Matter & Energy: Science news of the year, 2008

The year's best stories on research aiming to understand the fundamentals of matter.

ATLAS is one of the massive laboratories surrounding the huge underground tunnel of the Large Hadron Collider. Protons speeding through the tunnel will collide here, and ATLAS will detect what happens.
ATLAS is one of the massive laboratories surrounding the huge underground tunnel of the Large Hadron Collider. Protons speeding through the tunnel will collide here, and ATLAS will detect what happens.

On and off for the LHC
Protons take trip around the accelerator

One short trip for a proton, one not-so-giant step for mankind.