CERN's decision to end cooperation with Russian scientists criticised by Moscow

20 March 2024

CERN, the European Council for Nuclear Research, is to cut cooperation with Russian scientists later this year, a decision the country's Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called "politically motivated and absolutely unacceptable".

CERN's Large Hadron Collider (Image: CERN)

CERN was established in 1953, with cooperation with the Soviet Union first formalised in 1967. In 1993 a Cooperation Agreement was signed with the Russian Federation, which led on to the 2019 International Cooperation Agreement, which is in force until 30 November 2024 and constitutes the framework for cooperation between the parties.

Following a March 2022 United Nations General Assembly Resolution, entitled "Aggression Against Ukraine”, it suspended the Observer status of the Russian Federation until further notice and "the effective suspension of all exchanges of funds, materials and personnel in both directions with the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus, and suspended the participation of CERN scientists in all scientific committees of institutions located in the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus, and vice versa".

The decision to end the cooperation agreement was taken in December 2023 when CERN's Council passed a resolution "to terminate the International Cooperation Agreement between CERN and the Russian Federation, together with all related protocols and addenda, with effect from 30 November 2024; To terminate ... all other agreements and experiment memoranda of understanding allowing the participation of the Russian Federation and its national institutes in the CERN scientific programme, with effect from 30 November 2024; AFFIRMS That these measures concern the relationship between CERN and Russian and Belarusian institutes and do not affect the relationship with scientists of Russian nationality affiliated with other institutes". The cooperation agreement with Belarus will come to an end on 27 June, before the Russian one ends.

Russian scientists are continuing to work at CERN at the moment - earlier this week Pavel Logachev, director of the Institute of Nuclear Physics at the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told the TASS news agency that six of their researchers would continue their work at CERN until the end of the agreement.

And a spokesperson for the Institute of Nuclear Physics at the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences told TASS: "The decision will negatively affect scientific research carried out both by CERN and Russian institutions. A process is currently under way to hand things over to our colleagues from various CERN member states, which is expected to be completed by November 2024."

When asked about the situation on Wednesday, the Russian Foreign Ministry's Zakharova called the CERN decision a "political" one that was "unacceptable", saying it runs "completely counter to the spirit of scientific cooperation ... foreign researchers and companies willing to boost cooperation with our country are the victims of this aggressive campaign".

CERN, which is based in Geneva, says its mission is to help "uncover what the universe is made of and how it works. We do this by providing a unique range of particle accelerator facilities to researchers, to advance the boundaries of human knowledge". Among its achievements have been the Large Hadron Collider, which started up in 2009, the Higgs boson was discovered in 2012 and it was also the birthplace of the World Wide Web. CERN has 23 Member States, 10 Associate Member States and includes 17,000 people from all over the world, with more than 110 nationalities represented.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

European physicists boldly take small step toward

 100-kilometer-long atom smasher

RIGHT UNDER GENEVA WHAT COULD GO WRONG

Dig, if you will, a tunnel. A mammoth new collider would dwarf an existing machine at the CERN physics laboratory in Europe. © CERN

By Adrian Cho Jun. 19, 2020 

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a physics laboratory with a world-leading scientific facility must have a plan for an even better machine to succeed it. So it is with the European particle physics laboratory, CERN, near Geneva, which is home to the world’s biggest atom smasher, the 27-kilometer-long Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Today, CERN’s governing council announced it will launch a technical and financial feasibility study to build an even bigger collider 80 to 100 kilometers long (actually two of them in succession) that could ultimately reach an energy seven times higher than the LHC. The first machine wouldn’t be built before 2040.

There is “some pride of the member states of CERN [that it is] the leading particle physics laboratory, and I think there is interest in CERN staying there,” says Ursula Bassler, a physicist and president of the CERN council, the panel of representatives from the 23 nations that support the lab. However, CERN Director-General Fabiola Gianotti emphasizes that no commitment has been made to build a new mammoth collider, which could cost $20 billion. “There is no recommendation for the implementation of any project,” she says. “This is coming in a few years.”

Physicists have been debating what collider to build next since well before the LHC started to take data in 2010. In the early 2000s, discussions centered on a 30-kilometer-long, straight-shot, linear collider that would smash electrons into positrons. Such a machine would complement the circular LHC, which smashes countercirculating beams of protons. The two types of machines have different strengths. A proton collider can generally reach higher energies and discover heavier new particles. But protons are made of other particles called quarks, so they make messy collisions. In contrast, electrons and positrons are indivisible fundamental particles, so they make cleaner collisions. Historically, physicists often have found new particles at proton colliders and studied them in detail at electron-positron colliders.

That’s the game particle physicists around the world are trying to play today. In 2012, the proton-smashing LHC blasted out the Higgs boson, the last particle predicted by physicists’ standard model and the linchpin to their explanation how all other fundamental particles get their mass. Many would now like to build an electron-positron collider and run it as a Higgs factory, to make the particle in large numbers and see whether it has exactly the predicted properties. Any deviation from the predictions would be signs of new physics beyond the 40-year-old standard model, something particle physicists are desperate to find. Physicists in Japan would like to host such a linear collider.

