Tona Kunz

October 1, 2011
signal to background: Science worth trudging for

Would you walk 10,000 steps for a piece of glass the size of a deck of cards? What if that piece of glass were part of an astrophysics experiment to warn people about potentially deadly asteroids zooming toward Earth and make a 3D map of the universe?
October 1, 2011
signal to background: The geekiest engagement ever

Dave Mosher wanted his wedding proposal to go off with a bang. A big bang.
October 1, 2011
feature: Now playing: Reality. In 3D

Could your life be a 3D movie? A new Fermilab experiment aims to put on the special glasses and find out.

May 1, 2011
signal to background: Disaster brings physics family closer

A day after the devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, with strong aftershocks still testing surviving buildings, Japanese residents and physicists were offering beds, food, and rides to stranded foreign physicists.
May 1, 2011
day in the life: Science fest

Science fest feeds hunger for knowledge—hammering nails with a banana to spark interest in science and technology
May 1, 2011
deconstruction: Dark Energy Camera goes to Chile

Doing big science takes big effort and big cooperation. Building and installing one of the world''s largest digital cameras to conduct the most extensive galaxy survey to date requires scientists and manufacturers from across the globe. Researchers from 26 institutions enlisted the help of 129 companies in the United States and about half a dozen foreign ones to fabricate the often one-of-a-kind components for the Dark Energy Camera.

February 1, 2011
signal to background: Timmy the monkey goes to Fermilab

Visitors often go bananas over Fermilab, but they rarely bring monkeys along.

October 1, 2010
feature: Community + laboratory

Fermilab has joined up with local residents to think about the best ways for the lab to serve not only science, but also the surrounding area.

August 20, 2010
signal to background: Family ties run deep

Mark Hanhardt spent his childhood exploring caverns and watching his dad, who was a miner, come home from work covered in dust. Still, he had no interest in working underground. His dad, Jim, had instilled in him a love of science, and he planned instead to mine the mysteries of the stars and the universe.
August 1, 2010
signal to background: Fan to Leon: Please sign my Higgs boson

Who would you drive 10½ hours to see? The Grateful Dead? The Dalai Lama? What about an old, friendly guy who reads a lot and is really good at physics?

June 1, 2010
signal to background: Sharing pizza across the Pacific

Monitoring a particle detector on the midnight shift can have a limited upside: the food.
June 1, 2010
signal to background: National Lab Day puts scientists in the classroom

Pier Oddone wandered past students who were setting up electrical circuits and asked how many of them were considering careers in science. Half raised their hands. “What about a career in physics?” he asked. All but two hands dropped.

April 1, 2010
signal to background: A recycling tale that's hard to top

There's luck, and then there is LUCK. Brenna Flaugher has the latter.
April 1, 2010
signal to background: Around the world in eight goofy minutes

Many a college student has built a room around a sturdy coffee table made from a cast-off wooden cable spool. But when two University of Wisconsin graduate students went to the South Pole they found spools put to a different use: as chariot wheels

February 1, 2010
signal to background: Plans for science center in quake-damaged L'Aquila

Many towns have public science centers. But it's difficult to think of one so close to the geographic, spiritual, and cultural heart of a city as one being planned in L'Aquila, Italy.

December 1, 2009
deconstruction: Fermilab rap

For a growing number of so-called Nerdcore rappers, the message is that people need to support basic research and math and science education if they want to hand future generations a nation worth bragging about.

November 30, 2009
signal to background: May the fundamental forces be with you

A long time ago in a national laboratory far, far away some physicists looked around their workplace and thought of dark forces. Not dark matter; not dark energy; but the ultimate force from the dark side: Darth Vader.

October 1, 2009
signal to background: Ski champion's wish comes true at CERN

She could take her pick of extreme adventures—rock climbing, skydiving, trekking through some exotic wilderness. The Swiss TV show Sportpanorama gave Dominique Gisin, winner of two International Ski Federation World Cup downhill victories in 2009, the chance to do anything she'd like. She chose to visit CERN.
October 1, 2009
signal to background: Science Express pulls a carload of particle physics

When designers laid out their vision for an educational train called the Science Express, they almost left particle physics standing on the platform.

August 1, 2009
signal to background: A scrub+ for SNO+

Imagine a house-sized acrylic fishbowl inside a giant, shiny, disco-ball-like sphere, suspended in a cavern as tall as a 10-story building. Now imagine climbing around inside that pitch-dark fishbowl with a squeegee and a flashlight.

symmetry magazine