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From NPR’s Here & Now, March 19, 2019: Fermilab is a global center for research into a tiny particle that could help answer some of the biggest questions in physics: the neutrino. Neutrinos have no electrical charge and almost no mass, but they’re everywhere. Fermilab Director Nigel Lockyer and Fermilab Deputy Chief Research Officer Bonnie Fleming talk about the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, visit the NOvA experiment and discuss the benefits of fundamental research.

A Swedish university tapped the founding director of CERN’s artist-in-residence program to curate a new art exhibit inspired by physics. The pieces are not literal translations of physics concepts to other media or illustrations of physics principles or phenomena. Physics was a spark for the artists, sometimes very clearly and sometimes more tangentially.

On Friday, March 15, Fermilab broke ground on the PIP-II accelerator project, joined by dignitaries from the United States and international partners on the project. From left: Senator Tammy Duckworth (IL), Senator Dick Durbin (IL), Rep. Sean Casten (IL-6), Rep. Robin Kelly (IL-2), Rep. Bill Foster (IL-11), Fermilab Director Nigel Lockyer, Rep. Lauren Underwood (IL-14), Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, DOE Under Secretary for Science Paul Dabbar, Fermilab PIP-II Project Director Lia Merminga, DOE Associate Director for High Energy Physics Jim Siegrist, University of Chicago President Robert Zimmer, Consul General of India Neeta Bhushan, British Consul General John Saville, Consul General of Italy Giuseppe Finocchiaro, Consul General of France Guillaume Lacroix, DOE Fermi Site Office Manager Mike Weis, DOE PIP-II Federal Project Director Adam Bihary and Consul General of Poland Piotr Janicki. Photo: Reidar Hahn

On March 15, Fermilab broke ground on PIP-II, a major new particle accelerator project at Fermilab. Dignitaries from the United States and international partners celebrated the start of the project at the groundbreaking ceremony. The PIP-II accelerator will power the long-term future of the laboratory’s research program, including the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment and a suite of on-site experiments.

From INFN, March 15, 2019: Si è tenuta oggi al Fermilab, negli Stati Uniti, la cerimonia di posa della prima pietra di uno dei più importanti progetti per il futuro della fisica, in cui l’Italia porta un contributo tecnologico e scientifico di primo piano. Si tratta del progetto PIP-II (Proton Improvement Plan II) per la realizzazione di un nuovo acceleratore lineare superconduttore, lungo 215 metri.

From ABC7, March 15, 2019: Fermilab broke ground on a new particle accelerator project Friday.
The new machine will power cutting-edge physics experiments for years to come by allowing scientists to study invisible particles called neutrinos, which may hold the key to cosmic mysteries.

What if you could accelerate particles to higher energies in only a few meters? This is the alluring potential of an up-and-coming technology called plasma wakefield acceleration. Scientists around the world are testing ways to further boost the power of particle accelerators while drastically shrinking their size.

From Discover, March 12, 2019: Fermilab, along with the Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota, is starting a new project called the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, or DUNE. The goal is to track and study shadowy neutrinos like never before. Fermilab scientists Deborah Harris and Angela Fava discuss the experiment.

From Quanta Magazine, March 11, 2019: The latest AI algorithms are probing the evolution of galaxies, calculating quantum wave functions, discovering new chemical compounds and more. Is there anything that scientists do that can’t be automated? Fermilab scientist Brian Nord comments on using artificial neural networks to study the cosmos.

Growing up in South Africa, the first language that science writer Sibusiso Biyela learned was Zulu, the most common mother tongue in the country. But the scientific content he consumed as a child—movies, cartoons and documentaries—was in English. Biyela aims to bring science back to South Africa’s Zulu communities.