Peru's UFO investigations office to be reopened

1963 picture purportedly showing a UFO in New Mexico. The Peruvian unit will bring together sociologists, archaeologists, astronomers, meteorologists and air force personnel to analyse sightings. Photograph: Bettmann/Corbis

Peru's air force is reopening an office responsible for investigating UFOsdue to "increased sightings of anomalous aerial phenomena" in the country's skies.

The Department of Investigation of Anomalous Aerial Phenomena (DIFAA), first created in 2001, is being revived after lying formant for five years because more UFO sightings have been reported to the media, said Colonel Julio Vucetich, head of the air force's aerospace interests division.

The unit will bring together sociologists, archaeologists, astronomers, meteorologists and air force personnel to analyse these events, Vucetich told the Guardian. "Many people don't report UFO sightings because they fear they will be labelled mad or made fun of, but nowadays with new technology – cellphone videos, Facebook, Twitter – they can be much more open, without feeling that they are the only ones who have seen what they've seen," he said.

"This new office needs those people to come and report their sightings so we can open a file and, using their information, do the respective analysis and investigation," he added, flicking through a hefty scrapbook of newspaper cuttings recording Peruvian UFO sightings dating from 1950 to the present day. Peru's Institute for Studies of Historic Aerospace is turning it into a book.

Vucetich said the office had responded to increased sightings of natural and artificial phenomena, from meteorites to "space junk" in Peru. "When you present evidence of UFOs, people can react with terror or hysteria, so we have to be very careful how we present it," he stressed.

UFO sightings are not uncommon in Peru. Two weeks ago, local media reported that villagers in Marabamba, in Peru's central Huanuco region, watched luminous balls of light in the sky over several days. Numerous reported sightings of UFOs have been made in Chilca, a beach resort 59km south of Lima. The unexplained sightings have attracted UFO investigators from around the world. One former resident, Paulina Jimenez, 82, told the Guardian how 16 years ago she saw "a huge number of flashing lights" over a bluff overlooking the resort's Yaya beach, the most regular location for UFO sightings among local residents.

"There are various locations in Peru where there are regular sightings. What's bad is that those reports have never been proven so I can't, on behalf of the air force, verify those," Vucetich said.

He added that he, too, had seen what he could only describe as "anomalous aerial phenomena". "On a personal basis, it's evident to me that we are not alone in this world or universe."

The UFO office has a telephone hotline, an email address (dinae@fap.mil.pe) and a website for reports of UFO sightings.

The revival of the UFO office will allow Peru to compare and share information with similar agencies in Uruguay, Chile, Brazil, Ecuador and Argentina.

Last week, Antonio Huneeus, a Chilean UFO investigator, told Open Minds UFO Radio that the Peruvian move responded to greater interest in such phenomena in the region.

"There are a few cultural reasons too, the public is more open-minded about the phenomenon of UFOs," he added.

New Discovery Simplifies Quantum Physics

Artist’s rendering of the amplituhedron, a newly discovered mathematical object resembling a multifaceted jewel in higher dimensions. Encoded in its volume are the most basic features of reality that can be calculated — the probabilities of outcomes of particle interactions.
Illustration by Andy Gilmore

That’s right ladies and gentlemen, quantum mechanics just got easier to understand. A team of physicists have released a paper showing their discovery of a jewel-like geometric structure that takes equations, which can be thousands of terms long, and simplifies them to a single term. This discovery is poised to dramatically simplify the equations particle physicists use when calculating particle interactions. It also proposes the uncomfortable idea that space and time are not fundamental aspects of our reality, and it brings us much closer to unifying gravity and quantum theory under one comprehensive model.

The discovery comes on the heels of decades of research in particle interactions. Particle interactions are some of the most basic and common events found in nature. Traditionally, these interactions have been very difficult or even impossible to calculate. Scientists required the use of the world’s most powerful computers to calculate even the simplest interactions. This new geometric structure, called the amplituhedron, is so simple that a particle physicist could calculate these interactions, by hand, on a single sheet of paper.

That, in case you were wondering, is insanely impressive. Harvard University theoretical physicist, Jacob Boujaily, and founder of this idea, said, “The degree of efficiency is mind-boggling. You can easily do, on paper, computations that were unfeasible even with a computer before.”

The Basic Idea

This theory is revolutionary on a number of fronts. At the moment, it’s being catapulted into the forefront of grand unified theory research. Some physicists suspect that a geometric object similar to the amplituhedron could eventually lead to a bridge that connects the physics of the very large with the physics of the very small. To date, all of the unified theories that are proposed are riddled with serious and deep-rooted problems, such as paradoxes and infinities. To unify macro and micro physics, the amplituhedron is paving the way to eliminate two of physics deeply rooted points and some of quantum theory’s central pillars: locality and unitarity.