A few years ago, however, some physicists proposed another approach, building an 80- to 100-kilometer-long circular electron-positron collider to study the Higgs. That machine would have a major drawback: As light-weight electrons go around in circles, they radiate copious x-rays and lose energy, so such a machine is inefficient and limited in its energy reach. But it has a big practical upside: The tunnel it needs could also later be used to house a higher energy proton collider. This is exactly what CERN did with the LHC, which was built in an existing tunnel dug for the Large Electron-Positron Collider, which ran from 1989 to 2000. (It studied in detail particles called the W and Z bosons that had been discovered previously with a proton-antiproton collider at CERN.)

Now, CERN physicists envision a future in which, around 2040, they build a huge circular electron-positron collider to study the Higgs. Then, they would follow up with a more powerful proton collider to reach a new high-energy frontier. Today, the CERN council took a step in that direction, announcing an update to its long-range strategy, the first since 2013.

Just how much CERN’s plans have changed remains murky, however. Some physicists there have long been working on CERN’s own design for a linear collider. And it appears the new long-range strategy does not completely sideline that idea. “We also recommend continued accelerator R&D to ensure that we do not miss an opportunity to improve our accelerator technology,” said Halina Abramowicz, a physicist at Tel Aviv University who led the planning exercise, during an online question-and-answer session. “I think it’s important to convey this message very clearly.”

The feasibility study for the big new machine should be done by 2026 or 2027, when CERN will next update its long-term strategy. CERN may also have competition in the presumed collider arms race, as physicists in China have similar plans to build big circular colliders. Of course, all may depend on whether the LHC, which is now undergoing an upgrade and should run until the mid 2030s, finds anything beyond the Higgs boson to study. If it doesn’t, convincing the governments of Europe to spend $20 billion to study just the Higgs may prove a daunting political challenge.

Posted in:
Physics
Scientific Community

doi:10.1126/science.abd4212

WATCH OUT
TikTok community panics over ‘alternate dimension’ theories as CERN fires up Large Hadron Collider

IT CHANGES QUANTUM REALITY

Jona Jaupi,

Technology and Science

6 Jul 2022


MANY TikTok accounts have been sharing doomsday theories about CERN's Large Hadron Collider, sparking fear on the platform.

Conspiracy theories about the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) have been running rampant on TikTok, raking in millions of views.

1Many TikTok accounts have been sharing doomsday theories about CERN's Large Hadron ColliderCredit: Reuters

On July 4 2012, scientists used the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to study a spin-zero particle known as the Higgs boson.

Ten years later, the Geneva-based physics institution announced they were firing up the LHC once more.

But now conspiracy theorists believe that the LHC will open a "portal" to another dimension following experimentation, which resumed on July 3.

One TikTok user claimed that scientists are trying to "reverse engineer the Big Bang".


READ MORE ON CERN


START UP
Large Hadron Collider RESTARTS with new discovery sparking wild conspiracy

WORLD WIDE WEB
Did CERN create the Internet?

"There's a possibility that this can create a black hole, an alternate universe or a portal," the TikToker said.

That video has garnered more than 400,000 likes and nearly 20,000 comments.

"I don’t know man I’m very concerned about it," one user commented under the popular reel.

A second TikToker made a similar claim in a separate video that has received more than 250,000 likes.


"The [scientists] are opening a portal to another dimension, where the other universes are," she said.

"They know this, they're just trying to hide it from you."

In response to the video, one fear-stricken user said: "Jesus Christ protect us all."

Meanwhile, other TikTok creators have been demystifying CERN and the LHC's purpose to others via 'debunking' videos'.

User @New_Age_Mythbuster posted a reel that shared facts from CERN's website in an attempt to quell people's fears.

CERN themselves posted information on their website underlining the accelerator's safety.

The scientists explain: "Although powerful for an accelerator, the energy reached in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is modest by nature’s standards.

"Cosmic rays – particles produced by events in outer space – collide with particles in the Earth’s atmosphere at much greater energies than those of the LHC.

"These cosmic rays have been bombarding the Earth’s atmosphere as well as other astronomical bodies since these bodies were formed, with no harmful consequences.


"These planets and stars have stayed intact despite these higher energy collisions over billions of years."
What is the LHC?

CERN's Large Hadron Collider is the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator.

It's located 300 feet under the Swiff-French border in a massive tunnel.

First launched on September 10, 2008, LHC remains the latest addition to CERN’s accelerator complex.

What is CERN using the LHC for?

CERN studies high-energy physics and is using LHC to further its research.

LHC basically uses electromagnetic fields to make particles move extremely quickly.

CERN has been conducting a series of experiments that began on July 3, 2022.

On July 5, the experimental collisions at LHC uncovered three new "exotic particles", per Fox News.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for CERN 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for QUANTUM 

Europe’s CERN takes first steps toward building giant particle accelerator

Nuclear research organization says goal of Future Circular Collider is to ‘push the energy and intensity frontiers’ of particle smashers ‘in the search for new physics’

By AGNÈS PEDRERO

22 April 2023, 

A radio frequency particle accelerator is displayed in an exhibition during a press tour at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) on the Future Circular Collider (FCC) feasibility study, in Geneva, on April 19, 2023. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP)

GENEVA (AFP) — Europe’s CERN laboratory has taken its first steps toward building a huge new particle accelerator that would eclipse its Large Hadron Collider — and hopes to see light at the end of the tunnel.

