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From Daily Herald, April 8, 2019: On Wednesday, April 17, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., Fermilab will offer high school students a valuable opportunity to ask those questions in person. The annual STEM Career Expo, held in the atrium of Wilson Hall, will put those students face to face with people actually doing the jobs they will be applying for in the coming years.

Some theorists have taken to designing their own experiments to broaden the search for dark matter. The trend of theorists proposing experiments has become so common that it’s almost expected of new students entering the field. The hope is that flooding the field with new ideas could finally lead to the discovery of dark matter.

From Atlas Obscura, April 2, 2019: In February 1971, physicists at National Accelerator Laboratory began testing the biggest machine in the world: a ring-shaped, 200-billion-electronvolt proton synchrotron particle accelerator. The stakes were high. They soon ran into a perplexing problem: Magnets that were essential to its operation kept failing. The low-tech solution proposed for this high-tech trouble? A ferret named Felicia.

Students come into science from a variety of backgrounds, facing a variety of circumstances. The Fisk-Vanderbilt Master’s-to-Ph.D. Bridge Program, a partnership between Fisk and Vanderbilt universities in Nashville, is meant to take that into account. It helps students overcome external hurdles to reach their potential in Ph.D.-level STEM research. Meet three scientists connected by the program.

Video games and physics have more in common than you might think. Both require a willingness to approach a problem from multiple different directions. Read three ways to succeed when dealing with both subatomic and virtual realms.

Respondents to Symmetry’s survey about what it’s like to earn a Ph.D. in particle physics or astrophysics offer their views of the experience. Nearly 2,000 people worldwide complete the scientific rite of passage each year. Yet for many people, the process remains mysterious.
The more than 300 responses to Symmetry’s survey described a challenging, multifaceted experience that goes far beyond job training, and even beyond the scientific goal of studying the fundamental nature of the universe.

From WDCB’s First Light, March 24, 2019: Brian O’Keefe interviews Fermilab PIP-II Project Director Lia Merminga about PIP-II, an accelerator project critical to the lab’s future. Fermilab broke ground on PIP-II on March 15. Learn about how PIP-II will power the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, hosted by Fermilab, and the lab’s experimental program in this 15-minute piece.

From Gizmodo, March 20, 2019: The Proton Improvement Plan II, formally approved by the Department of Energy last summer, includes plans for the highest-energy linear particle accelerator to accelerate a continuous stream of protons — a central component to the American particle physics laboratory. Fermilab PIP-II Project Director Lia Merminga is quoted in this article.

From University of Chicago news, March 15, 2019: Fermilab officially broke ground March 15 on a major new particle accelerator project that will power cutting-edge physics experiments for many decades to come. The new 700-foot-long linear accelerator, part of the laboratory’s Proton Improvement Plan II, will be the first accelerator project built in the United States with significant contributions from international partners.

From Space Daily, March 19, 2019: A major new physics facility at Fermilab is expected to have UK technology at its heart and lead to significant spin-off opportunities for UK companies.
The new PIP-II particle accelerator will power the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, which aims to address key questions about the origins and structure of the universe. The UK has committed a 65 million-pound investment to help build and operate DUNE, PIP-II and technology for the neutrino beam.