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From ABC7: Fermilab scientist Brad Benson talks about the South Pole Telescope’s role part in the Event Horizon Telescope. Scientists behind the Event Horizon Telescope recently revealed the first image ever made of a black hole, depicting its hot, shadowy edges where light bends around itself in a cosmic funhouse effect. Assembling data gathered by eight radio telescopes around the world, astronomers created the picture showing the violent neighborhood around a supermassive black hole, the light-sucking monsters of the universe theorized by Einstein more than a century ago and confirmed by observations for decades.

From WBEZ’s Morning Shift, April 10, 2019: WBEZ interviews Fermilab scientist Brad Benson about the recent unveiling of the first ever photograph of a black hole. The Event Horizon Telescope, a collaboration between more than 200 scientists using telescopes from around the world, shot photographs of a supermassive black hole in the galaxy M87.

A re-examination of a particle discovered in 2015 has scientists debating its true identity. A recent analysis by the LHCb collaboration at CERN raises questions about the identity of this pentaquark—and may have taken scientists back to square one in the search for a particle that could shed light on questions about color.

From CERN, March 19, 2019: DUNE co-spokesperson Stefan Soldner-Rembold talks the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment hosted at Fermilab, neutrinos and the global particle physics community’s efforts to understand this subtle particle.

From CNN, April 10, 2019: Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln explains the big news from the Event Horizon Telescope on its first direct observation of a black hole at the center of a galaxy named M87. M87 is a supergiant elliptical galaxy in the constellation Virgo.

From CNN, April 6, 2019: Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln explains a result from the GRAVITY collaboration, which put Einstein’s theory of relativity to the test, making measurements of light near a black hole.

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.