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12/01/07

Connecting with Africa

ATLAS, a particle physics experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, boasts 2000-plus members from 35 countries. But on a map showing where those members come from, one continent is almost mark-free: Africa.

12/01/07

Protecting the LHC from itself

Scientists at CERN have crafted the world’s most sophisticated machine protection system to save the LHC from itself.

12/01/07

The LHC by mail

Each year the European laboratory CERN welcomes tens of thousands of visitors. Now the lab can visit them back.

11/01/07

Dark energy

In the fall of 1997, I was leading the calibration and analysis of data gathered by the High-z Supernova Search Team, one of two teams of scientists —the other was the Supernova Cosmology Project—trying to determine the fate of our universe: Will it expand forever, or will it halt and contract, r

11/01/07

Free for all

The next big experiment in particle physics won’t need an accelerator, detector, or other big machine. It doesn’t even involve subatomic particles—unless you count the electrons that flow through electronic circuits, carrying bits of information from one human brain to the next.

11/01/07

On the trail of cosmic bullets

Do the most energetic particles in the universe come from supermassive black holes? New results from the Pierre Auger Observatory make that case.

11/01/07

Row, row, row...

Monica Dunford couldn’t stop swaying when she finally got out of the boat after 15 hours, 33 minutes, and 15 seconds of hard rowing. The physicist and her four teammates had just won the Tour du Leman, held Sept. 22.

11/01/07

DUSEL mine tour

In March 2007, members of a US National Science Foundation panel went on a whirlwind bus tour of potential sites for the Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory. Here’'s an account of that trip by Peter Fisher of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.