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Muons: Emblems of discovery

01/13/26

Once a surprise to physicists, these particles are useful tools inside and outside the realm of particle physics. 

03/01/06

Where do they go?

High-energy physics labs worldwide are neighbors with numerous butterfly species–from the Common Blue (Polyommatus icarus, photo) found near CERN to the Pipevine Swallowtail (Battus philenor) that shares the Bay Area with SLAC. But where do butterflies go in the winter?

03/01/06

Burl Skaggs: In the clouds

Burl Skaggs lives in a two-story house in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Each workday he has breakfast, kisses his wife Carol goodbye, and goes down to his extra-large garage.

03/01/06

Nuclear drive-in

Standing outside in the dark and the cold on the east coast of Scotland, 500 people let out a communal gasp as a huge screen was illuminated on the side of the Torness nuclear power station.

03/01/06

Quarks

Quarks are fundamental particles found in the matter all around us.

02/01/06

Supernova 1987A

Upon arriving for work at the laboratory of Masatoshi Koshiba at the University of Tokyo, Yoji Totsuka handed me a fax telling of a supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud, picked up by optical telescopes.

02/01/06

On the trails of Indiana Jones

Innovative 21st century technology at Argonne National Laboratory is taking researchers back to the 19th century, the 16th century, and even the third millennium BCE.

02/01/06

Battle of the boxes

Last October, the front of the SLAC computing center looked like an elaborate children's war game in progress. Ad hoc piles of polystyrene, plastic, wooden pallets, and cardboard created an image of bunkers and trenches in a plastic post-industrial landscape.