Image Credit: Georg Johann

Simply put, unitarity is the idea that the sum of all probabilities describing every potential outcome of any quantum event is always equal to one (yes, that was the simple was of saying it). This places an inherent restriction on the amount of evolution that is allowed in any quantum system. Following the same “simple” trend, locality is basically the idea that particles can only interact with, and be influenced by, particles occupying space immediately surrounding them. It’s important to note that locality exists in quantum mechanics largely because special relativity insists upon it. Experimentally, we have shown through quantum entanglement that there seems to be a way to get around locality in the quantum world. In contrast, unitarity is a mathematical construction that helps to make nice round equations. In quantum field theory, both locality and unitarity are central concepts, but there is a catch. When attempting to add gravity to quantum theory, under certain situations, these two pillars (locality and unitarity) break down and stop working. This presents some amount of evidence that neither principle is a fundamental aspect of nature.

This is where the amplituhedron comes in. This geometric shape isn’t constructed by using the probabilities innate to spacetime, but instead suggests that the nature of spacetime is an attribute of the geometry of the amplituhedron. Our idea about the fabric of reality is just that– fabricated, an imaginary construct we have laying over the deeper and more fundamental construction of spacetime. According to David Skinner, a theoretical physicist who calls the Cambridge University home, “It’s a better formulation that makes you think about everything in a completely different way.”

The Complicated World of Particle Interactions

The amplituhedron is a very menacing, beautiful, complicated, multifaceted object that exists in higher dimensions. In principle, you can use the volume of this object to calculate all of the most basic features of reality, known in quantum mechanics as “scattering amplitudes.” This computation describes the probabilities of particles changing into other particles when colliding. These types of calculations are routinely made and tested at particle colliders such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). To understand the importance of the amplituhedron, we must first look at where it all began, 60-years ago with the development of Feynman diagrams.

Image source

Named after the Nobel winning Richard Feynman, these diagrams describe all of the ways a particle could scatter, and then the likelihood of any given outcome actually occurring. Feynman diagrams range from the trivially simple to the impossibly difficult. The simplest Feynman diagrams resemble trees, while the more complicated ones have one or more loops that explain particles turning into a virtual particle. A virtual particle is interesting because they aren’t observed in nature, but many physicists have regarded them as a mathematical necessity because they were required to achieve unitarity.

Though Feynman’s diagrams were a stroke of genius , they were simply the wrong tool to use to calculate nuclear particle interactions. In fact, the fact that we are able to compute anything at all is the prime discovery of the computer age; the number of diagrams required to describe something as simple as the 2-gluon to 4-gluon interaction gets so explosively large that scientists didn’t start those computations until the age of computers.  You see, to describe the collision of two gluons that result in four gluons in a lower energy state, particle physicists at the LHC require the use of220 Feynman diagrams. Together, these diagrams represent thousands of terms involved in the computation that are necessary to determine the scattering amplitude. In short, scientists have realized that Feynman diagrams, though beautiful, are effective ways to calculate a single mathematical object–they are laborious, require many different pieces, and are so numerous that it makes it difficult to do computations even with computers. Physicists are trying to move from that “incalculable” process to a single calculation that (thought difficult) is possible for humans to do (and certainly much easier for computers).

This started with theoretical work preparing for the completion of theSuperconducting Super Collider (SSC) that was to be built in Texas (but eventually canceled). Physicists wanted to create a background framework describing scattering amplitudes with which to test the SSC and look for exotic or interesting signals. Physicists quickly determined that creating such a framework for even simple 2-gluon to 4-gluon interactions was so complicated that “they may not be evaluated in the foreseeable future.” Then, in the 1980s, this gluon interaction was simplified from an equation containing several billion terms to a single formula 9-pages long. This was an expression computers of the time could handle, and quantum field theory got a little more manageable. This type of simplifying laid the groundwork for the amplituhedron.

Enter: The Amplituhedron

Though the gluon simplification was achieved in the mid-1980s, it took a couple of decades for particle physicists to really start putting that revolution to use. This started in the mid-2000s when physicists started to find patterns in the scattering amplitudes – and you know how much physicists like patterns. This started the general trend of thought that an underlying mathematical structure might be supporting quantum field theory.

Twistor diagrams
Credit: Arkani-Hamed et al.

