Lead bricks and radiation gloves normally indicate a need to protect lab workers from radioactivity. For a laboratory at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, however, the opposite is true.
Even in the company of a two-story nose-picking machine, human cupcakes, battling robots, and power-tool drag races, the giant Tesla coil stands out. Maybe it's the loud buzz and crackle of artificial lightning bolts, writhing like fiery serpents from the top of the thing.
Berkeley Lab physicist Hitoshi Murayama and SLAC physicist Herman Winick have provided audio segments for One-Minute How-To, a Web site that provides 60-second explanations ranging from "How to write a flawless email," to "How to organize a river clean-up," to "How to sto
Chip Edstrom routinely tidies the Fermilab Main Control Room to stay awake while working as an accelerator operator on the owl shift. One night, while cleaning equipment and peeling off decades-old labels, Edstrom decided to replace the old ones with fresh ones. In Russian.
Sputnik, the first satellite sent into Earth orbit, was launched October 4, 1957, my 11th birthday, so I remember the date. It was also the first time I found my father seemingly interested in science and technology.
Ken McMullen says he does not feel comfortable with categories. That's why when, given a choice between defining himself as a painter or a film-maker, he prefers to be called an artist instead.
In August 2006, after almost a year of preparation, we packed up all our belongings to move from Batavia, Illinois, to Geneva, Switzerland. We were following our particle physics careers from Fermilab to CERN, the European particle physics lab.
Mike Herlihy is active in the village of North Aurora, near Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and west of Chicago. Hes been a village trustee for six years, belongs to the Lions Club and served on an advisory committee to evaluate a proposed freeway.
Inside, the auditorium at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, was packed and humming in anticipation. Outside, a man waved a sign at stragglers hurrying for the door: "Need One Ticket for String Theory Debate."
What is this stuff that fills the vacuum of space, accelerates the expansion of the universe, and accounts for 70 percent of everything? More than two dozen experiments aim to find out.
Is there room in the high-energy physics community for families? I once had a promising graduate student named Alice, but she decided she wanted a family.
Scientists have sought to create better medical imaging techniques ever since Wilhelm Röntgens 1896 discovery that X-rays can reveal bones and other anatomical structures in a noninvasive way.
