If the Higgs exists, why has discovering it taken so long – and why, if no definitive discovery is announced next week, might it continue to take even longer?
Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is a large spiral galaxy surrounded by dozens of smaller satellite galaxies. Scientists have long theorized that occasionally these satellites will pass through the disk of the Milky Way, perturbing both the satellite and the disk. A team of astronomers from Canada and the United States have discovered what may well be the smoking gun of such an encounter, one that occurred close to our position in the galaxy and relatively recently, at least in the cosmological sense.
During a recent symposium at Fermilab, a speaker took the stage to defend government investment in basic science. He used an odd tactic: He called particle physics unreasonable.
A new crack in the Standard Model may be starting to form. Recently analyzed data from the BaBar experiment show that one type of particle decay happens more often than predicted by the Standard Model. 
It’s a mystery where ultra-high-energy cosmic rays come from and what they’re made of. But a new technique, currently in the works, could drastically improve scientists’ chances of finding out.