Eventually, twistor variables and their corresponding diagrams were developed, which attempted to simplify Feynman diagrams even further. These diagrams moved away from describing particle interactions in familiar variables, such as time and position, and used twistor variables instead. These diagrams worked, and gained rapid acceptance among particle physicists, but scientists didn’t understand how they worked, why they worked, or what made them so simple. Arkani-Hamed provides a colorful description by saying, “The terms in these relations were coming from a different world, and we wanted to understand what that world was.”

The amplituhedron didn’t start coming to light until December of 2012 with the discovery of the positive Grassmannian. This geometric object is the result from studying the relationship between recursion relations and their corresponding twistor diagrams. According to the paper, these diagrams act as an instruction manual for calculating the volume of portions of the positive Grassmannian. This object consists of a region of N-dimensional space bounded intersecting planes (where N is the number of interacting particles).

This geometric structure was exciting, but incomplete. The positive Grassmannian’s construction was being restricted by locality and unitarity. Instead of falling together as eloquent things tend to fall together, something was missing. The prevailing idea was that determining the scattering amplitude had to be the answer to some other mathematical question. It turns out, that idea was right.

Credit: Nima Arkani-Hamed

The scattering amplitude was determined to be the volume of the amplituhedron. Natalie Wolchover from the Simon Foundation best describes this mathematical structure,”The details of a particular scattering process dictate the dimensionality and facets of the corresponding amplituhedron. The pieces of the positive Grassmannian that were being calculated with twistor diagrams and then added together by hand were building blocks that fit together inside this jewel, just as triangles fit together to form a polygon.”

To reiterate the awesomeness of this achievement, the diagram pictured here is a sketch of an amplituhedron depicting an 8-gluon particle interaction. If you were to attempt to use Feynman diagrams to represent this, you’d be dealing with about 500 pages of algebra.

If the discovery of the amplituhedron wasn’t cool enough, physicists have also discovered a “master amplituhedron.” This object has an infinite number of sides (similar to how a circle has an infinite number of sides in two dimensions) and it can, in theory, describe every possible physical process. All of the amplituhedra that exist in lower dimensions should exist on one of the master’s facets. Skinner describes this structure as having powerful calculational ability and talks of it’s incredible suggestiveness since “they suggest that thinking in terms of spacetime was not the right way of going about this.”

Quantum Gravity: The Future of Physics

This idea has very profound implications. Thus far, all of our theories attempting to unify gravity with quantum mechanics have failed. Because of this, scientists have an impossible time describing the internal workings of black holes, the singularity that started the big bang, and other important objects and events. Ideas like string theory are at the forefront of this research, but they tend to be confusing or unproven/unprovable (or both). According to Arkani-Hamed, ” We can’t rely on the usual familiar quantum mechanical space-time pictures of describing physics. We have to learn new ways of talking about it. This work is a baby step in that direction.”

Image Credit: Charles Imes

It’s very important to note that the amplituhedron, even though it doesn’t include unitarity and locality, also doesn’t include gravity. Physicists are in the middle of working on that very problem. It’s possible the amplituhedron contains the answer to quantum gravity, finally unifying the four fundamental forces of physics, or it’s possible the final geometric shape we seek is a little different.

This work is fantastic, very exciting, and moving along very quickly. As physicists seek to understand the meaning of the amplituhedron the rest of the world gets to wait with bated breath to learn of their findings. It’s possible we could have another Einsteinian-type revolution of our understanding of the nature of reality within our lifetimes. Wouldn’t that be exciting?

World summit: PM to attend Islamic Economic Forum in UK

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. PHOTO: FILE

ISLAMABAD: 

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will leave for Britain on Monday (today) for a three-day visit to represent Pakistan at the 9th World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF) which is being jointly organised by Malaysia and UK from October 29 to 31, 2013.

This is the forum’s first annual event in Europe following its previous successes in Malaysia, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Kuwait and Pakistan.

In his address at the forum, the prime minister will highlight the need for greater cooperation among the Muslim countries in diverse areas and ask them to pitch for investment in Pakistan, his media office officials said.

He will also hold important bilateral meetings with heads of states and governments as well as with some business leaders.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is likely to meet his Malaysian counterpart Najib Razak, King Abdullah of Jordan, the Sultan of Brunei, Indonesian president and the president of Kosovo.

The moot aims to boost trade partnerships between Islamic and European markets, explore London’s future as a global hub for Islamic finance and debate new solutions to global challenges — the forum aims to deliver tangible investment.

Issues covered at the forum will include harnessing the potential of women as critical growth drivers, harmonising Islamic and Western banking, exploring the export potential for high quality education in developing economies, and developing technological collaboration between Islamic and European economies.

