Heroes

This is the pentaquark. It's smaller than an atom, and until now, no one knew it existed.

It could teach us a ton about the universe.

This is the pentaquark. It's smaller than an atom, and until now, no one knew it existed.

This is an image of an elusive, smaller-than-microscopic particle that not a single scientist on planet Earth knew existed before now.

Pentaquark rendering by CERN.

It's called a pentaquark.

Scientists have been looking for it for a little while. But thanks to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland, we now know that it's a real thing. Like, for real for real.

Pentaquark? Hm. I guess I've heard of quarks. Is it kind of like that?

Yes! Quarks are essential building blocks of pretty much everything in the universe. If you stick three quarks together, you get a proton or a neutron. Stick a bunch of protons and neutrons together, slap on an electron or two or 37, and you get an atom.

The pentaquark is five quarks stuck together, in fact. Or, more specifically, it is four quarks stuck to an anti-quark.

There must be a German word for the specific mix of shame and pride getting this joke is probably conjuring in you. Image by Jonathan McIntosh/Flickr.

The discovery happened because, thanks to the Large Hadron Collider, scientists finally had the tools they needed to actually look for the thing. According to a CERN press release, "It's as if the previous searches were looking for silhouettes in the dark, whereas LHCb conducted the search with the lights on, and from all angles."

Which basically proves:

The Large Hadron Collider is awesome.

Image by Image Editor/Flickr.

In case you haven't heard of the Large Hadron Collider before, it's basically a giant particle accelerator that shoots two high-energy beams of tiny, ultra-microsopic matter at each other through ultrahigh vacuum tubes and around superconducting electromagnets at -271.3 degrees Celsius, which is colder than space.

And the only reason it exists? To smash tiny particles together.

And the only reason it smashes tiny particles together? To discover awesome new things about science.

That's plain fantastic.

Scientists will have to study the pentaquark for a little while longer before they figure out what its existence really means.

It's not immediately clear what exactly the point of pentaquarks are or why they matter. But the fact that they exist opens up a vast world of research possibility that didn't exist yesterday.

Eventually they could lead to all sorts of cool stuff.

For now, thanks to CERN and the Large Hadron Collider, we just get to enjoy the pentaquark.

Still feels weird, but good.

And let's face it. We've earned it.

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Capital One
Capital One
Capital One Impact Initiative

La Cocina VA and Capital One are teaming up to help entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds launch culinary startups

Photo by Louis Hansel on Unsplash
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This story was originally shared on Capital One.

Inside the walls of her kitchen at her childhood home in Guatemala, Evelyn Klohr, the founder of a Washington, D.C.-area bakery called Kakeshionista, was taught a lesson that remains central to her business operations today.

"Baking cakes gave me the confidence to believe in my own brand and now I put my heart into giving my customers something they'll enjoy eating," Klohr said.

While driven to launch her own baking business, pursuing a dream in the culinary arts was economically challenging for Klohr. In the United States, culinary schools can open doors to future careers, but the cost of entry can be upwards of $36,000 a year.

Through a friend, Klohr learned about La Cocina VA, a nonprofit dedicated to providing job training and entrepreneurship development services at a training facility in the Washington, D.C-area.

La Cocina VA's, which translates to "the kitchen" in Spanish, offers its Bilingual Culinary Training program to prepare low-and moderate-income individuals from diverse backgrounds to launch careers in the food industry.

That program gave Klohr the ability to fully immerse herself in the baking industry within a professional kitchen facility and receive training in an array of subjects including culinary skills, food safety, career development and English language classes.

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Family

Grandpa writes powerful letter disowning daughter after she kicked her gay son out of the house

via FCKH8 and Steshka Willems/Pexels

Image is a representation of the grandfather, not the anonymous subject of the story.

Eight years a go, a grandfather in Michigan wrote a powerful letter to his daughter after she kicked out her son out of the house for being gay. It's so perfectly written that it crops up on social media every so often.

The letter is beautiful because it's written by a man who may not be with the times, but his heart is in the right place.

It first appeared on the Facebook page FCKH8 and a representative told Gawker that the letter was given to them by Chad, the 16-year-old boy referenced in the letter.

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Chewy
Chewy
Videos

Chewy spotlights the photographers who help pets get adopted

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When a pet is admitted to a shelter it can be a traumatizing experience. Many are afraid of their new surroundings and are far from comfortable showing off their unique personalities. The problem is that's when many of them have their photos taken to appear in online searches.

Chewy, the pet retailer who has dedicated themselves to supporting shelters and rescues throughout the country, recognized the important work of a couple in Tampa, FL who have been taking professional photos of shelter pets to help get them adopted.

"If it's a photo of a scared animal, most people, subconsciously or even consciously, are going to skip over it," pet photographer Adam Goldberg says. "They can't visualize that dog in their home."

Adam realized the importance of quality shelter photos while working as a social media specialist for the Humane Society of Broward County in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

"The photos were taken top-down so you couldn't see the size of the pet, and the flash would create these red eyes," he recalls. "Sometimes [volunteers] would shoot the photos through the chain-link fences."

That's why Adam and his wife, Mary, have spent much of their free time over the past five years photographing over 1,200 shelter animals to show off their unique personalities to potential adoptive families. The Goldbergs' wonderful work was recently profiled by Chewy in the video above entitled, "A Day in the Life of a Shelter Pet Photographer."

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