August 2012

August 2012

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  August 31, 2012
  signal to background: A love of science, conveyed through YouTube
  When Michael Wilson, 29, got interested in string theory, he had a very Millennial response: He decided to make a music video about it.
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  August 29, 2012
  breaking: Summer school gives African students glimpse into lives in physics
  This month, about 30 instructors and 50 students traveled from around Africa and the rest of the world to gather in Ghana for three and a half weeks of training in physics and computing.
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  August 27, 2012
  breaking: Pierre Auger Observatory tests particle knowledge beyond reach of LHC
  Scientists at the Pierre Auger Observatory recently tested the theory that governs the behavior of protons at energies inaccessible at the Large Hadron Collider.
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  August 23, 2012
  breaking: How to grow a universe – just add a supercomputer
  Researchers have created the most realistic simulation of cosmic evolution to date.
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  August 22, 2012
  breaking: Fermilab retires iconic Cockcroft-Walton generators
  Today Fermilab's iconic Cockroft-Walton generators will send out their last beam.
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  August 21, 2012
  breaking: Astrophysicists discover natural particle collider in space
  This summer, particle astrophysicists studied a supernova remnant located about 3000 light years away and discovered what is best described as a particle collider in space.
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  August 10, 2012
  breaking: Proposed neutrino experiment bounces back, ready to move on
  Thanks to a new phased construction plan, the proposed Long Baseline Neutrino Experiment is back on track and ready to advance to the next stage of the U.S. Department of Energy approval process.
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  August 8, 2012
  breaking: LHCb experiment collects record amount of data
  The LHCb experiment at CERN has collect a record amount of data this year, already surpassing the amount it collected in all of 2011.
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  August 2, 2012
  contest: Symmetry readers find the Higgs boson
  Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider weren’t the only ones to discover a Higgs-like particle. When we asked symmetry breaking readers to send us their own evidence of a Higgs boson, they sent a massive outpouring of creative candidates.
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  August 2, 2012
  breaking: Pier Oddone to retire as Fermilab director
  The Fermi Research Alliance (FRA) Board of Directors, which manages and operates Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, announced that Fermilab Director Pier Oddone has decided to retire after eight years at the helm of America’s leading particle physics laboratory.
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  August 1, 2012
  signal to background: Virtual tourist
  About 80,000 people visit the Large Hadron Collider each year. Now, thanks to the Web, thousands more can make the visit—without ever leaving their hometowns.
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  August 1, 2012
  feature: Voyage into the unknown
  In the deep, dark quantum sea known as the Intensity Frontier, particle physicists expect to find everything from exotic new particles to new insights into the evolution of our universe. They are likely to discover the completely unexpected, changing our understanding of matter, energy, space and time.
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  August 1, 2012
  feature: Particle physics tames big data
  As science produces an ever-growing flood of information, researchers in many fields struggle with how to collect, store, manage and distribute “big data.” Perhaps they could learn a thing or two from particle physics, a field that's been awash in enormous data sets for decades.
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  August 1, 2012
  deconstruction: Big data
  Big science takes both big data and big cooperation. For the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, storing, analyzing and accessing 25 petabytes of data each year requires a worldwide effort that spans more than 100 institutions in 36 countries. Here’s how it works.