The LHC is colliding protons at a faster rate than ever before—approximately 1 billion times per second— and those collisions are adding up. This year alone the machine has produced roughly the same number of collisions as it did during all previous years of operation put together.

Construction is under way at Argonne National Laboratory (CSA CSM) on the final building of its Energy Quad, a group of four adjoining buildings designed to maximize collaboration between energy and materials scientists. The new Materials Design Laboratory will allow scientists to discover new materials, understand how they work and put them to use—everything from designing tailored superconductors to transform the nation's energy grid to developing better materials for wind turbines and finding potential replacements for silicon in next-generation computers.

The next-generation dark matter detector LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) has cleared another approval milestone and is on schedule to begin its deep-underground hunt for theoretical particles known as WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles, in 2020. Physicists consider WIMPs among the top prospects for explaining dark matter, the unseen stuff that scientists have observed only through gravitational effects, and LZ, with its 100 times increase in sensitivity, is thought to be the next best chance to detect dark matter interactions with matter.

Alstom, a leader in integrated railway systems, unveiled a hydrogen-powered passenger train during an event at InnoTrans, a railway industry trade fair. The new train, Coradia iLint, is modeled after Alstom's diesel operated Coradia Lint 54, but will feature a CO2 emission-free hydrogen fuel cell engine. The first delivery is expected in Germany by 2018.

AMSC, an energy solutions provider serving the wind and power grid industry, and Nexans Deutschland GmbH (CSA CSM), an expert in the cable industry, have announced a partnership to market and sell AMSC’s Resilient Electric Grid (REG) system and other high performance superconductor power cables in the US and Canada.

CERN has announced the continuation of the global SCOAP3 open access initiative for at least three more years. SCOAP3, the Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics, is an innovative partnership of over 3,000 libraries, funding agencies and research organizations from 44 countries. It has made tens of thousands of scientific articles freely available to everyone, with neither cost nor barrier for any author worldwide.

CSA's Board of Technical Directors, at a meeting held during the Applied Superconductivity Conference in Denver, certified results from the society's recent election. Society members chose Peter Shirron, from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, as the new President-Elect, and Scott Courts, Richard Dausman, Peter Knudsen and Mark Zagarola as Directors.

Intense magnetic fields are a powerful research tool, and researchers expect the opportunities opened up by the hybrid magnet being built at the CNRS National Laboratory for Intense Magnetic Fields in Grenoble to be vast. Current magnets at the facility operate at 36 teslas, but a new hybrid magnet there, made up of an assembly of copper alloy electromagnets and a superconductive magnet, will produce a field of 43T.

BC Technical, a leading non-OEM provider of medical imaging solutions, has announced a strategic relationship with Sumitomo (SHI) Cryogenics Group (CSA CSM) anticipated to help its customers increase MRI coldhead longevity and reduce cryogen use. The partnership, BC Technical says, means its customers can not only expect the same standard of manufacturing, quality, and longevity received from an OEM, but that new parts from BC Technical will also cost considerably less, close in fact to the cost of refurbished ones.

The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (CSA CSM) is getting back in the publishing business with a new science magazine set to launch in 2017. Tentatively titled Mag/zine, the publication will focus on high magnetic field research, targeting both scientists and science-interested readers. It is set to publish three or four times a year and will be available free in both print and online formats.

The American Physical Society is currently accepting applications for its Conferences for Undergraduate Women in Physics, held concurrently Jan. 13-15, 2017, at universities across the US and Canada. The conferences feature workshops that encourage women to remain in STEM fields by discussing physics careers beyond academia and exposing physics majors to the wide array of choices available to them in industry, technology transfer, science education and more.

Japan's KEK opened its doors in early September and nearly 4,000 visitors braved the late summer heat for a tour of the high energy accelerator research facility. Organizers used the event to showcase the planned International Linear Collider (ILC) project. Visitors were taken behind the scenes at two ILC test facilities, the Advanced Accelerator Test Facility and the Superconducting RF test facility. Masashi Yamanaka, head of KEK's Mechanical Engineering Center, also held a lecture on ILC superconducting RF cavity production.

Worthington Industries, Inc. is expanding its cryogenic technology portfolio with the introduction of a proprietary-designed beverage carbonation cylinder for industrial gas markets. The company says it designed the 500-pound beverage carbonation cylinder for use in the food and beverage markets, including restaurants, bars, movie theaters, stadiums and other locations where cryogenic beverage carbonation cylinders are a preferred storage option for high-volume carbon dioxide users.

In a specially designed lab at Florida State University, chemistry professor Thomas Albrecht-Schmitt studies radioactive berkelium, a little known—and difficult to obtain—element on the fringes of the periodic table that he says could help broaden the fundamental understanding of chemistry.

Air Products, a leader in liquefied natural gas technology and equipment, celebrated this month the rollout of the first completed LNG heat exchanger manufactured at its new production facility in Manatee County, Florida, a 300,000 square foot space that doubles the company's manufacturing capacity.

Atlas Copco AB has acquired Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum GmbH, a pioneer of vacuum technology founded in 1850. Renamed Leybold GmbH, the company joins the vacuum solutions division at Atlas, expanding the group to over 6,500 employees in more than 35 countries.