The Future Circular Collider (FCC) particle smasher would be more than triple the length of the LHC, already the world’s largest and most powerful particle collider, constructed in the hope of revealing secrets about how the universe works.

The FCC would form a new circular tunnel under France and Switzerland, 91 kilometers (56.5 miles) long and about five meters (16 feet) in diameter.

“The goal of the FCC is to push the energy and intensity frontiers of particle colliders, with the aim of reaching collision energies of 100 tera electron volts, in the search for new physics,” CERN says.

The tunnel would pass under the Geneva region and its namesake lake in Switzerland, and loop around to the south near the picturesque French town of Annecy.
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Eight technical and scientific sites would be built on the surface, with seven in France and one in Geneva, CERN engineer Antoine Mayoux told reporters this week.

CERN Radio-frequency head Eric Montesinos gestures next to a map of the actual Large Hadron Collider (LHC) during a press trip at the European Organization for Nuclear Research CERN on the Future Circular Collider (FCC) feasibility study, in Geneva, on April 19, 2023. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP)

After carrying out a theoretical analysis, “we are now embarking for the first time on field activities” to study potential environmental issues, he said, with seismic and geotechnical studies to follow.
Mysteries of the universe

Once the feasibility studies are completed, CERN’s member states — 22 European countries plus Israel — will decide in the next five to six years on whether to build the FCC.

The FCC would accelerate electrons and positrons until 2060, and then hadrons until 2090, as it seeks answers to many remaining questions of fundamental physics, with about 95 percent of the mass and energy of the universe still a mystery.

CERN’s Large Hadron Collider — a 27-kilometer (17-mile) ring running about a hundred meters below ground — has already begun chipping away at the unknown.

Among other things, it was used to prove the existence of the Higgs Boson — dubbed the God particle — which broadened the understanding of how particles acquire mass, and earned two scientists who had theorized its existence the 2013 Nobel physics prize.

A simulated data projection of a Higgs boson collision. (Photo credit: CC BY Wikipedia)

But the LHC, which began operating in 2010, is expected to have run its course by around 2040.

“The problem with accelerators is that at some point, no matter how much data you accumulate, you hit a wall of systematic errors,” CERN physicist Patrick Janot said.

“Around 2040-2045, we will have taken away all the substance of the precision possible with the LHC,” he said.

“It will be time to move on to something much more powerful, much brighter, to better see the contours of the physics that we are trying to study.”
Opening doors to the future

Some researchers fear that this huge project will gobble up funds that could be used for other, less abstract physics research.

But others insist that pushing fundamental physics forward is vital for advances in applied physics as well.

“The benefits of our research are extremely important,” said Malika Meddahi, CERN’s deputy director for accelerators and technology, citing as examples medical imaging and the fight against tumors.

Janot agreed: “The day the electron gun was invented, it was the beginning of accelerators; we didn’t know it was going to give rise to television. The day general relativity was discovered, we didn’t know it was going to be used to run GPS.”

A projection on fundamental particles is seen during a press trip at the European Organization for Nuclear Research CERN on the Future Circular Collider (FCC) feasibility study, in Geneva, on April 19, 2023. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP)

Harry Cliff, a particle physicist at Britain’s University of Cambridge, acknowledged that the FCC was an “expensive bit of kit.”

But he noted that it would be built by “a large international collaboration of nations working together over a very long period of time.”

“Particle physics isn’t about discovering new particles — it’s about understanding the fundamental ingredients of nature and the laws that govern them.”

Competition from China

More than 600 institutes and universities around the world use CERN’s facilities, and are responsible for funding and carrying out the experiments they take part in.

However, CERN has some competition: China announced in 2015 that it intended to start work within a decade on building the world’s largest particle accelerator.

Michael Benedikt, who is heading up the FCC feasibility studies, told AFP that CERN had more than 60 years of experience in developing long-lasting research infrastructure.

And political stability in Europe helped to “minimize the development risk for such long-term projects,” he said.

Meddahi also highlighted Europe’s leading position in the field, but warned that “China displays the same ambition.”

“Let’s be vigilant and be sure that we are not on the verge of a change in this hierarchy,” she said.

CERN proposes $17 billion particle smasher that would be 3 times bigger than the Large Hadron Collider

Ben Turner
Thu, February 8, 2024 

A schematic map showing a possible location for the Future Circular Collider.

Researchers at the world's biggest particle accelerator have put forward proposals to build a new, even larger atom smasher.

The $17 billion Future Circular Collider (FCC) would be 57 miles (91 kilometers) long, dwarfing its predecessor, the 16.5-mile-long (27 kilometers) Large Hadron Collider (LHC), located at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) near Geneva.

Physicists want to use the FCC's increased size and power to probe fringes of the Standard Model of particle physics, the current best theory that describes how the smallest components of the universe behave. By smashing particles at even higher energies (100 tera electron volts, compared with the LHC's 14), the researchers hope to find unknown particles and forces; discover why matter outweighs antimatter; and probe the nature of dark matter and dark energy, two invisible entities believed to make up 95 percent of the universe.

