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I Swear’s Kirk Jones set to direct film based on the 1970s cult animation about a ‘very ordinary man’ who accessed different worlds via a magical fancy dress shopA live-action film based on the cult British kids’ cartoon Mr Benn is to go into production with I Swear director Kirk Jones at the helm.Mr Benn first appeared on TV on the BBC in 1971, in a series created by David McKee, who died in 2022. The series followed the adventures of “a very ordinary man who could do extraordinary things” when he visited a magical fancy dress shop, which acted as a portal to different worlds. Only 13 episodes were made before the series ended in March 1972, though a one-off episode was broadcast in 2005 on the kids’ channel Nick Jr. Continue reading...

Snappily named Xi-cc-plus, Cern physicists spotted the particle in shower of debris that lit up Large Hadron ColliderScientists at the Cern nuclear physics laboratory near Geneva have discovered a heavier version of the proton, the subatomic particle that sits at the heart of every known atom in the universe.They spotted the particle in a shower of debris that lit up a detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), located deep beneath the ground at Cern, which smashes protons together at close to the speed of light. The collisions recreate in microcosm conditions that prevailed just after the big bang, with the energy converting to particles that spray in all directions. The newfound particle, which is four times heavier than the regular proton, should help physicists refine their understanding of the strong nuclear force that glues together the innards of all atomic nuclei. The force is unusual because it behaves like a rubber band, getting stronger as the distance between subatomic particles increases. Continue reading...