Patrick Koppenburg and Marco Pappagallo survey the 23 exotic hadrons discovered at the LHC so far. Twenty-three exotic states Five pentaquarks and 18 tetraquarks have been discovered so far at the LHC ...

From targets to absorbers, beam-intercepting devices are vital to CERN’s accelerator complex. Marco Calviani describes the major upgrades taking place to prepare for the high-luminosity LHC, and the ...

Alexander Lenz argues that the charm quark is an experimental and theoretical enigma that has the potential to shed light on the matter–antimatter asymmetry in the universe. Threading the needle The ...

Jochen Klein and Marco van Leeuwen describe the physics motivation, detector concept and projected performance of a next-generation heavy-ion programme for LHC Runs 5 and 6. Brand new ALICE 3 is built ...

Louis Lyons traces the origins of the “five sigma” criterion in particle physics, and asks whether it remains a relevant marker for claiming the discovery of new physics. Disentanglement A Jackson ...

Oliver James of DNEG, which produced the striking black hole in the film Interstellar, describes the science behind visual effects and the challenges in this fast-growing industry. Gargantua A variant ...

More than 17,000 photomultipliers for KM3NeT are already transmitting data from the Mediterranean seabed, opening a new vista on the neutrino’s properties. Paschal Coyle, Antoine Kouchner and Gwenhaël ...

Tessa Charles describes the impressive progress being made by synchrotron X-ray facilities to solve the structure of SARS-CoV-2. Representation of the 3D structure of the main SARS-CoV-2 protease, ...

The Courier matched photos from CERN’s first 25 years to current experts and asked them to reflect on how much has changed across 70 years of science. The past seven decades have seen remarkable ...

Cosmologist and theoretical physicist Licia Verde discusses the current tension between early- and late-time measurements of the expansion rate of the universe. Shining light Licia Verde is ICREA ...

A 100 km tunnel hosting a circular electron–positron collider as a first stage towards a 100 TeV proton–proton collider would probe new phenomena coupled to the Higgs and electroweak sectors with ...

CERN is home to a unique innovation ecosystem pioneering advances in vacuum science, technology and engineering. Paolo Chiggiato and Paul Cruikshank provide an insider take. Gearing up 2021 promises ...