Related: Our universe is merging with 'baby universes,' causing it to expand, new theoretical study suggests

"The FCC will not only be a wonderful instrument to improve our understanding of the fundamental laws of physics and nature," Fabiola Gianotti, CERN's director-general, said at a news conference Monday (Feb. 5). "It will also be a driver of innovation, because we will need new advanced technologies, from cryogenics to superconducting magnets, vacuum technologies, detectors, instrumentation — technologies with a potentially huge impact on our society and huge socioeconomic benefits."

Atom smashers like the LHC collide protons together at near light speed while looking for rare decay products that could be clues to new particles or forces. This helps physicists scrutinize their best understanding of the universe's most fundamental building blocks and how they interact, described by the Standard Model of physics.

Though the Standard Model has enabled scientists to make remarkable predictions — such as the existence of the Higgs boson, discovered by the LHC in 2012 — physicists are far from satisfied with it and are constantly looking for new physics that might break it.

This is because the model, despite being our most comprehensive one yet, includes enormous gaps, making it totally incapable of explaining where the force of gravity comes from, what dark matter is made of, or why there is so much more matter than antimatter in the universe.

To unlock these new frontiers, physicists at CERN will use the sevenfold increase in beam energy of the FCC to accelerate particles to even higher speeds.

But the detector, despite having taken a promising step forward, is far from built. The proposals put forward by CERN are part of an interim report on a feasibility study set to be finished next year. Once it's complete and if the detector plans go ahead, CERN — which is run by 18 European Union member states, as well as Switzerland, Norway, Serbia, Israel and the U.K. — will likely look for additional funding from nonmember states for the project.

Despite the high hopes for what the new collider could find, some scientists remain skeptical that the expensive machine will encounter new physics.

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"The FCC would be more expensive than both the LHC and LIGO [Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory] combined and it has less discovery potential," Sabine Hossenfelder, a theoretical physicist at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, wrote in a 2019 post on the platform X, formerly Twitter. "It would, at the present state of knowledge and technology, not give a good return on investment. There are presently better avenues to pursue than high energy physics."

Member states will meet in 2028 to decide whether to greenlight the project. Then, the first phase of the machine — which would collide electrons with their animatter counterparts, positrons — would come online in 2045. Finally, in the 2070s, the FCC would begin slamming protons into one another.

How the Large Hadron Collider's successor will hunt for the dark universe

Robert Lea

SPACE.COM
Thu, February 8, 2024 

Planning is well underway for the successor to the world's most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

The new "atom smasher," named the Future Circular Collider (FCC), will dwarf the LHC in size and power. It will smash particles together with so much energy, in fact, that scientists say it may be capable of investigating our universe's most mysterious entities: Dark energy and dark matter.

LHC operators at CERN revealed the results of a "midterm review" of their FCC Feasibility Study to the press on Monday (Feb. 5). The feasibility study began in 2021 and is set to conclude in 2025. The findings thus far constitute three years of work, with scientists and engineers from across the globe determining the placement of the new accelerator's ring, the implementation of the FCC facility, concepts for detectors and funding aspects.


The FCC will run under the jurisdiction of France and Switzerland, just like the LHC currently does, but the future accelerator will stretch 56.5 miles (90.7 kilometers), making it over three times the length of CERN's current particle accelerator, which is 16.8 miles (27 kilometers) long. The LHC is the largest and most powerful particle accelerator in the world.

Related: Dark matter may be hiding in the Large Hadron Collider's particle jets

A small stretch of the near 17-mile-long LHC particle accelerator which will be dwarfed by the FCC. (Image credit: Robert Lea)

The FCC will operate in the same way as the LHC, accelerating charged particles around a loop, using superconducting magnets, then smashing them together as they approach the speed of light.

Scientists can probe fundamental physics by observing showers of secondary particles created when particles like protons slam together. But whereas the LHC can attain energies of around 13 terra electronvolts (TeV) when operating at full power, CERN says the FCC should be able to reach energies as great as 100 TeV.

"Our aim is to study the properties of matter at the smallest scale and highest energy," CERN director-general Fabiola Gianotti said at the interim report presentation in Geneva on Tuesday (Feb 6.)
Why do particle accelerators need more power?

The crowning achievement of the LHC thus far is undoubtedly the discovery of the Higgs Boson, the force-carrying particle of a field called the Higgs Field, which permeates the universe and dictates most other particles' masses.

The breakthrough sighting of the Higgs Boson by two LHC detectors was announced on July 4, 2012, and is credited with completing the Standard Model of particle physics, which is humanity's best description of the universe, its particles and their interactions on a subatomic scale.

Yet, the Standard Model still requires some tweaking — and, since 2012, scientists have been using the LHC to search for physics beyond the model to make those adjustments. Success has been limited. This search will get a boost when the LHC's high luminosity upgrade is completed, which will mean the particle accelerator can perform more collisions and offer scientists more opportunities to spot exotic physics.

