are transitioning into unseen mirror twins in a parallel world, and oscillating back in a matter of seconds. But their theory depends on the presence of a magnetic field on Earth—"a mirror magnetic field on the order of 0.1 Gauss,” as Science Daily puts it. That field would be "induced" by the particles that exist in our universe as dark matter. Hat tip to Raw Story for the link. (More particle physics stories.)