At 00:38 CEST on April 5, the LHC shift crew declared "stable beams" as two 4 TeV proton beams were brought into collision at the LHC’s four interaction points. This signals the start of physics data taking by the LHC experiments for 2012. The collision energy of 8 TeV is a new world record, and increases the machine’s discovery potential considerably.

Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s biggest magnet facility have met the grand challenge of producing magnetic fields in excess of 100 tesla while conducting six different experiments.

Two leaders of the OPERA collaboration, which stunned the world in September when it announced data suggesting that neutrinos could travel faster than the speed of light, have stepped down.

For decades, physicists have debated the origins of high-temperature superconductivity—the ability of some materials to carry electricity without resistance at temperatures up to 138 kelvin. Now, new data nix one possible explanation, albeit a less popular one, a team claims. If the finding holds up, it would sever any connection between ordinary superconductors, such as lead and niobium, and the high-temperature materials.

The National Science Board (NSB) announced on March 26 that Nobel laureate, Leon Lederman, is the 2012 recipient of its Vannevar Bush Award.

Just as water, ice, and steam are all phases of the same material that are influenced by temperature and pressure, new research shows how transitions of state work in very simple lattices primarily composed of copper.

Fermilab's neutrino experiment, MicroBooNE, is beginning the full construction phase for the detector, after DOE announced the official Critical Decision 3b approval on March 29.