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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.

04/01/08

Persis Drell: New SLAC director grapples with change

Layoffs, budget cuts, a call for new vision in high-energy physics -- in her first months as director of Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Persis Drell had a lot to navigate.

04/01/08

A yen for dough like mom made

Many high-energy physics laboratories have athletic clubs, music clubs, or chess clubs, but a bread-tasting club? Only in Japan. And only at Koo Energy Ken, KEK, outside of Tsukuba.

04/01/08

From atom smashers to X-ray movies

When particle accelerators gave birth to the powerful X-ray microscopes known as synchrotrons, they revolutionized the study of virtually every field of science.

04/01/08

Geek cruise

For most people, a Caribbean cruise is an opportunity for sun-splashed daydreaming, guiltless beach reading, and lackadaisical dips in warm, shimmering waters—in other words, complete mental repose.

04/01/08

Secrets of the pyramids

In a boon for archaeology, particle physicists plan to probe ancient structures for tombs and other hidden chambers. The key to the technology is the muon, a cousin of the electron that rains harmlessly from the sky.

04/01/08

Numb3rs to DZero

On the hit television show Numb3rs, where crimes are solved with math and science, cosmologist and theoretical physicist Larry Fleinhardt has lived in a monastery and flown into space searching for a sense of purpose. The next step takes him to Fermilab.

"Outsider" scientists await approval for their creations in a pretend office setting

04/01/08

Outsider science

Amateur scientists make important contributions in a number of fields, from astronomy to ornithology. But very few have the background needed to succeed in high-energy physics.

04/01/08

One more physicist goes to Congress

Upon becoming the third physicist in the 110th US Congress, Bill Foster called his election “a pretty successful experiment.”

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