The MiniBooNE experiment has detected far more electron neutrinos than predicted: a possible harbinger of a revolutionary new elementary particle called the sterile neutrino.
Trying to work out what dark energy really is (or if it even exists) requires accurate measurements, particularly of the rate at which the universe is expanding.
Nature provides three kinds of neutrinos. In the last ten years, physicists have gathered increasingly strong evidence for neutrino oscillations, the transformation of one kind of neutrino into another one.
Stepping onto the site of a physics laboratory, you might expect to see enormous accelerators, ultra-powerful supercomputers, or scientists in lab coats racing between experiments. At one lab, however, what you will actually see are goats.
When the 10th issue of symmetry magazine came out on October 12, the magazine's Web server crashed unexpectedly. Looking at the Web traffic statistics, the reason became obvious: symmetry had been "slashdotted."
Deep in the woods of Minnesota, close to the Canadian border, particle physicists hope to construct the next neutrino experiment on a secluded piece of land, fit for studying a lightweight particle that was, itself, once ignored.
When physicists organized the first Particles and Nuclei International Conference in 1963, nobody thought that the acronym PANIC could cause trouble in getting the word out about the meeting. That was before the now-common use of email.
Students around the world are familiar with the periodic table of elements, a chart that outlines how protons, neutrons, and electrons form more than 100 different types of atoms.
Few periods in history were shaped by science as much as the 1950s. The Cold War was in full swing. The space race was finishing its first lap with Sputnik's launch. The Manhattan Project remained fresh in everyone's minds.