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Science, in the broadest sense of the term, refers to any system of knowledge attained by verifiable means. In a more restricted sense, science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on empiricism, experimentation, and methodological naturalism, as well as to the organized body of knowledge humans have gained by such research.

Scientists maintain that scientific investigation must adhere to the scientific method, a process for properly developing and evaluating natural explanations for observable phenomena based on empirical study and independent verification. Science, therefore, avoids supernatural explanations until all other natural possibilities have been considered, and rejects arguments from authority.

Fields of science are commonly classified along two major lines: Natural sciences, which study natural phenomena; and Social sciences, which study human behavior and societies. Whether mathematics is a science is a matter of perspective.

Fields of science can be further distinguished as pure science or applied science. Pure science is principally involved with the discovery of new truths with less (or no) regard to their applications. Applied science is principally involved with the application of existing knowledge in new ways.

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Selected article

The accelerator chain of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)
ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS) is one of the five particle detector experiments (ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, TOTEM, and LHCb) being constructed at the Large Hadron Collider, a new particle accelerator at CERN in Switzerland. It will be 45 metres long and 25 metres in diameter, and will weigh about 7,000 tonnes. The project involves roughly 2,000 scientists and engineers at 151 institutions in 34 countries. The construction is scheduled to be completed in 2007. The experiment is expected to measure phenomena that involve highly massive particles which were not measurable using earlier lower-energy accelerators and might shed light on new theories of particle physics beyond the Standard Model.

The ATLAS collaboration, the group of physicists building the detector, was formed in 1992 when the proposed EAGLE (Experiment for Accurate Gamma, Lepton and Energy Measurements) and ASCOT (Apparatus with Super COnducting Toroids) collaborations merged their efforts into building a single, general-purpose particle detector for the Large Hadron Collider. The design was a combination of those two previous designs, as well as the detector research and development that had been done for the Superconducting Supercollider.

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Selected picture

Energy arc, central electrode of a plasma lamp
Credit: PiccoloNamek

A plasma lamp is usually a clear glass orb, filled with a mixture of various inert gases at low pressure, and driven by high frequency alternating current at high voltage (approx. 35 kHz, 2–5 kV), generated by a high voltage transformer. A much smaller orb in its centre serves as an electrode. Beams or snakes of "light" (actually emergent patterns in ionized gas) extend from the inner electrode to the outer glass container, giving an appearance similar to multiple constant beams of coloured lightning. The beams first follow the electric field lines of the dipole, but move up due to convection.

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Selected biography

Francis Crick, (1916 – 2004) was a British physicist, molecular biologist and neuroscientist, most noted for being one of the co-discoverers of the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953. He, James D. Watson, and Maurice Wilkins were jointly awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material. His later work at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology until 1977 has not received as much formal recognition. His remaining career as the J.W. Kieckhefer Distinguished Research Professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies was spent in La Jolla, California, until his death; "He was editing a manuscript on his death bed, a scientist until the bitter end" (a quote from his close associate Christof Koch).

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