latest news

Conceptual illustration of a firehose shooting out particles

Explain it in 60 seconds: High-Luminosity LHC

02/26/25

Sarah Charley

The upgrade to the Large Hadron Collider will allow scientists to better study known phenomena and to search for new ones.

Image of yellow ruler background with moon and red and Plank graphics

07/11/17

A new model for standards

In an upcoming refresh, particle physics will define units of measurement such as the meter, the kilogram and the second.

Illustration of cards bouncing that looks like a win in a game of solitary online

07/07/17

Quirks of the arXiv

Sometimes, physics papers turn funny.

Photo from the back of a crowded conference room on the day of the Higgs announcement

07/03/17

When was the Higgs actually discovered?

The announcement on July 4 was just one part of the story. Take a peek behind the scenes of the discovery of the Higgs boson.

Illustration of a particle collision inside the Large Hadron Collider

06/30/17

What’s really happening during an LHC collision?

It’s less of a collision and more of a symphony.

06/27/17

The rise of LIGO’s space-studying super-team

The era of multi-messenger astronomy promises rich rewards—and a steep learning curve.

06/23/17

Howie Day records love song to physics

After the musician learned that grad students at CERN had created a parody of his 2004 single “Collide,” he flew to Switzerland to sing it at the LHC.

Yellow and red collage of ATLAS machine and students in classroom

06/22/17

African School works to develop local expertise

Universities in Africa are teaming up to offer free training to students interested in fundamental physics.

Image of stars and reddish, glowing clouds of dust at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy

06/20/17

A speed trap for dark matter, revisited

A NASA rocket experiment could use the Doppler effect to look for signs of dark matter in mysterious X-ray emissions from space.

View full archive