TeV string theories, mini black holes and trans-GZK cosmic rays

We review the proposal that trans-GZK cosmic ray interactions are caused by neutrino primaries. The primaries cause excitations of strings and give rise to extensive air showers (EAS) resembling EAS induced by nuclei. We also show that in “low scale” (M∗≈70TeV) string models the excited string and the mini black hole pictures are equivalent.