Even though only a portion of the NOvA neutrino experiment is completed, it has already seen its first neutrinos.

Scientists on the world’s longest-distance neutrino experiment announced today that they have seen their first neutrinos.

The NUMI Off-Axis electron neutrino Appearance experiment, known as NOvA, consists of two huge particle detectors placed 500 miles apart, and its job is to explore the properties of an intense beam of ghostly particles called neutrinos. Neutrinos are abundant in nature, but they very rarely interact with other matter. Studying them could yield crucial information about the early moments of the universe.

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A recent experiment at Jefferson Lab probed the mirror symmetry of quarks, determining that one of their intrinsic properties is non-zero—as predicted by the Standard Model.

From matching wings on butterflies to the repeating six-point pattern of snowflakes, symmetries echo through nature, even down to the smallest building blocks of matter. Since the discovery of quarks, the building blocks of protons and neutrons, physicists have been exploiting those symmetries to study quarks’ intrinsic properties and to uncover what those properties can reveal about the physical laws that govern them.

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In the final installment (for now) of #FollowFriday, symmetry highlights four more physicists on Twitter.

Want to give your Twitter feed an intellectual boost? Add a few more physicists to the mix! In the final installment of symmetry’s #FollowFriday series, we introduce you to four more science-types who tweet.
 

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Teachers are using Google+ to bring their classes behind the scenes at national laboratories and to teach students about careers in STEM.

Cormac, a high school student from Journeys School in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, had a question: How does dark matter interact with regular matter? It’s a tough one; even today’s brightest physicists don’t yet completely know the answer. Fortunately, Cormac’s teacher was off the hook. Dark matter researcher Andrea Albert, connected by video from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, was happy to respond. “That’s a great question,” she began.

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A pair of scientists who have been at CERN since almost the very beginning still often find themselves in the laboratory's cafeteria, arguing physics. CERN laboratory, home of the Large Hadron Collider, will celebrate 60 years of pioneering scien... Continue reading →

Silicon microstrip detectors, a staple in particle physics experiments, provide information that may be critical to restoring vision to some who lost it. In 1995, physicist Alan Litke co-wrote a particularly prescient article for Scientific American ... Continue reading →

Meet four more physicists who talk about their work on Twitter in symmetry’s third installment of #FollowFriday. Pop culture can sometimes perpetuate the notion that scientists hide away in ivory towers doing work unintelligible to the public a... Continue reading →

A video from Fermilab highlights some of the many steps needed to build the largest neutrino experiment in the United States. Coordinating the construction of an international particle physics experiment is never an easy task. This is indeed the case... Continue reading →