THE GOD DAMN PARTICLE

A Higgs boson decays recorded in a particle collision recorded by the ATLAS detector at the LHC on May 18, 2012. (Image credit: ATLAS)



The two main outliers of the Standard Model (aka, why some of those tweaks are necessary) are dark matter and dark energy.

Sometimes collectively known as the "dark universe," these phenomena constitute such large mysteries for scientists because dark energy accounts for around 68% of the universe's energy and matter, while dark matter accounts for around 27% of these continents. But neither can be seen because they don't interact with light, and no one has been able to pin them down through other forms of direct detection, either. That means that the matter and energy we understand and can account for comprise no more than 5% of the universe's contents, and we have little idea what around 95% of the universe actually is.

And probing these aspects of the universe may require smashing particles together with much more energy than the high-luminosity LHC is capable of.

To begin with, dark matter can't be "standard matter" like the atoms that make up the stuff we see around us on an everyday basis, like stars, planets and our bodies. Remember how it doesn't interact with light? Well, protons, neutrons and electrons — collectively known as "baryons" — do. So, dark matter must be something else.

Currently, the only way scientists can infer the presence of dark matter is via its interaction with gravity and the effect this has on baryonic matter and, in turn, light.

Dark energy is even more problematic. It's the force that scientists see driving the acceleration of the universe's expansion.

It concerns a period of expansion separate from the universe's initial inflation, which was triggered by the Big Bang. After that early expansion slowed to a near halt, in a later epoch, the universe unexplainably started to expand again. This expansion rate is actually speeding up to this day, with dark energy used to account for that action.

Yet, as we've discussed, scientists don't actually know what dark energy is.

To see why that is troubling, imagine pushing a child on a swing. The Big Bang is akin to your first and only push that gets the swing in motion. The swing may keep going for a short while, even without any action from you, then it will come to a half. Then, imagine that it suddenly begins motion again despite you just standing there. And not only that, but it swings faster and faster, reaching higher and higher points. This is similar to what dark energy is doing to the very fabric of space.

CERN hopes the high-energy collisions of the FCC could reveal the nature of this ongoing, late-universe push and the particles that make up dark matter.

However, it will be some time before this future particle accelerator is ready to embark on its investigation of the dark universe.
The timeline and cost of the Future Circular Collider

In 2028, three years after the completion of the FCC feasibility study, CERN member states will convene to decide if the FCC will get the go-ahead. Should the future collider get greenlit, CERN says, construction will begin in the mid-2030s.

The FCC will be completed in stages. The first stage is a electron-positron collider (FCC-ee) that will slam together negatively charged electrons, their positive antiparticle counterparts, known as positrons, and other light particles. CERN adds that FCC-ee should start operations in 2045.

The second machine of the FCC will be a proton colliding accelerator (FCC-hh) sitting alongside the FCC-ee in the same evacuated tunnel buried under the French-Swiss Alps and Lake Geneva. This part would come online no sooner than 2070, according to CERN.

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At the CERN press conference, Gianotti laid out some of the costs of the FCC, saying that the first FCC-ee stage alone would cost an estimated $17 billion USD.

CERN's Director general justified the cost by adding that the FCC is the only machine that would allow humanity to make the big jump in studying matter needed to crack the secrets of the dark universe.

A four-legged ‘Robodog’ is patrolling the Large Hadron Collider

Mack DeGeurin
Thu, February 8, 2024 

CERT’s four-legged Robodog can maneuver through cramped spaces and use sensors to spot fires, leaks, or other hazards.


Traversing through the dark, underground areas of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva, Switzerland isn't for the faint of heart. The world’s most powerful particle accelerator violently smashes protons and other subatomic particles together at nearly the speed of light, which can emit radiation at levels potentially harmful to humans. If that weren't enough, long stretches of compact, cluttered areas and uneven surface areas throughout the facility make stable footing a necessity.

Scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) are turning to four-legged, dog-inspired robots to solve that problem. This week, CERN showed off its recently developed CERNquadbot robot which they said successfully completed its first radiation survey in CERN’s North Area, the facility's largest experimental area. Looking forward, CERN plans to have its “Robodog” trot through other experiment caves to analyze areas and look for hazards.

Why does CERT need a robot dog?

The hazardous, sometimes cramped confines of the LHC’s experiments caverns pose challenges to both human workers and past robot designs alike. Temporary radiation levels and other environmental hazards like fires and potential water leaks can make some areas temporarily inaccessible to humans. Other past CERT robots, while adept at using strong robotics arms to carry heavy objects over distance, struggle to traverse over uneven ground. Stairs, similarly, are a nonstarter for these mostly wheeled and tracked robots.

That’s where CERT’s robot dog comes in. CERTquadbot’s four, dog-like legs allow it to traverse up and down and side to side, all while adjusting for slight changes on the ground's surface. A video of the robot at work shows it tic-tacking its four metal legs up and down as it navigates through what looks like pavement and a metal grated floor, all the while using onboard sensors to analyze its surroundings. A human operator can be seen nearby directing the robot using a controller. For a touch of added flair, the robot can also briefly stand up on its two hind legs. The Robodog had to use all of its various maneuverability during its recent test-run up the North area, which was reportedly filled with obstacles.

