The machine learning community takes on the Higgs

Detecting new physics isn’t quite like detecting cat videos—yet. Scientists have created a contest that invites anyone to use machine learning—the kind of computing that allows Facebook to spot your friends in photos and Netflix to recommend your next film—to search for the Higgs boson. More than 1000 individuals have already joined the race. They’re vying for prizes up to $7000, but according to contest organizers, the real winner might be the particle physics community, whose new con...