Advanced Invention

A global collaboration of scientists is preparing to start up the greatest particle physics experiment in history

• The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the biggest and most complicated particle physics experiment ever seen, is nearing completion and is scheduled to start operating this year.
• The LHC will accelerate bunches of protons to the highest energies ever generated by a machine, colliding them head-on 30 million times a second, with each collision spewing out thousands of particles at nearly the speed of light.
• Physicists expect the LHC to bring about a new era of particle physics in which major conundrums about the composition of matter and energy in the universe will be resolved.

You could think of it as the biggest, most powerful microscope in the history of science. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), now being completed underneath a circle of countryside and villages a short drive from Geneva, will peer into the physics of the shortest distances (down to a nano-nanometer) and the highest energies ever probed. For a decade or more, particle physicists have been eagerly awaiting a chance to explore that domain, sometimes called the tera­scale because of the energy range involved: a trillion electron volts, or 1 TeV. Significant new physics is expected to occur at these energies, such as the elusive Higgs particle (believed to be responsible for imbuing other particles with mass) and the particle that constitutes the dark matter that makes up most of the material in the universe.

Scientists at Penn State have developed a new computational method that they say will help them to understand how life began on Earth. The team’s method has the potential to trace the evolutionary histories of proteins all the way back to either cells or viruses, thus settling the debate once and for all over which of these life forms came first.

The baobab tree represents one of the most ancient species of life on the planet. Scientists have investigated ancient and highly divergent proteins, called retroelements, whose evolutionary histories hold keys to uncovering the origins of life. (Credit: Randen Patterson and Damian van Rossum, Penn State)

"We have just begun to tap the potential power of this method," said Randen Patterson, a Penn State assistant professor of biology and one of the project’s leaders. "We believe, if it is possible at all, that it is within our grasp to determine whether viruses evolved from cells or vice-versa."

Two chemicals create a glowing (and poisonous) mixture that’s a window into the weird world of quantum physics

True Color: The release of photons that results from the combination of hydrogen peroxide and chlorine causes a vivid orange-red glow.

Before the discovery in the 1920s of quantum mechanics—laws that explain the way the world works on the very small scale of atoms and electrons—the fact that bleach and peroxide glow when mixed would have seemed like just another chemical reaction that gives off light, like fire or fireflies. But it’s actually a glimpse into the impossible.

15 industrial-design graduate students dream and design big for NASA

“Design for extreme environments” sounds like a new cable show, but it’s actually a class at RISD that focuses on building habitats for truly challenging locations—like the moon. Last fall, NASA asked the students to design a mobile dwelling for its next manned mission to the moon, scheduled for 2020. “NASA wanted a rover that could house four people for two weeks in 24-hour sunlight,” says student Zack Kamen.

Swifter suits, shoes that lean and gaming the pistol are just the beginning of the tech innovations giving track the runaround this summer

Every four years, we watch. We marvel at badminton, wonder about the modern decathlon and proudly pause for synchronized swimming. With more than 300 gold medals awarded across 37 disciplines, the next two weeks of our lives should be impressively unproductive. To aid in your immersion, we continue with our new series: “know your Olympic sport.” It’s part reminder that people actually get medals for this stuff (see: trampoline gymnastics) and part introduction to the science behind the sports.