In CERN Council chamber today, physicists and engineers from the LHC injector accelerators presented their plans for the first Long Shutdown (LS1) of the accelerator complex.

The goal of the LHC Injectors Upgrade (LIU) project is prepare to reliably deliver proton beams to meet the goals of the High Luminosity LHC, planned for after "Long Shutdown 2" in around 2021.

In his welcome address, LIU project leader Roland Garoby pointed out that though the goal is apparently simple, LIU involves most of the accelerators at CERN, and requires close collaboration between many groups at CERN. Linac 4, the Proton Synchroton booster, the Proton Synchroton, the Super Proton Synchroton, and the heavy-ion chain are all working hard towards the upgrades.

During its second year, in 2012, the preparation of the upgrades of the LHC Injectors progressed well. The injector teams learned to understand many aspects of beam performance, and defined ways of mitigating performance limitations. Major steps forward were made in the design and test of future equipment.

For details, see the presentation slides on Indico

In a seminar at CERN today the ATLAS and CMS experiments presented recent results on Higgs studies. The results built upon those already presented at the Moriond winter conference, with the experiments releasing combined spin measurements for the Higgs boson for the first time.

Krisztian Peters, presenting on behalf of the ATLAS experiment and Chiara Mariotti, presenting on behalf of the CMS experiment, both commented on the excellent performance of the LHC. A total dataset of approximately 25fb-1 was delivered to ATLAS over the first run, with CMS having around 23fb-1 with an average of 21 interactions per bunch crossing. This challenging environment saw both experiments dealing with pileup by constantly working on improving triggering, reconstruction and identification algorithms.

Neither experiment saw any evidence of new physics beyond the Standard Model Higgs but they made significant progress in making precise measurements of Higgs properties, notably spin.

Watch the webcast

See slides

Today Androulla Vassiliou, commissioner for education, culture, multilingualism and youth, is visiting CERN to meet young researchers supported by the EU Marie-Curie Actions fellowship programme.

Since 2007, CERN has been coordinating 35 research-training initiatives thanks to the Marie Curie Actions. After 2014, the programme will be maintained under a new scheme, Horizon 2020, and will be renamed the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions.

"Investing in research is a necessity for Europe to build a strong knowledge economy," said Vassiliou in a speech to CERN representatives and Marie Curie researchers this morning. She stressed the strong track record of collaboration between the EU and CERN. "We must invest in research; we must invest in you."

Marie-Curie financial support has secured research and training activities in diverse fields, from safety systems for extreme environments to the application of advanced accelerator technology. In addition to providing training in research fields, these EU actions promote mobility and development of young researchers by fostering collaborations between research institutes and companies across Europe and beyond. An example is the European Particle Physics Latin American Network (EPLANET) that promotes sustainable collaboration between Europe and Latin America in high-energy physics and associated technologies.

In the field of medical physics, CERN has been coordinating several training and research programmes for the advancement of hadrontherapy. A Particle Training Network for European Radiotherapy (PARTNER) successfully finished last year, while the Union of light ion centres in Europe (ULICE) coordinated by the Italian Research Infrastructure Facility CNAO, will conclude its programme in August 2013. The European Novel Imaging Systems for Ion therapy (ENVISION) also serves as a training platform for ENTERVISION, the research training in 3D digital imaging for cancer radiation therapy. 
The project, coordinated by CERN, brings together ten academic institutes and research centres of excellence and the one leading European company in particle therapy. It will provide training for 12 Early-Stage Researchers and four Experienced Researchers.

No more sheets of paper to record radiation doses at the entrance to the accelerators: the operational dosimetry system is being modernized. Fifty automatic operational dosimeter reader terminals have been in operation around the accelerator complex since March.

Operational dosimeters (DMC) complement the "passive" dosimeters (DIS) and must be used every time you enter Controlled Radiation Areas. They measure the dose of radiation received by the exposed worker in real time and give a warning if the acceptable threshold is exceeded.

The new dosimeter reader system allows the dosage recording procedure to be automated. “Every person who has to work in accelerators areas at CERN is required to make an access request via an IMPACT form, which contains the radiological data (along with other information) related to the work. They must then activate their dosimeter by inserting it into the reader terminal at the entrance of the area,” says Pierre Carbonez, head of the Dosimety and Instrument Calibration Service. “The terminal will then switch on the dosimeter, which will display the radiation dose throughout the work. At the end of the job, the operator  must read the dosimeter by inserting it again into the terminal, which will record the value of the dose received during the operation in the database and switch the dosimeter off.”

This new system considerably improves employee safety and follow up, enabling Radiation Protection Officers to check radiation doses in real time. Each request in IMPACT is submitted to the Radiation Protection Service, who, depending on the worker’s previous exposure and the work to be carried out, will set a maximum dose. If this dose is reached during the intervention, the dosimeter gives an alarm to warn the operator to stop the work and leave the area. In addition, as the exposure data is directly recorded in a database, it will be possible to analyse the work more thoroughly, with more precise statistics.