Trilateral engagement

The foreign office informs that “Nawaz will take part in the trilateral engagements and will hold important meetings with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and British Prime Minister David Cameron.”

The UK’s trilateral peace initiative, the fourth since summer 2012, is aimed at strengthening cooperation between Afghanistan and Pakistan and to encourage an Afghan-led peace deal for Afghanistan. The last trilateral moot was held in February.

According to the schedule of the PM’s engagements in London, the trilateral talks will be held on October 29. During these talks, Nawaz is expected to share his government’s strategy to initiate peace negotiations with the Taliban.

The prime minister will also elaborate on the efforts rendered by his government so far to assist the reconciliation process in Afghanistan and will further reiterate Pakistan’s support for an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process.

Nawaz and Karzai last met on August 26 when Karzai visited Pakistan to seek full support and greater cooperation in the Afghan peace and reconciliation process.

Key government officials have informed that federal government has already received messages of Karzai regarding further release of Taliban prisoners and assistance in direct talks with Taliban.

The officials add that after taking political forces into confidence and evolving national consensus, PM will approve the final steps to kick off talks with Taliban as part of an inclusive anti-terrorism strategy in a few days

Humble Sebastian Vettel takes his place among Formula One's legends

Sebastian Vettel shows rare emotion after becoming the youngest ever quadruple Formula One champion. Photograph: Vladimir Rys Photography/Getty Images

When darkness fell on the mosquito-infested Buddh International Circuit, hours after the teams and their drivers had departed, the words ofSebastian Vettel resonated in the air just as much as his astonishing achievement.

What he has done in his noisy machine is already the stuff of legend. His 10th win of the season and his sixth in succession had delivered his fourth world championship with three grands prix still remaining.

He joins only three other drivers as quadruple winners but at 26 he is significantly younger than Michael Schumacher (32), Alain Prost (38) and Juan Manuel Fangio (45); only Vettel, Schumacher and Fangio have won four in successive seasons. The last time he failed to win the world title was in 2009, the year Barack Obama was elected president of the United States and Matt Smith became the new Doctor Who, when Michael Jackson departed and Susan Boyle arrived.

Down the length of the paddock less successful drivers were being asked what they thought about the genius in their midst, even being implored to defy their boredom.

Yet it was what Vettel said that was most impressive. He had already displayed a rare emotion, performing doughnuts in his winning Red Bull, rather than proceeding to parc fermé, and bowing as if in supplication before the car; he would be reprimanded for this before the day was out, for Formula One's attitudes do not allow for such excesses.

But now, pulling at his cap – pulling, too, at the child-sized bottle of champagne he was chaperoning – he spoke with a lucidity that reflected a keen intelligence.

It is this which separates him from his rivals as much as his driving; perhaps his compatriot Nico Rosberg, who was second to him in Sunday's Indian Grand Prix, is the closest to him here too.

"This morning I looked at the car and it's a small piece of kit," he said, smiling.

"It's not very big. A truck is bigger, any truck you can buy on the road is bigger but imagine the speed this car can travel with you behind the wheel.

"It's amazing. I just appreciate that fact, you know. Whether you finish first, second, 15th or last, it doesn't really matter, but I think it's something unique, that we get to feel, we get to enjoy. I appreciate that and hopefully this kind of feeling never changes." And he looked in genuine awe.

Then he talked about his workbench, the F1 track. "I had dinner here at the circuit last night. Many times people complain about the paddock and the people; to be honest with you, I'm not like that, I enjoy being here and spending time with people that you know.

"I like the paddock, it's not like a prison to me. People say when you cross the entrance it's like being in a circus but I think it's what you make of the circus also. If you come in with a negative mind-set, then for sure you will have a bad time."

And Vettel was determined not to have a bad time. "When my engineer called for the usual procedure to go to parc fermé [at the end of the race] and park the car, I said to myself, I don't care. I am going to the crowd at the main grandstand to have some fun there, which I enjoyed a lot."

He talked about his joyous childhood, and his love for his family, about his desire to explore India and about the Red Bull team who had helped him to achieve so much.

"I am very thankful for what these guys are doing. If you look at their pay cheques at the end of the month, you would be surprised at the number of hours they do. It is 100% commitment. I think it is better to work at McDonald's than do what they do."

Ultimately, though, the discussion returned to Vettel himself, and how he now rates himself against the best drivers there have ever been. "To join people like Michael, Fangio, Prost, it is too difficult to put it into perspective," he said. "I am way too young to understand what it means. I might be 60 one day and then understand and no one else will care but I will care and realise it is something no one can take away from you."

