For the past 20 years, more than 40 fixed-target experiments at Fermilab using Tevatron beams of protons also have helped keep the Tri-Cities moving. The 20th anniversary of Tevatron, a technology involving silicon microstrip detectors that was first used to send a beam from the Energy Doubler apparatus, was celebrated by scientists in 2003, said Mike Witherell, who was there since the beginning of the high-level experiments. The research is done to understand pions, muons, photons, hyperons and neutrinos, and to expand humankind's knowledge of particles and forces that move them.
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From The Washington Times, December 31, 2003
Internet creator Berners-Lee knighted

British physicist Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web -- or at least better access to it -- has been awarded a knighthood in London. Berners-Lee, 48, was named in the New Year's Honors List for "services to the Internet" -- creating the system that has revolutionized computer use across the globe. He devised the system in his spare time in 1991 while working as a researcher at the European particle research laboratory Cern, which is based in Switzerland.
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From the Courier News in Elgin, December 31, 2003
Making science accessible: Hadron therapy lecture is first
By Mike Danahey

Arlene Lennox

Wilson Hall on the campus of Fermilab can seem a bit ominous on a drab winter evening. As dusk fades to black, the building's lights tower alone on the vast acreage, beckoning for who knows what scientific purposes. For those willing to visit, though, Fermilab can be an inviting place, not Frankenstein's lab, a place where you might even learn something. To that end, making science more accessible is one of the goals of a lecture series in Wilson Hall's Ramsey Auditorium.

In November, Arlene Lennox, the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in elementary physics from the University of Notre Dame, gave a talk on hadron therapy for cancer treatment.
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From The New York Times, December 30, 2003
Demolition Derby of Physics Jars Loose Clues on Subatomic Glue
By James Glanz

Particle physicists are known as the demolition crews of the very small, smashing tiny bits of matter together to find the even tinier bits that they are made of. So it may come as a surprise that the field has recently found a powerful new engine of discovery: gluing it all back together again, sometimes in weird ways that seldom occur in nature, if ever. The glue linking these discoveries is the "strong force," which is normally relegated to holding together quarks, the building blocks of humdrum particles like protons and neutrons. But theorists have long suspected that the strong force has a wild side.
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From Tech Central Station, December 30, 2003
Things to Look For in 2004
By Kenneth Silber

Leap years have a certain appeal, with their combination of presidential elections, Summer Olympics, and an extra day of life. Here is a selective guide to some of the more interesting events involving science and technology that are in prospect for 2004:

Neutrino Mass. Neutrinos are ghost-like subatomic particles that interact little with other forms of matter (as you read this, countless neutrinos are passing through your body). The Fermi National Accelerator Lab is spearheading the NuMI-MINOS project, to determine whether neutrinos have mass.
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From the Miami Herald, December 24, 2003:
Santa's speed? It must be gas.

Arnold Pompos

By Seth Borenstein

Scientists think they have figured out how Santa Claus does it. Santa can zip around the world at a speed that, according to Einstein's theory of relativity, should turn Rudolph's nose a blurry blue or warp time and space.

Arnold Pompos, a physics researcher at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, five years ago came up with a slightly different version.
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From DOE Pulse, December 22, 2003
SLAC's Trickle injection technique yields flood of BaBar data

PEP-II collider at SLAC

A new technique for increasing luminosity at SLAC's PEP-II B-Factory looks promising. The former integrated luminosity record, 396 inverse picobarns per day, was eclipsed on December 1, and on December 8 a whopping 481 inverse picobarns were delivered to the BaBar detector. The key modification, known as trickle injection, is to continuously feed small numbers of positrons into the collider. Originally, larger numbers of positrons were injected about 25 times a day, during which the detector had to be turned off. The new approach maintains a steady number of positrons in the ring, and the detector can take data more of the time. Now, about 2 million events are recorded each day.
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From The Guardian, December 19, 2003:
Teenager hacked into key US lab
By Matthew Taylor

A British computer hacker faces five years behind bars and a £21,000 bill from the US government for hacking into a nuclear research lab. Joseph McElroy, 18, was trying to use the immense power of the Fermi National Accelerator Lab in Chicago to help him download music and films from the web.
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