Measurement

A good read about IQOQI, the Viennese institute testing the basic assertions of quantum mechanics. Their conclusion:

"In the history of physics, we have learned that there are distinctions that we really should not make, such as between space and time... It could very well be that the distinction we make between information and reality is wrong. This is not saying that everything is just information. But it is saying that we need a new concept that encompasses or includes both."

Essentially, the team has reconciled many of the differences between the classical and Copenhagen interpretations of quantum theory. While quantum mechanical forms are both functional and observable (in a manner of speaking) on the subatomic level, as the size of the studied subject increases above the scale of a photon, our measuring instruments are too crude to see the fluctuations that produce seeming anomalies in the theory. In essence, large collections of matter, (atoms and above), "wash out" quantum fluctuations. The larger the object or conglomerate, the more "real" it becomes. Hence, Mr. Schrodinger's feline companion will remain quite dead, whether the box is closed or not. The reality of the dead cat washes out the quantum probability of the live/dead cat juxtaposition.

It's really quite a brilliant refinement of quantum theory, similar to the way Einstein refined Newton. Quantum theory is not really a matter of realism versus non-realism, as Bohr and Einstein famously argued. It's just a matter of precision of measurement.