Only the mixed tyre strategies and the possibility of heavy traffic was expected to trouble pole-sitter Vettel in India. Starting on the softer tyre, the champion-elect was always going to pit earlier than the four drivers in the top 10 – including his team-mate, Mark Webber, who had chosen the harder, medium tyre. Vettel confounded everyone by pitting early, at the end of the second lap, and then carving his way through the traffic with some imperious driving.

He did not lead every lap, which he had done in the previous two races at the Buddh circuit, but, cutting through the field from almost the back – he was 17th after his early pit stop – he was more dominant than ever.

Webber, who had collided with the Lotus of Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso's Ferrari in the opening laps, dropped out of the contest two-thirds of the way through, with alternator trouble. At that stage, though – and even from the very beginning – there was going to be only one winner.

Manchester City's Pellegrini refuses to publicly back goalkeeper Hart

Manchester City defender Matija Nastasic heads past Joe Hart, allowing Chelsea's Fernando Torres to score the winning goal. Photograph: Glyn Kirk/AFP/Getty Images

Manuel Pellegrini refused to offer Joe Hart a public show of support after the England goalkeeper's last-minute rush of blood presented Fernando Torres with Chelsea's winner and left Manchester City six points from the top of the Premier League.

Matija Nastasic's nodded back-pass looped over the onrushing Hart, who ended up well outside his penalty area, with Torres capping a fine performance by running through to convert only his second league goal of 2013. Hart's reaction, shouting "keeper's, fucking keeper's" as he retrieved the ball from his net, suggested he had attempted to warn Nastasic.

But his decision to tear out of the box did appear rash and similar to his error against Aston Villa last month which presented Andreas Weimann with a winner. There have been other high-profile errors, against Bayern Munich's Franck Ribéry and Arjen Robben, and Cardiff's Fraizer Campbell, as well as against Scotland with England. Indeed, Torres's winner was remarkably similar to Nikola Kalinic's goal for Blackburn at City three years ago, suggesting lessons have not been learned.

"What I think, I won't talk about," said Pellegrini, who was left infuriated by his opposite number José Mourinho's celebrations after Chelsea's winner. "I repeat that the analysis I do with individual players I do with the players, not the press. You must ask [Hart] how his confidence is.

"I talk just internally with the players. We are going to see the best way to arrange things. We are losing stupid points. The three defeats we had away we didn't deserve but the reality is we have lost them and we've had the important responsibility for the goals the other team scored. We try to arrange. We have time."

The Chilean confirmed he had declined to shake Mourinho's hand after the final whistle having been exasperated that the Chelsea manager ran across the visitors' technical area to celebrate with the supporters behind the dug-out. "I don't speak about him," he said. "I didn't expect anything else. It is a different way to celebrate from me. No, I didn't shake hands because I didn't want to."

Mourinho claimed he had jumped into that section of the support because his son, José Jr, was sitting there. "Chelsea is guilty because I want to buy a season ticket for my son and they give them a season ticket behind the away dug-out," he said. "I went for him, I promise. But this is the drama: I beat City in the last minute in Madrid and I slid on my trousers and ripped them; I conceded an equaliser in the last minute against Bayern Munich and [it felt as if] somebody put a knife in my back. This is the emotion. If they believe my son is there, great. If they don't believe, I apologise if they feel I did something wrong."

The victory, spurred by Torres's effervescent display and Ramires's tireless running in midfield, appeared significant for the hosts as they inflicted psychological damage upon direct rivals for the title. City have enjoyed the upper hand over Chelsea in the past year.

"But I watched all those games – at Wembley [FA Cup semi-final], the game at home, the game away, parts even of the friendlies in the United States – [the issue] was mental, not tactical," said Mourinho, who confirmed he would play a weakened team in Tuesday's Capital One Cup fourth-round tie at Arsenal.

Premier League: 10 talking points from the weekend's action

Luis Suárez and Jack Colback had impressive weekends for their clubs but questions remain over Joe Hart's and Wilfried Bony's form. Photograph: Andrew Powell/Getty, Richard Sellers/Getty, Ben Stansall/Getty, Peter Cziborra/Action

1) Is Suárez a top-five hit?

Steve Clarke reacted to Luis Suárez's hat-trick against his West Bromwich Albion side by saying the Liverpool forward is definitely among the top five strikers in the world at the moment. It prompted two questions: is he? And if so, who else is? Much depends on the definition of a striker and if players who start off in deeper or wider positions, like Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar, are excluded, Zlatan Ibrahimovic surely has a cast-iron case for inclusion in the top five and Robert Lewandowski a strong one. Edinson Cavani and Falcao became two of the most expensive forwards of all time this summer. Meanwhile, Suárez has competition from Premier League rivals such as Sergio Agüero, Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie, plus attackers elsewhere like Mario Mandzukic, Karim Benzema and Antonio Di Natale. The top five? You decide. Richard Jolly

2) Finally time to drop Hart?

