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Explain it in 60 Seconds: Lattice QCD

07/25/24

Lattice gauge theory, or lattice QCD, is a calculation method that helps scientists make predictions about the behavior of quarks at low energies.

03/01/09

Biodegradable Café

At SLAC's Linear Café, a potato doesn't just go on your fork. It is your fork. The cafeteria began a green initiative about five months ago, abandoning traditional plastic spoons and plates in favor of biodegradable counterparts.

03/01/09

Result of the week

Behind every big breakthrough is a series of small steps that build on each other to enhance our understanding of the universe. At Fermilab’'s Tevatron Collider, physicists have been telling the unfolding story of their experiments in weekly installments for more than five years.

03/01/09

Cosmic rays spray art across a lawn

Bluish lights flash on a grassy field, like giant fireflies angling for mates—sometimes a single flash, sometimes a ripple of light moving fast, as if suitors have given chase. Then all 16 lights flash at once, and the whole field glows.

03/01/09

Brian Malow: Science yuks

If someone had told me when I was in high school that one day I would meet Stephen Hawking and have a meeting at NASA, I never could've guessed the trajectory I'd follow to get there. I would've assumed I had become a physicist.

03/01/09

Probing the heart of the atom

The familiar elements of the Periodic Table come in a number of forms, or isotopes—some found only fleetingly in the most violent events, such as exploding stars.

03/01/09

Chuckling their way to a safer lab

There are many ways to deliver a clever play on words: deliberately with a nudge, coyly with a wink, or tossed nonchalantly into a conversation to trigger a delayed laugh—or a groan.

03/01/09

Cosmic weather gauges

Particle physics joins forces with other fields to look at two important factors shaping weather: temperatures high in the atmosphere and the dampness of the dirt beneath our feet.

12/01/08

Superconducting magnets

Today's MRI machines and particle accelerators wouldn’t exist without superconducting electromagnets, which generate powerful magnetic fields at a fraction of the energy cost of conventional electromagnets.