Some might think it strange that data taken from the Radio Ice Cerenkov Experiment, a kilometer-wide neutrino detection system buried in South Pole ice sheets, is analyzed with the help of a cigarette lighter.
When her Basque grandmother—Amatxi—taught five-year-old Anyes Taffard the language of her ancestors, she overlooked the Basque term for physicist: fisikari. But by the time she was 12, Taffard was already drawn to mathematics and science.
The assembled group of SLAC users hushed as Gabriella Sciolla rose to open the SLAC Users Organization annual meeting. And with that quiet came the rain.