Oh, Joe. Not again. It is the easiest thing in the world to make too much of a goalkeeper's error, a case all to often of simply blaming the nearest person when the ball ends up in the net. Goalkeeping errors are nebulous, arguable, subjective. Did Petr Cech make an error for Sergio Agüero's equaliser at Stamford Bridge? Nobody knows for sure. And even when they're clear, mistakes come with a margin for tolerance. There will be mistakes and half-mistakes and moments of doubt. The question is just: how many before it's too many.

Joe Hart was at fault for Chelsea's winning goal against Manchester City at Stamford Bridge. He should have stayed on his line as Fernando Torres chased Willian's lofted pass. The ball would have been cleared. The match would have been drawn. It was a bad decision to intervene, the only real mitigation the strong wind blowing from behind his goal that may or may not have held the ball up. There might have been mitigation too – in the fact Hart had a good game otherwise, looking assured and confident and saving inventively with his legs on one occasion, were it not for the fact this has become a bit of a thing.

Outright errors and soft goals conceded have been a theme. Manuel Pellegrini, white with anger and disappointment after the game, refused to make any excuses for his goalkeeper, or even to offer him any support, albeit what may keep Hart in the team for City and England is an absence of any really compelling alternatives.

There are two points worth making. Hart probably deserves to be dropped. It might do him some good. He seems at times too pleased with himself, too prominent, too intent on making an intervention, too swaggeringly present. Plus he also seems to have a recurrent flaw, opting too often for the slightly wild sprint of his line which looks so formidable when it works, but leaves him open to making split-second misjudgments, as here, that can be fatal. Stay at home, Joe. And while you're at it maybe have a seat too. Barney Ronay

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3) Shawcross booked … in Stoke's dressing room

There is little Mark Hughes has not seen in professional football over his career as player and manager but Saturday provided a first for the Stoke manager as his defender Ryan Shawcross was booked in the sanctity of the visitors' dressing room following an altercation with Robin van Persie. The pair were separated, and spoken to, by referee Lee Mason as they became embroiled at a set-piece shortly after Stoke had taken a 2-1 lead, the dispute continuing as the teams went down the tunnel. "Ryan was booked in the dressing room," said Hughes. "The referee made a point of knocking on the door and booking him. I've no idea why. He pushed him I think but I've no idea because I didn't see the incident but he wanted to book Ryan. I've never known anyone get booked in the dressing room before." The ill feeling continued after the game with the players exchanging words in the tunnel area as the media conducted interviews. Ian Whittell

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4) Szczesny shines in harshest spotlight

Goalkeepers tend to mature later than outfield players, their job as much about judgement and temperament as reactions and athleticism; Peter Schmeichel, for example, didn't turn professional until the age of 23, and played for Brondby until he was 26. But in the dash to snatch as many players as possible as young as possible as quickly as possible for as little as possible, goalkeepers are forced to learn on the job and expected to perform earlier in their career than was once the case, resulting in a public, professional puberty that naturally results in some awkward and embarrassing moments. David De Gea and Wojciech Szczesny have both suffered in this aspect, and though it is fair to criticise mistakes that they make, the notion that neither had the ability to succeed – asserted by so many, and with such certainty and alacrity – was harder to fathom. Both possess the physical attributes and capacity for brilliance required to excel – or, put another way, that which cannot be taught – and their incrementally adding anticipation and consistency – that which can be learned and acquired – is almost inevitable. So when, on Saturday, Szczesny made two outstanding saves to preserve Arsenal's lead over Crystal Palace, no one ought to have been surprised – and likewise, when he makes his next apparently avoidable error, nor when he progresses to become one of the world's best goalkeepers.Daniel Harris

5) Are Everton really that different under Martínez?

