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The world’s biggest particle accelerator might have discovered a hint of a totally new fundamental particle or may be it has seen ghosts. However, if it turns out to be nothing at all even than particle physicists have come up with a spate of studies to match with the latest experimental findings, proposing various ideas regarding what could have been found.

The latest research papers’ theories range from positing new flavors of the Higgs boson to proposing candidates for dark matter. The studies have been uploaded on the ArXiv, a repository where anybody in the field can give feedback to scientists prior to submission or publication of a journal. So far, nine have been posted.

British astronaut Tim Peake is going to use Apple seeds from the tree from which Sir Isaac Newton got inspiration, in experiments on the International Space Station (ISS). The pips belong to a tree in the orchard of Woolsthorpe Manor, which is the birthplace of Newton, in Lincolnshire.

The seeds belong to the astronaut's mission known as Principia after Newton's book was published in 1687. The apple pips make part of a broader project to observe the impact of space travel on their growth.

On Tuesday, Mr Peake reached the International Space Station. He has a million seeds of rocket on board, whose distribution will be done among 10,000 schools in the UK on his return. They reached along with the apple pips via supply ship previously in December.

Discoveries made by NASA’s Curiosity rover have been baffling scientists on earth since it landed on the Red Planet in 2012. Now, the car-sized robotic rover has spotted silica on the Red Planet, NASA announced.

The silica has been found in high concentrations. Adding to that, Curiosity has also found a mineral, which is even very rare on earth and never seen before on Mars, the space agency added. The mineral named tridymite has been discovery by the rover while drilling into a rock called ‘Buckskin’.

NASA’s unmanned spacecraft Cassini is all set to whiz past sixth-largest moon of Saturn Enceladus this weekend. It will be probe’s final close flyby of the ocean-bearing moon, NASA said.

Cassini, which entered orbit around Saturn in 2004, will make the flyby at a distance of about 3,106 miles, or 4,999 kilometers, on December 19 at about 9:49 am, as per the US space agency. It will be probe’s final close pass, but it will continue to keep a watch on the natural satellite at a much greater distance, NASA revealed.

The Saturday flyby’s main focus will be to measure the heat coming through the moon’s ice. It may help scientists on earth in understanding the cause behind the plume of gas and icy particles coming from an ocean below the moon’s surface.

A new discovery of a 14,000 years old thigh bone is all set to amend the history of human evolution. Scientists believe the fossilized femur could add a new branch in family tree of humans.

Previously, historians thought other ancient human species vanished after the appearance of modern humans. But now, the new femur unearthed from Red Deer Cave in southwest China has suggested that human’s distant cousins walked the earth with some other species of humans for quite a long time.

About three years ago, researchers found fossilized skulls in Red Deer Cave situated near Maludong. Earlier this year, researchers also found clues of another possible human species around the cave named after an extinct species of deer.

Oxford University, in co-operation with nearly 30 other educational and industrial partners, is progressing with its project, the Networked Quantum Info Applied sciences (NQIT – pronounced ‘N-kit’) Hub. The Hub is one of the four Hubs whose development is being financed by EPSRC. In 2014, the UK authority announced an expenditure of £270 million over a period of five years.

The NQIT Hub involves developing completely distinct methods for quantum networking and computing. The ultimate goal is to develop a functioning quantum pc. Oxford, along with its allies, is working towards the reduction of the processing energy used by the existing supercomputers by developing quantum applied sciences.