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Curiouser and curiouser: a riddle at the ALICE detector

12/09/25

Sarah Charley

In 2023, the ALICE experiment was ready for their best year yet, until a mysterious signal threatened everything. As the LHC wraps up its 2025 lead-ion run, physicists recall how they worked together to solve the puzzle.

07/01/09

Detectors shipped in cooking pots

Looking for an inexpensive and safe way to transport delicate particle detectors? Try pressure cookers and child safety seats.

07/01/09

The DUSEL cavern is getting restless

You can't feel it. Yet the moon's gravitational pull shifts the ground ever so slightly, creating “earth tides” that rhythmically raise and lower the ground.

07/01/09

It's cute! It's clean! It's a SLACmobile!

Plugged into a weatherproof outlet behind SLAC's Test Laboratory, what looks like an oversized green-and-silver go-cart waits with its load of tools and paint supplies.

07/01/09

This family tree has physics branches

Who is the grandfather of particle physics? Some might argue he is Otto Mencke, a German philosopher and scientist who received his doctorate from Leipzig University in 1688.

07/01/09

Growing a diverse workforce

When it comes to training, hiring, and retaining women and members of ethnic minorities, particle physics lags far behind other fields of science. Staffers at three national labs Fermilab, SLAC, and Brookhavenare attacking the problem at every level.

07/01/09

Unharmed in quake, Gran Sasso lab goes to the rescue

When an earthquake flattened buildings in a number of towns across central Italy, physicists turned their focus from research to rescue and rebuilding.

07/01/09

Dark Energy Camera scans ancient skies

Gazing into space, scientists wonder why the universe is expanding ever faster. What mysterious force is at work? By recording the light from hundreds of millions of galaxies from a mountaintop in Chile, they hope to find out what's going on.

07/01/09

Helium's shrinking bubble

Helium is the lifeblood of large particle accelerators. As the worlds supply dwindles, the particle physics community must take steps to preserve this precious commodity or learn to live without it.

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