[JasonC]

Um, each one has minimal cross section sure, but where do you think they come from and what do you think they cause when then do interact with matter? When you have a hot enough reactor, which is what the sun is, enough get put out for some to interact. And their sig is monkeying with weak force reaction rates.

neutrino reaction rates

[ETL]

each one has minimal cross section sure, but where do you think they come from and what do you think they cause when then do interact with matter? When you have a hot enough reactor, which is what the sun is, enough get put out for some to interact. And their sig is monkeying with weak force reaction rates.

But if the chances of a neutrino striking even one atom in a given sample of matter are so enormous, how can we conclude that they can consistently be responsible for altering the decay rates of the two elements mentioned in the article?

BTW: I found this interesting tidbit below on how many of these invisible little critters are passing through us every second.

"Neutrinos are generated by nuclear reactions, such as those that occur in the sun or in nuclear reactors. Most come from the sun: More than 50 trillion solar neutrinos pass through the human body every second, but they are extremely difficult to detect because they have no charge and a mass so tiny it has never been measured."
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/neutrino.html