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The prodigious amount of data produced at the Large Hadron Collider presents a major challenge for data analysis. Coffea, a Python package developed by Fermilab researchers, speeds up computation and helps scientists work more efficiently. Around a dozen international LHC research groups now use Coffea, which draws on big data techniques used outside physics.

Roshanda Spillers is a lifelong student. With five academic degrees under her belt and more to come, she’s one of the vital lab staff who make sure that the experiments’ electronics are in working order and that the particle accelerators are well-maintained. A new grandmother who’s learning piano while going to school, she encourages those who love science to pursue their dreams relentlessly.

Fermilab scientist and University of Chicago professor of astronomy and astrophysics Craig Hogan gives perspective on how the Holometer program aims at a tiny scale — the Planck scale — to help answer one of the universe’s most basic questions: Why does everything appear to happen at definite times and places? He contextualizes the results and offers optimism for future researchers.

The U.S. Department of Energy has given the U.S. High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider Accelerator Upgrade Project approval to move full-speed-ahead in building and delivering components for the HL-LHC, specifically, cutting-edge magnets and accelerator cavities that will enable more rapid-fire collisions at the collider. The collider upgrades will allow physicists to study particles such as the Higgs boson in greater detail and reveal rare new physics phenomena. The U.S. collaborators on the project may now move into production mode.

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Symmetry writer Sarah Charley answers life and relationship questions through the lens of fundamental physics. Instead of using analogies from elsewhere in life to explain science, she’ll use physics analogies to explore human nature. This time, she tackles unwanted gifts, when to give up on a dream and how friendships might be like Newtonian mechanics.