Indiana University nuclear physics professor Mike Snow's investigations into the weak interactions of low energy neutrons will advance using equipment funded by the IU Office of the Vice Provost for Research and then put into use at the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

For more than a decade Indiana University physicists have only been able to theorize about the nature of exotic hybrid mesons, unique particles that may be the key to unlocking how quarks bind together to form matter's building blocks. But the journey to move beyond theory in the search for these elusive particles moved a step closer Tuesday (April 14) with the turn of a shovel in Newport News, Va., where IU physicists were on hand to break ground on a $14.1 million, 8,000-square-foot experimental hall designed to test theories about exotic hybrid mesons.

Indiana University and Crane Naval Surface Warfare Center recognized the success of an ongoing partnership to enhance national security and advance research opportunities in life sciences, physics and other fields during a ceremony Monday (April 13) at IU's Cyclotron Facility.

Nuclear physics at Indiana University Bloomington has come a long way. The program was created 70 years ago by A.C.G. Mitchell, hired by former IU President Herman B Wells to initiate basic physics research in 1938. Between 1939 and 1941, faculty members and students worked in Swain Hall to build the program's centerpiece, a 90-ton "cyclotron." The Swain Hall cyclotron is gone, but IU cyclotron research is alive and well.

Hans-Otto Meyer, professor of physics at Indiana University Bloomington, has received a Humboldt Research Award in recognition of lifetime achievements in research. The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany annually honors up to 100 internationally renowned scientists and scholars from abroad.

Scientists of the MiniBooNE experiment at the Department of Energy's Fermilab announced their first findings Wednesday (April 11). The results resolve questions raised by observations in the 1990s that appeared to contradict findings of other neutrino experiments worldwide. The MiniBooNE research team included five physicists from IU.

Internationally known physicist Shyh-Yuan Lee of Indiana University has received a Humboldt Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Bonn, Germany, to honor his many achievements in the physics of particle accelerators.

What do you get when you heat an ordinary atomic nucleus to temperatures high enough to melt the neutrons and protons inside it -- temperatures reached during the first microseconds following the Big Bang birth of the universe? You get a new state of matter, a mix of quarks and gluons that is one of the most nearly perfect liquids ever observed.

Seven years after looking as though it might be shut down when federal funding was diverted to larger particle accelerators, the Indiana University Cyclotron Facility is flourishing as scientists pursue innovative projects ranging from cancer therapy to materials research. New IUCF Director Paul Sokol plans to expand the range of activities to take advantage of new capabilities in neutron scattering.

A group of Indiana University officials and Bloomington community leaders today (April 28) traveled to Washington, D.C., to meet with members of Indiana's congressional delegation and build support for local economic development efforts.

The January 2004 issue of Discover magazine lists the top 100 science stories of 2003. Among them is Indiana University physicist Edward Stephenson's discovery of a rare fusion process that scientists had been trying to find since the 1950s. His results will help theorists understand the cause of charge symmetry violation, which makes possible the universe as we know it, including ourselves.