If you believe that BSE is not a prion based disease, then what you propose is plausible. However, if it is prion based (which I believe), given that prion survive temps which turn flesh to ash, obviously a simple adjustment of the rending temperature is irrelevant.
Mike Robe’s letter, the one that Cecil received and reprinted at the start of the prions/mad-cow-disease article, ends with the following sentence:
“We need some new kind of high-tech bug that sounds like you make it by pelting muons with bosons in the Tevatron?”
Hah! Both Mike Robe, and Cecil himself, failed to notice that muons are bosons!!
What do I win?
Just out of curiosity, ndorward and squeegee, and keeping in mind the limitations of a weekly column, what do y’all feel is the “right” ratio of data to entertainment?
Nothing. Muons, like all leptons, are, of course, fermions, not bosons, since they have half-integer spin.
Usually, what you get when you pelt a muon with a boson (such as a photon) is… A muon and a boson. Yeah, I know, not very exciting.
Check out the item from today’s WSJ: