News

Two crew members stand with the drill underground.

Construction crews will excavate around 800,000 tons of rock to make space for the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment. But first, teams must carve out a quarter-mile-high ventilation shaft.

From DOE.gov, August 2, 2021: The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced a plan to provide $100 million over the next four years for new research in high energy physics. Funding will support research and experiments that explore the frontiers of high energy physics. This includes Fermilab’s Muon g-2 experiment which aims to search for signs of physics beyond the standard model, scientists’ current best theory to describe the most basic building blocks of the universe.

From Noooz Hawk News (Santa Barbara, CA), August 1, 2021: Who knew data could be so beautiful? Fermilab’s 2021-22 artist-in-residence Mark Hirsch is working with scientists to gain inspiration on the mysteries of matter, energy, space and time.
Georgia Schwender, Fermilab’s art gallery curator said Hirsch is exploring ways that coding and art can combine to convey complex topics like science and math.

A new fellowship created by Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory will provide engineering students in underrepresented groups in STEM immersive learning experiences on world-leading particle accelerator projects at Fermilab, starting with the new PIP-II accelerator that will power the world’s most intense neutrino beam. Applications for 2022 open September 2021.

From CNN, August 2, 2021: Don Lincoln describes the mastery of physics Olympic athletes have as demonstrated by their physical feats. Read more about how Olympic athletes apply the principles of physics and use amazing amounts of energy, skill and precision to run, throw a discus, balance on the balance beam or launch the javelin.

From Next Gov, July 26, 2021: Did you know Illinois Rep. Bill Foster is the only PhD physicist in Congress? Recently, he proposed additional funding for the Restore and Modernize Our National Laboratories Act of 2021. He worked at Fermilab for over two decades and said, “the labs have led the way not only in developing breakthrough technologies—but also in commercializing them.”

From the New York Times, July 28, 2021: On Wednesday, a group of laboratories including Fermilab and major scientific publishers, announced an agreement that aims to simplify the process of applying new names to old papers for transgender scientists by shifting much of the administrative labor from the researcher to the laboratory.

Portrait of a man with dark hair and a short beard and mustache wearing glasses, a brown corduroy jacket, a red and blue plaid shirt. His hands are interlaced on the table in front of him. In the lower left corner, the keyboard of a laptop peeks out. He is in front of a starry background.

What if human analysis, combined with machine learning, could advance the study of the universe? The U.S. Department of Energy awarded Fermilab scientist Brian Nord a $2.5 million Early Career Research Award to explore that possibility. Nord has envisioned a new hybrid data-analysis method to undertake the project. It integrates the strengths of artificial intelligence and interpretations of statistics in ways that could potentially advance the studies of cosmology.