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11/01/06

Cosmic microwave background

The big-bang theory of the early universe implies that the universe is immersed in a bath of microwave light, a cooled-down remnant of early high-temperature radiation, invisible to the naked eye.

11/01/06

ILC cryogenics

Cavities propel charged particles by transferring energy from electromagnetic waves to the particles, speeding them up. Superconducting cavities are made of material that can conduct electric currents without resistance at a very low temperature.

11/01/06

Acceleration of particles

Acceleration of particles (electrons, protons, and other charged particles) is achieved by propelling them with electromagnetic waves.

11/01/06

Quark Park

There's a new scientific path in Princeton, New Jersey. Out of the loam of a vacant lot, a cluster of quasicrystals winks at some pink plasma. Tectonic plates shift, and neurons connect in a hippocampus curve of bamboo.

11/01/06

Lightning strikes, Tevatron blinks

The highest-energy particle accelerator in the world, Fermilab's Tevatron, boasts four miles of particle-accelerating circumference. But during thunderstorms it can become a bull's-eye for stray lightning bolts that demonstrate the intimidating power of nature.

11/01/06

Rainy-day rehab

From the day it was completed in the early days of Fermilab, the design of the Meson Lab roof has been an aesthetic success and a structural nightmare. It leaks. Always has.

11/01/06

It absolutely had to arrive on time

The inaugural beam for the CERN Neutrinos to Gran Sasso (CNGS) project took just 2.5 milliseconds to fly 732 km through the earth from Geneva, Switzerland, to its destination at the Gran Sasso underground laboratory near Rome on Monday, September 11, 2006.