Skip to main content

latest news

09/01/07

Particles in the sky

What is the universe made of? What are matter, energy, space, and time? How did we get here and where are we going? In particle physics, the classic place to look for answers is in giant accelerators where particles collide. But nature also provides a wealth of data.

09/01/07

Computing center in a box

Stanford Linear Accelerator Center's newest computing center arrived in a standard 20-foot-long shipping container.

09/01/07

BaBar is a video star

Search for “BaBar” on YouTube.com, and you'll get a long list of links to a 1980s TV series based on an animated elephant. But a surprise is hidden among the cartoons—a six-minute film shot in the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center's BaBar control room.

09/01/07

A night of wonder

Men and women wearing gaudy dresses, looking for customers under garish neon signs—this is a common sight in Kabuki-cho, Shinjuku, a famous entertainment and red-light district in Tokyo, Japan.

09/01/07

Fermilab's path to the future

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois has a challenge: how will it maintain its central role as a place where particle accelerators produce groundbreaking discoveries in physics?

08/01/07

Plutonium

Atomic element 94 was named “plutonium” after Pluto, the ninth planet from the Sun (now demoted to “minor planet” status.) By tradition, plutonium should have been assigned the symbol “Pl,” but co-discoverer Glenn Seaborg gave it the symbol “Pu” as

08/01/07

Number crunching, redefined

Supercomputers can play chess, map DNA, and aid in the study of dark energy. But recently they were unleashed on a bold new frontier: optimizing the production of potato chips.

08/01/07

Raising MoNA

In the olden days, farmers would travel for miles through the American countryside to help neighbors raise a barn.