“There are large bundles of loose wires and pipes on the ground that slip and move, making them unpassable for wheeled robots and difficult even for humans,” CERN’s Controls, Electronics and Mechatronics robotics engineer Chris McGreavy said in a statement.

Thankfully for the CERN scientists, the Robodog rose to the occasion. And unlike other living dogs, this one didn’t need a tasty treat for a reward.

“There were no issues at all: the robot was completely stable throughout the inspection,” McGreavy added.

https://youtu.be/cbcpJZicJ2w?si=35A_xHeZ7si6lhtX

Now with the successful test completed, CERN says it's upgrading the robot and preparing it and its successors to deploy in experiment caves, including the ALICE detector which is used to study quark-gluon plasma. These areas often feature stairs and other complex surfaces that would stump CERN’s other, less maneuverable robots. Once inside, the robot dogs will monitor the area for hazards like fire and water leaks or quickly respond to alarms.

CERN directed PopSci to this blog post when we asked for more details regarding the robot.

Dog-inspired dogs are going where humans can’t

Four-legged quadruped robots have risen in popularity across numerous industries in recent years for their ability to nimbly access areas either too cumbersome or dangerous for humans and larger robots to access. Boston Dynamics’ “Spot,” possibly the most famous quadruped robot currently on the market, has been used to inspect dangerous offshore oil drilling sites, explore old abandoned mining facilities, and even monitor a major sports arena in Atlanta, Georgia. More controversially, law enforcement officials in New York City City and at the southern US border have also turned to these quadruped style robots to explore areas otherwise deemed too hazardous for humans.

Still, CERN doesn’t expect its new Robodog to completely eliminate the need for the other models in its family of robots. Instead, the various robots will work together in tandem, using their respective strengths to fill in gaps with the ultimate goal of hopefully speeding up the process of scientific discovery.

Did Big Bang Create Crash???

Since the economists and advocates for the free market seem to be at a loss as to why the current international financial system collapsed, perhaps they should look at the coincidence between the start of the Big Bang experiment in Europe and the fact that perhaps this is a quantum economic meltdown, the result of the firing of the Hadron Collider in France.

After all the marketplace that manipulates capital in the money markets and theshadow economy; hedge funds, dirivitives, etc. is the result of the use of computer technology and in particular the access that the internet allows computers. The internet which was created by CERN in order to facilitate the international scientific coordination of the Hadron Collider project.

And remember those folks who worried that the start up of the collider would create a black hole? They were laughed at. Yet within days of the collider start up and failure, the international financial market blew up in a big bang not seen since the Great Depression.

Coincidence? In a quantum universe I think not. After all what is a bigger black hole than the collapse of international capitalism?


Cern CIO talks about the credit crunch and black holes

CERN's Large Hadron Collider, the biggest and most complex machine ever built, will study the smallest building blocks of matter, sub-atomic
particles.
CERN scientists launched the experiment on September 10, firing
beams of proton particles around the 27-km (17-mile) tunnel outside Geneva 100
meters (330 feet) underground.
But nine days later they had to shut it down
because of a helium leak caused by a faulty electrical connection between two of
the accelerator's huge magnets
When it works again, the collider will recreate conditions just after the
Big Bang believed by most cosmologists to be at the origin of our expanding
universe 13.7 billion years ago.
It will send beams of sub-atomic particles
around the tunnel to smash into each other at close to the speed of
light.
These collisions will explode in a burst of intensely hot energy and
of new and previously unseen particles.
CERN, which invented the Worldwide
Web nearly 20 years ago, has set up a high-power computer network linking 7,000
scientists in 33 countries to crunch the data flow, enough to create a tower of
CDs more than twice as high as Mount Everest.

CERN Unveils Global Grid For Particle Physics Research
The network can pull in the IT power of more than 140 computer centers in 33 countries to
crunch an expected 15 million GB of data every year.
By Antone Gonsalves
InformationWeek October 3, 2008 04:57 PM

CERN, the world's largest particle physics lab and creator of the World Wide Web, on Friday launched a
global computer network that links the IT power of data centers in 33 countries
to provide the data-crunching muscle needed in conducting experiments on the
nature of matter.

The Cern nuclear-physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, is helping
the technology industry refine the multicore processors and fat gigabit networks
destined for the datacentres of tomorrow through the Openlab
initiative.

Through the project, the IT department at the lab behind the
Large Hadron Collider pushes cutting-edge kit to breaking point to perfect it
for its own use, and the consumer and business markets.
The lab has
partnerships with companies including HP ProCurve, Intel and Oracle, who provide
the backbone of its IT infrastructure, its 8,000-server computer centre and its
links to the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid, consisting of more than 100,000
processors spread over 33 countries.
Cern's chief information officer,
Wolfgang von Rueden, told ZDNet.co.uk sister site silicon.com: "We wait for
industry to develop the technology, then we take it and see how far we can push
it and feed back to them."