The extent to which Everton have changed under Roberto Martínez is a subject of much enjoyable debate amongst the club's supporters. While acknowledging the considerable impact being made by additions Romelu Lukaku, Gareth Barry and James McCarthy, some maintain that in terms of style the Toffees are not so very different from the David Moyes era. Two things have unarguably changed however. Firstly, when Everton go in front they now appear far more eager, willing and able to make the most of the space left by an opposition forced to commit numbers in attack. And secondly, Martínez makes substitutions that change games. Just as Steven Pienaar scored with his first touch in the previous game against Hull City, so the introduction of Leon Osman made a crucial difference against Aston Villa on Saturday. Against West Ham in September, it was Lukaku. Luck or acuity, the result is Everton's best start to the season for nine years. Richard Rae

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6) Saints go marching on

The pictures at St Mary's tell a story. Or rather, they tell of the club's eagerness to create a new story. At the start of this season most of the photographs adorning the walls inside the stadium were replaced; out went many of the reminders of old glories, in came huge shots of the club's current young thrusters, each image emblazoned with enormous, portentous captions declaring "Our Time Is Now" and "Our Dream is Real". The message is loud and clear: Southampton believe they are on the verge of something special. They are starting to convince the rest of the country. Paul Doyle

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7) Is AVB wise to criticise Spurs' home support?

The manager had been working up to this. It had needled him for some time and, perhaps, he reasoned that he was safer speaking out after awin, which his Tottenham team secured against Hull City thanks to Roberto Soldado's dodgy penalty. Villas-Boas has felt the love and vocal backing of the club's away support which, by definition, contains the die-hards and he sees the link between it and the team's encouraging results.

But at White Hart Lane, the story has been different. Tottenham have frequently struggled to break down their opponents and the home crowd have been frustrated. They have made their feelings known. What comes first? The poor support or the uninspiring football? Villas-Boas believes it is the former. He feels that the team need a lift from the stands because, as was the case against Hull, the atmosphere is dragging them down. It was as though Tottenham were "the away team", Villas-Boas said. "It is like it drags the ball into our goal instead of the opponent's goal." He added: "We had to dig deep within ourselves because we weren't getting any help from anybody." And this was not simply how he felt. "It is something that is felt within the squad," he said.

Villas-Boas can be commended for his honesty and he does have a point. When Tottenham labour, the frustration is palpable and it cannot help the team. His intentions were well-meaning. But would it have been better to keep schtum, as to criticise the paying fan in such terms has the potential to backfire and to drive unwanted narratives? It has, at the very least, given rivals supporters a good laugh and the material for future chants, which will surely be rooted in the notion that "even AVB thinks you're shit". David Hytner

8) Colback is a central midfielder and Cattermole is better than even he thinks he is

Jack Colback has been played out of his position, and often excelled, at left-back in recent months/years but he showed against Newcastle that he can cut it at the heart of a 4-4-2 after all. No matter that he and Lee Cattermole lack a bit of pace, not to mention height; they shone against Yohan Cabaye, Cheick Tioté and Moussa Sissoko, although both can clearly improve. Wearside fans must hope that a coaching process started by Paolo Di Canio – for all his man-management faults – can be continued by Gus Poyet. If so, the future is surely ultimately bright for Colback, Cattermole and Sunderland. Louise Taylor

9) The curious case of Wilfried Bony

Swansea are not prone to spending big, so when they splurged £12m on Wilfried Bony in the summer it raised a few eyebrows. On the face of it, Bony seemed like a decent addition to a team that had been forced to play without an orthodox striker for much of the second half of last season. The expectation was that Bony would weigh in with plenty of goals and relieve the burden on Michu's shoulders. Yet despite scoring twice in the Europa League on his Swansea debut, things have not happened for Bony, who has completed only one Premier League game this season and been among the substitutes more often than he has been in the starting XI. Although Laudrup has spoken about giving Bony time to adapt, it is hard to escape the feeling that the Swansea manager is not sold on the Ivorian. All of which seems a little odd. Stuart James

10) Fer: not just horsing around

All is fair in love and war and all is fair when you are in the bottom half of the table and sinking fast. Ricky van Wolfswinkel's injury-time throw fell at the feet of Leroy Fer and landed Fer with two options. Give the ball back to Cardiff since they had kicked the ball out due to an injury to Alex Tettey; or try and win three points for his side. Given the fact that Norwich sit in 18th spot, have just two wins all season and are in desperate need of points, he chose the right one and fired the ball into the Cardiff net. (Fer's effort failed to count as the referee, Michael Jones, had apparently failed to blow his whistle). Fair play from Fer it wasn't but with Norwich's present predicament, fair play to them should be what unicorns or Santa Claus or endless love are to the rest of us, pie in the sky. The Dutch midfielder is paid to help his side win matches and that is exactly what he did. You can be sure that if the goal had been allowed at the other end of the pitch, the Cardiff manager, Malky Mackay, would not be arguing that "common sense prevailed". Ian McCourt

Weekend rail closures for up to 14 years if HS2 is scrapped

The aim of HS2 is to get trains running as fast as 250mph between London and Birmingham from 2026. Photograph: HS2/PA

Alternatives to building Britain's second high-speed rail link which would instead upgrade existing lines could need 14 years of weekend closures to complete, according to government-sponsored studies releasedon Monday.

