External

From Gizmodo, Jan. 23, 2020: Fermilab scientist Peter Kasper guides Gizmodo writer and birder Ryan Mandelbaum around the Fermilab site to look for birds.

From STFC, Jan. 23, 2020: Representatives from UK Research and Innovation and the U.S. Department of Energy have signed an agreement that outlines £65 million worth of contributions that UK research institutions and scientists will make to the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment and related projects hosted by Fermilab. DUNE will study the properties of mysterious particles called neutrinos, which could help explain more about how the universe works and why matter exists at all.

Science Storytellers brings together two groups of innately curious individuals: scientists and children. In the Science Storytellers program, kids act as science journalists interviewing real-life scientists. Afterward, they share what they learned. Research shows that transmitting scientific knowledge to the public is important, but actually shifting someone’s opinions requires engaging with them in a two-way dialogue and treating them as a whole, complicated person with knowledge, experiences and influences of their own.

As technology improves, scientists discover new ways to search for theorized dark matter particles called axions. Four decades after they were first theorized, axions are enjoying a moment in the sun, and may even be on the verge of detection, poised to solve two major problems in physics at once.

The first undergraduate on the Event Horizon Telescope to receive junior collaborator status thrives in the unknown. In his nearly two years with the team, he has developed computer libraries for data analysis and modeling, made movies of black holes and assisted with weather prediction.

From Scientific American, February 2020: Collaborators from eight institutions have come together to turn a mine shaft at Fermilab into the world’s largest atom interferometer — MAGIS-100. The researchers plan to assemble the instrument in 2021 and start harnessing lasers to expand submicroscopic strontium atoms into macroscale “atom waves” soon after. Fermilab scientist Rob Plunkett comments on the mind-boggling experiment.

From SLAC, Jan. 13, 2020: Matching up maps of matter and light from the Dark Energy Survey, hosted at Fermilab, and Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope may help astrophysicists understand what causes a faint cosmic gamma-ray glow.

From PBS Space Time, Jan. 6, 2020: Why is there something rather than nothing? The answer may be found in the weakest particle in the universe: the neutrino. In this 10-minute video, PBS Space Time host Matt O’Dowd and Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln explore the mysteries of the neutrino and how Fermilab is tackling them. The elusive neutrino may hold powerful secrets, from the unification of the forces of nature to the biggest question of all: Why is there something rather than nothing?

Underneath the vast, frozen landscape of the South Pole lies IceCube, a gigantic observatory dedicated to finding ghostly subatomic particles called neutrinos. Neutrinos stream through Earth from all directions, but they are lightweight, abundant and hardly interact with their surroundings. A forthcoming upgrade to the IceCube detector will provide deeper insights into the elusive particles.

From CNN, Jan. 1, 2020: Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln discusses how Betelgeuse, a star in the constellation Orion and one of the brightest stars in the heavens, has observably dimmed in recent months, a sign that some astronomers interpret as a warning that the star will explode in one of the most powerful and dramatic events in all of the cosmos — a supernova.