Fabiola Gianotti officially began her term as CERN's new—and first female—Director General on January 1, bringing with her a group CERN describes as a "new dream team." Gianotti earned her PhD in experimental particle physics from the University of Milan in 1989 and joined CERN as a researcher in 1994. While at CERN she has served on several international committees and been bestowed the Special Fundamental Physics Prize of the Milner Foundation and many other awards.

Experts on superconducting radio frequency technologies (SRF) from all over the world came to the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in December for the Tesla Technology Collaboration (TTC) meeting. Akira Yamamoto, Asian director of International Linear Collider (ILC), said the TCC reminded him of a family reunion where everything from technical aspects to failures and mistakes were discussed without hesitation.

Papers submitted to the 2015 Cryogenic Engineering and International Cryogenic Materials Conferences (CEC-ICMC) are now online. The complete set is available in two volumes, one for each conference, on IOP Science.

Accelerator physicists at the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have successfully implemented an innovative scheme for increasing proton collision rates at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), an accomplishment that should in turn produce more data for scientists to sift through to answer important nuclear physics questions, including the search for the source of proton spin.

Scientists at Aalto University in Finland have created an autonomous Maxwell’s demon that makes it possible to analyze the microscopic changes in thermodynamics. The nano-scale device may also facilitate the design of future computers.

Just in time for the icy grip of winter: A team of researchers led by scientists from the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has identified several mechanisms that make a new, cold-loving material one of the toughest metallic alloys ever.

Fresh-from-the-oven signature breads at retail were once almost the exclusive province of fine restaurants, but the rise of commercial par-baking has made it possible for any restaurateur or food retailer to produce even artisan breads without skilled labor. "Cryogenic freezing of par-baked goods is giving commercial bakers who have only baked fresh a new strategy," says Mark DiMaggio, head of food & beverage, Linde LLC. "Bakeries can extend their distribution range and serve new retail segments."

Over 150 leading international physicists convened in early January at The University of Texas at Arlington to collaborate on the game-changing particle physics experiment known as the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, or DUNE.

The International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) welcomed the new year with a bang, confirming the discovery of four new elements and once again shaking up the periodic table. Elements 113, 115, 117 and 118 complete the seventh row of the table. Each has been assigned a temporary working name while the discoverers—from Japan, Russia and the USA—have been invited to suggest permanent names and symbols.

Lockheed Martin engineers have demonstrated a 52 percent increase in cutting speeds associated with roughing and finishing operations on large titanium airframe components for the F-35 program. The tests made use of an Okuma MA-600HII horizontal machining center equipped with 5ME’s patented cryogenic machining system.

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) researchers announced on January 5 advances in the fabrication of superconducting nanowires that improve the precision of detecting individual particles of light by 74 picoseconds.

Oxford Instruments NanoScience (CSA CSM) on January 7 announced a new technical collaboration with Zurich Instruments, a leader for digital lock-in amplifiers, focused on combining equipment from both companies in order to reduce the time between installation and measurement in cryogenic systems.

Former music teacher turned NASA propellants and pneumatics mechanic Ed Blalock understands cryogenic gases, and has positioned his new company, BCS Life Support, LLC, to revolutionize first responder and mine safety with cryogenic systems. The key is liquid air. BCS partnered with NASA’s Biomedical Lab and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to develop zero-loss liquid air storage and a cryogenic breathing apparatus that works 90 degrees from vertical in any direction.

When the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) first turns to survey the southern sky from its Chilean mountaintop perch in 2022, at least one group of scientists will be focused more on the telescope’s camera than the stunning images it’s expected to render. Those researchers are currently designing and testing a novel cryogenic refrigeration system at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory that will cool the LSST camera. The 3.2 giga-pixel camera is larger than other CCD (charge-coupled device) telescope cameras, and with that size comes a higher cryogenic heat load. In this case, scientists need to cool the focal plane to -130°C to reduce electronic noise in the CCDs, remove radiative heat loads and process heat from the electronics.

As a result of the growing concern over helium shortage and the need for direct conduction cooling, Hyper Tech’s magnesium diboride (MgB₂) superconductors have been making substantial inroads into applications previously dominated by niobium titanium (NbTi). Working with Brookhaven National Laboratory, NASA, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and others to solve the problems arising from this technological shift, Hyper Tech Research has taken a step toward making this technology a reality with their development of MgB2 based conduction cooled MRI magnets specifically targeted for image-guided radiation therapy (IGRT).

Scientists at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (Maglab) (CSA CSM) have detailed the mechanism that activates influenza and permits it to reproduce in human cells. The research, published in Structure, shows for the first time how protons move through the virus’s M2 proton channel and portends the development of new drugs to treat the … Continue reading Maglab Scientists Use NMR in Battle Against Influenza