CERN Orchestrates Thousands of Business Services with ActiveVOS
Visual Orchestration System Integrates Diverse Systems
for More Effective Mobile Workforce
Last update: 9:00 a.m. EDT Oct. 21,
2008
WALTHAM, Mass., Oct 21, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Active Endpoints, Inc. ( http://www.activevos.com/), the inventor of visual orchestration
systems (VOS), today announced that CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear
Research, of Geneva, Switzerland, has successfully deployed ActiveVOS(TM) to
orchestrate and manage its core technical and administrative business services.
As one of the world's largest and most respected centers for scientific
research, CERN is the nucleus of an extensive community that includes over 2,500
on-site staff, and nearly 9,000 visiting scientists. These scientists
principally work at their universities and laboratories in over 80 countries
around the world. Using ActiveVOS, CERN has now integrated and automated all its
core processes as well as integrated those processes with the many external
systems required by this dispersed workforce.
"Automating all of the
essential business processes such as arranging travel, ordering materials,
authorizing access to controlled areas for our 11,500 users from all over the
world was a complex challenge," said Derek Mathieson, section leader, CERN.
"Using ActiveVOS's capabilities including process versioning, retry policies,
error and exception handling, integrated debugging and support for open
standards, we now have completed over 1,200,000 process instances. We add, on
average, approximately 12,000 new BPEL processes every day. ActiveVOS has also
automated internal administrative processes, such as annual performance reviews
and safety alarm activation. We are now able to support our large community of
scientists and our staff, ensuring they spend their time on research and not
administrative tasks."

SEE:
No Austrians In Foxholes
CRASH
Black Gold
The Return Of Hawley—Smoot
Canadian Banks and The Great Depression
Bank Run
U.S. Economy Entering Twilight Zone


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Europe’s Energy Crisis Could Force The Large Hadron Collider To Be Idled

By Charles Kennedy - Sep 05, 2022, 

• A combination of factors is feeding into a major energy crisis in Europe at the moment, forcing households to ration their power and industrial companies to shut plants.
• Now, the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator may have to be idled to ensure grid stability in France and Switzerland.
• The European Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN, will shut down other accelerators first, claiming that it could reduce its power use by 25% without idling the LHC.

The energy crisis in Europe is not only disrupting businesses and household finances, but it’s also hitting at the heart of crucial scientific research and experiments. 

The European Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN, the world’s largest particle physics lab and home of the Large Hadron Collider, could shut down some accelerators and could even idle the LHC to ensure grid stability in the nearby French and Swiss regions amid the severe energy crisis in Europe, Serge Claudet, chair of the CERN energy management panel, told The Wall Street Journal. 

Europe is experiencing an unprecedented energy crisis amid halted Russian gas supply via the Nord Stream pipeline, low nuclear power generation in France, a power crisis in Switzerland, and sky-high gas and power prices.    

Large European industrial companies have already announced plant or production line closures due to soaring gas and energy prices, while governments in Europe are drafting plans to potentially ration gas supply to industries according to their specific priorities.  

The crisis became much worse at the end of last week, when Russian gas giant Gazprom said after three-day maintenance on Friday that Nord Stream would remain shut until “operational defects in the equipment are eliminated”, upping the ante in its gas war against Europe. 

For most governments in Europe, the indefinite suspension of Russian gas flows through the main pipeline to Germany wasn’t a surprise; they had expected such a move from Putin. But this doesn’t make the EU’s task of ensuring lights and heating on this winter any easier. Switzerland and France – whose grids CERN uses to power its supercollider and seven other particle accelerators to study matter and two decelerators to study antimatter – are among the worst hit.   

Switzerland has admitted that the country might have to resort to using oil for electricity generation this winter as Europe is dealing with low levels of Russian natural gas supply, which could be cut even further or cut off altogether.

In France, year-ahead power prices surged to $1,001 (1,000 euro) per megawatt-hour for the first time ever last month. French power prices have now soared tenfold over the past year, as drought and hot weather this summer have added to France’s nuclear power generation problems at the worst possible moment. EDF will restart all its nuclear reactors in the country this winter, French Energy Transition Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher said last week. Currently, more than half of EDF’s reactors are out of operation either because of maintenance or technical issues. 

One of EDF’s largest clients is none other than CERN, which uses 1.3 terawatt hours of electricity annually. That’s enough power to fuel 300,000 UK homes for a year. At peak consumption, usually from May to mid-December, CERN uses about 200 MW, which is about a third of the amount of energy used to feed the nearby city of Geneva in Switzerland. 

May to mid-December is the period of active work at the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator, which discovered ten years ago the existence of the Higgs boson that gives mass to the elementary particles. The collider was just restarted this July after a three-and-a-half-year hiatus for upgrades. 

However, due to the energy crisis, CERN is now considering how it could idle the world’s most powerful collider. 

“Our concern is really grid stability, because we do all we can to prevent a blackout in our region,” Claudet told the Journal.  

CERN and its power supplier, EDF, are now discussing the possibility of implementing daily warnings for power grid instability at the research complex to determine when it would need to conserve energy and use less electricity, the head of CERN energy management panel told the WSJ. The organization will shut down other accelerators first, before possibly having to resort to a shutdown of the world’s largest particle accelerator, he added. With the shutdown of some of the other accelerators, CERN could thus lower its power use by 25%.  

