Neutrinos Can Change 'Flavors', Scientists Discover

An international research team led by Japan and that includes the University of Colorado Boulder may have taken a significant step in discovering why matter trumped antimatter at the time of Big Bang, helping to create virtually all of the galaxies and stars in the universe.

The experiment, known as the Tokai to Kamioka experiment, or T2K, included shooting a beam of neutrinos underground from the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex, or J-PARC, on the country's east coast to a detector near Japan's west coast, a distance of about 185 miles. Elementary particles that are fundamental building blocks of nature, neutrinos generally travel at the speed of light and can pass to pass through ordinary matter, like Earth's crust, with ease. Neutrinos come in three types -- muon, electron and tau.