From Syracuse University, Dec. 20, 2018: Collaborators at Syracuse University are contributing components for Fermilab’s Short-Baseline Near Detector, one of three particle detectors in the Short-Baseline Neutrino program.

‘Tis the season for friends, family and funny physics fill-ins. Here at Symmetry, we’ve taken a page from Mad Libs, those short stories designed to trick you into learning parts of speech, and created some science-themed Lab Libs (to trick you into learning science). Simply fill in the blanks to create original science stories.

From Quality Digest Live, Dec. 14, 2018: In this 10-minute video, the Coordinate Metrology Society sits down with Fermilab geodesist Jana Barker, who talks about her educational background, her work at the lab, and her passion for metrology.

Agencies in the United States and France have signed statements expressing interest to work together on the development and production of technical components for PIP-II, a major particle accelerator project with substantial international contributions. In addition, the French agencies also plan to collaborate on DUNE, an international flagship science project that will unlock the mysteries of neutrinos.

From HostingAdvice.com, Dec. 14, 2018: Fermilab scientist Marc Paterno is quoted in this article on how Fermilab raising the bar on innovative and cost-effective computing solutions that help researchers explore high-energy physics. As a repository for massive sets of scientific data, Fermilab is at the forefront of new computing approaches, including HEPCloud, a paradigm for provisioning computing resources.

The upcoming Short-Baseline Near Detector at Fermilab continues scientists’ search for evidence of a hypothetical particle, the sterile neutrino. Collaborators around the world are participating in the detector’s construction. Its first critical components recently arrived from partner institutions. When complete, SBND will be the third and final detector in Fermilab’s Short-Baseline Neutrino Program.

REFUGES, started by physicist Tino Nyawelo, aims to give refugees and other underrepresented groups the tools to succeed in STEM. Although the program is focused on increasing diversity in STEM disciplines, the overall goal is to address the academic and cultural difficulties that refugee youth face in Utah.

From Futurism, Dec. 11, 2018: No matter how confident we are that it’s out there, dark matter continues to evade our brightest physicists. Now, yet another experiment designed to pick up on signs of dark matter’s presence has turned up nothing at all. Fermilab’s Dan Hooper comments on results from the COSINE-100 experiment.

From Berkeley Lab, Dec. 4, 2018: Key components of Berkeley Lab’s Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument are installed after months of planning, prep work. A team at Fermilab built the corrector, hexapod, and other top-end support structures. The structures are designed to align the lenses with an accuracy of tens of microns (millionths of a meter) – similar to the width of the thinnest human hair.

From Tech Princess, Dec. 5, 2018: L’Italia firma l’accordo internazionale di collaborazione scientifica e tecnologica con gli Stati Uniti per la realizzazione del PIP-II, un nuovo acceleratore lineare di protoni per l’esperimento DUNE.