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

GYA and 30 Young Academies and Associations release statement suggesting actionable steps to connect fundamental science with sustainable development

Statement during closing ceremony of IYBSSD underscores the pivotal role of fundamental science in achieving UN SDGs

Reports and Proceedings

GLOBAL YOUNG ACADEMY

 

IMAGE: 

THE GYA AND 30 YOUNG ACADEMIES AND ASSOCIATIONS AROUND THE WORLD UNVEILED A STATEMENT DURING THE IYBSSD CLOSING CEREMONY SUGGESTING ACTIONABLE STEPS TO CONNECT FUNDAMENTAL SCIENCE WITH SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT.

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CREDIT: GYA

GYA and 30 Young Academies and Associations release statement suggesting actionable steps to connect fundamental science with sustainable development during Closing Ceremony of IYBSSD meeting

 In a collective statement endorsed by 30 Young Academies and Associations, the Global Young Academy (GYA) underscored the pivotal role of fundamental science in achieving the United Nation Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). The statement (link here) was delivered during the closing ceremony of the International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development (IYBSSD) at CERN in Switzerland on 15 December 2023.

The joint statement acknowledges the historical impact of fundamental science, citing examples such as the development of the life-saving COVID-19 vaccine and the roots of digital technology in fundamental research. Highlighting persistent challenges, the statement also sheds light on inequities within the research sector. Early- and mid-career researchers, particularly in low- to middle-income nations, face disadvantages, contributing to a global research density imbalance.

“We recognize that fundamental science is the bedrock of societal progress, and this statement reflects the unified voice of young scientists committed to shaping a sustainable future," stated GYA member Hiba Baroud (Vanderbilt University, United States), who was a member of the GYA team that drafted the statement. Hiba adds, "The widespread support from our peers underscores the significance of this call to action and reaffirms our collective commitment to driving meaningful change through research and innovation."

Despite these contributions, the appreciation and investment in fundamental science are on the decline worldwide, with a recent GYA report (Back to basics) revealing a shift towards applied research and demonstrating that researchers worldwide perceive a decline in support for fundamental science.

In response to these trends, the statement proposes actionable steps to connect fundamental science with sustainable development. Suggestions include supporting interdisciplinary research aligned with sustainable development goals, enhancing transitions from research to innovation, and addressing global inequities in research opportunities. The statement calls for global collaboration and urges stakeholders to recognize the profound significance of fundamental science in building a sustainable and equitable future.

What’s next?
As the IYBSSD draws to an end, the UN General Assembly has adopted a resolution proclaiming the period 2024-2033 as the International Decade of Science for Sustainable Development.
Link here: https://www.iybssd2022.org/en/un-general-assembly-proclaims-international-decade-of-science-for-sustainable-development/

 

Frontiers for Young Minds and CERN ‘SPARK’ big questions in health technology

The scientific articles are written by researchers who attended the 2022 SPARKS! Serendipity Forum at CERN

Business Announcement

FRONTIERS

 

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FRONTIERS FOR YOUNG MINDS AND CERN COLLECTION

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CREDIT: FRONTIERS

Frontiers for Young Minds, the award-winning, open-access scientific journal for kids, has published the first articles in a new collection in collaboration with CERN, one of the world’s largest centers for scientific research. The collection, entitled SPARK-ing big questions: what is the future of health technology?, addresses key questions on how ground-breaking health technologies and science can improve human health for future generations.  

The articles are written by researchers who attended the SPARKS! Serendipity Forum at CERN in 2022, an event for scientific and other experts to come together to collaborate, learn from each other, and address some of the complex problems facing society. As one of the largest laboratories hosting collaborative research in the world, and a leader in fields that increase our knowledge of the universe and impact our lives, including health, CERN offers a platform to host such multidisciplinary discussions and curate the serendipity that may bring about benefits to society. The collaboration between Frontiers for Young Minds and CERN enables the sharing of this information with young audiences in a way that is accessible for them. 

As part of the unique Frontiers for Young Minds process, the articles have been reviewed by kids aged 8-15 to make sure the concepts are understandable for their peers. All articles are freely available on the journal website.  

The first three articles in the collection are: 

• New Scientific Technologies: Navigating the Path of Right and Wrong, Juan Enriquez, Excel Venture Management, USA 
  This article explores the ethics of new technologies and how to ensure developing technologies are used to help, not harm, humans.  

• Doctors and Artificial Intelligence: Working Together for a Healthier Future, Jane Metcalfe, proto.life, USA 
  This article examines how artificial intelligence can analyze data to find patterns that humans can’t and optimize patient care using personalized medicine.   

• Medicine Gets Proactive: Prevention Is Better Than Cure, Michael Snyder and Ariel Ganz, Stanford University, USA 
  This article looks at how technology such as smartwatches and health-tracking apps can catch illnesses before humans get sick, an approach that could help humans live longer.  

New articles will be added to the collection in January 2024 to help young minds engage with the topics of health literacy, open science, and bioinformatics. Together, the collection of articles will help the next generation of scientists and engaged citizens to understand and grapple with the big questions which they will have to face in their own healthcare as people continue to live longer.  

To read the articles, visit the Frontiers for Young Minds website.  

Frontiers for Young Minds SPARK-ing the big questions

CREDIT

Frontiers