The claims were published as ministers battle to maintain cross-party support for the controversial HS2 project connecting London to the north and before a crucial week for the scheme in parliament.

The government has faced a backlash from backbenchers against the project, which is expected to cost up to £42.6bn, has overrun its original budget and cuts a swath through many marginal Conservative constituencies.

The studies, prepared by Network Rail and the management consultancy Atkins, found that the east coast mainline, midland mainline and west coast mainline would require 2,770 weekend closures (144,000 hours of work) if they were to be improved so they could replace the intended capacity of HS2.

Modelling a typical weekend, the reports argue that a journey from London to Leeds could be increased by two hours and 10 minutes to more than four and a half hours while the work is completed. A journey between Huntingdon and Peterborough would be doubled to an hour.

Labour votes may be needed this week for the coalition government's proposals to continue their passage through the Commons as a number of Tory MPs are preparing to rebel and vote against a bill that paves the way for HS2.

Senior Labour sources have hinted that the party may withdraw support for the project, particularly if it goes beyond its allotted £42bn budget. The shadow energy secretary, Caroline Flint, told BBC1's Sunday Politics: "HS2 has never had a blank cheque from the Labour party. [Shadow transport secretary] Mary Creagh has said if the prices are coming in too high then we will review our decision when we come back to vote on it next April.

"We have to look for value for money and we have to look at how it benefits the country."

A government source said that the studies' evidence should help to persuade MPs of the scheme's merits. "We need to do something because our railways are nearly full, but the alternative to HS2 is a patch and mend job that would cause 14 years of gridlock, hellish journeys and rail replacement buses. The three main routes to the north would be crippled and the economy would be damaged."

The government's business case, which will be released in full on Tuesday, argues that the alternative plans are unworkable.

"Network Rail's judgment is that the scale of service closures involved across three main lines makes the alternatives very unattractive.

"While some works could be programmed to coincide in terms of network downtime, this scale of work on the existing network would entail 14 years of weekend closures to allow the necessary upgrade works to be carried out. With work on multiple (parallel) routes, the scope to use adjacent main lines for diversionary routes is also diminished," it states.

According to extracts from the Network Rail report, consultants examined a number of possible schemes as ways of expanding capacity.

"During construction, the effect of these schemes occurring simultaneously could be to increase the weekend journey time from Leeds to London by 130 minutes or more, almost double the normal scheduled time and possibly transferring to bus replacement services," it found.

Atkins added that the upgrades would also cause properties to be torn down. "Addition schemes are likely to require some demolition of residential and commercial properties at specific locations, for example four-tracking schemes are likely to acquire land outside the existing railway boundary which could result in property demolition."

The aim of HS2 is to get trains running as fast as 250mph between London and Birmingham from 2026, with branches to Manchester and Leeds via Sheffield planned for 2033.

But the estimated cost of the project has risen from £34.2bn to £42.6bn – plus £7.5bn for rolling stock.

The chief secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, maintained that ministers remained confident that HS2 will be completed under budget.

The public accounts committee found last month that the Department for Transport was failing to present a "convincing strategic case" and that its arguments were based on "fragile numbers, out-of-date data and assumptions which do not reflect real life".

Alexander told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show: "The real cost is the budget that we set out in June this year – £42.6bn. It hasn't changed at all. That number includes within it a significant amount of contingency.

"I'm very confident that, as we work through the project and deliver it, we will not just deliver it within that budget but, like the Olympic Stadium project, under budget too."

The deputy Labour leader, Harriet Harman, played down comments by the shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, comparing the project to the Millennium Dome. Harman said Balls had been asked about the Dome by a Mail on Sunday journalist and had not volunteered the comparison to the white elephant project.

Jack Straw, the former foreign secretary and MP for Blackburn, voiced support for the project, which he said would "hugely benefit" people in the north of England.

Appearing on Murnaghan on Sky days after announcing that he would be standing down from parliament, Straw said: "If we get this extra capacity into Manchester, into Leeds, into Sheffield, into Liverpool ... that will hugely benefit and trigger much greater usage of the railway services as well as helping this economic regeneration of the country and particularly this area."

Bob Crow, general secretary of the transport union RMT, said the "political posturing" over HS2 was a smokescreen designed to delay investment in the railways.

He said politicians were showboating while Britain fell behind other European countries on rail modernisation.