“Installation of the 50 terminals began in September 2012,” says Pierre Carbonez. “The objective was to be operational by the start of LS1, so we only had six months to put everything in place. The biggest difficulty in this project was not with the configuration and parameterization of this complex system, which is already well understood, but rather the tight time schedule to connect our terminals to the electricity supply networks and the Intranet. Thanks to the great work of all involved groups problems could be solved in time and the new system is now operational since March. The old system is being used in parallel for two weeks of testing but will be decommissioned and CERN will then have the biggest installation of this type in the world.”

The inaugural TEDxCERN event will take place on 3 May 2013, under the theme "Multiplying Dimensions", at the Globe of Science and Innovation with a live webcast at the CERN Main Auditorium and on the TEDxCERN homepage. Going beyond particle physics, the event, organized with the generous support of Rolex, will provide a stage for the expression of science in multiple disciplines, unveiling bold, new insights into emerging research and innovations that may fundamentally shape the course of things to come.

"At TEDxCERN, we are opening the door to a multiverse of scientific disciplines, showcasing the many ways that science is present in all our lives," says Sergio Bertolucci, director for research and scientific computing at CERN. With the aim of inspiring young people to become a part of the new generation of scientists, TEDxCERN will also be webcast at participating institutes around the globe. The event will have special hosts, including Nobel laureate George Smoot.

The speakers for TEDxCERN range from pioneers to young scientists: George Church, on recent breakthroughs with DNA; Londa Schiebinger, historian, on gendered innovation; Chris Lintott, on how to discover a planet from your sofa; Hiranya Peiris, winner of the 2012 RAS Fowler Prize, on the early universe; John Searle, philosopher, on consciousness as a biological phenomenon; Maya Tolstoy on seafloor earthquakes; Ian Foster on Big Data; Marc Abrahams, MC of the Ig Nobel Awards and editor of the Annals of Improbable Research, on why all good -- and some bad -- research is improbable; Eliezer Rabinovici and Zehra Sayers on SESAME, a ground breaking research project in the Middle East that is bringing together Israeli, Jordanian, Palestinian, Turkish, Pakistani, and Iranian scientists; Brittany Wenger, 18-year-old scientist and Grand Prize Winner 2012 Google Science Fair, on Research and Inspiration; Lee Cronin on how chemistry can revolutionize modern technology; Becky Parker, winner of the first RAS Patrick Moore Medal, on why you are never too young to be a research scientist; and Gian Giudice, theoretical physicist, on what the current Higgs measurement could mean for the future of the universe.

The entire programme and speakers bios are available on the TEDxCERN website

For the third consecutive year, CERN will be celebrating the World Day for Health and Safety at Work through events and initiatives coordinated by the Beams department Safety Unit, the Occupational Health and Safety and Environmental Protection unit (HSE), the Medical Service and the Fire Brigade.Two main themes that will be highlighted this year are work stress and musculoskeletal disorders.

On the day of the event, you will be given information and tips on how to reduce daily stress. You will also be invited to follow a “back pain” course that will bring to light all the activities you can try out in order to fight back pain and reduce its consequences. The Fire Brigade will also be present to show you how to use the “portoire” chair. Don’t know what a “portoire” chair is? Just come along and try it out! As usual, presents will be distributed and you might have a chance to win an Ohbox and some Vitam Parc gift cards if you take part in our quiz.

So stop by on Thursday 18 April between 11.30am and 2.30pm and visit our stands in all three CERN restaurants.

In the bellows of the Large Hadron Collider’s interconnects, you’ll find the vacuum pipe held together by some flexible metallic connectors known as “RF fingers”. These RF fingers maintain the electrical contact between LHC magnets, ensuring the continuity of the beam pipe. As the magnets contract and expand when heated up and cooled down, the fingers preserve their connection by simply sliding over each other. 

However, experience has shown that the movement of the LHC magnets can cause the fingers to buckle. “It’s not a question of bad design,” says Vincent Baglin of the Vacuum, Surfaces and Coatings (TE-VSC) team in the Technology department. “Rather, there were slight non-conformities during construction which resulted in some of the fingers not meeting the design parameters.” These faulty fingers can be easily fixed – but with over 1800 RF fingers in the LHC and with no information as to how much each RF bridge conforms, finding them is the real challenge.

Answering the call to action: the TE-VSC team. Over the next two months, they will be examining the entire accelerator for faulty RF fingers using the so-called "ball-test" technique. “We will be pumping an RF ball – a simple sphere with a radiofrequency emitter in it – through the beam pipe in search of irregularities,” says Julien Finelle, technician in charge of the tests. “As the machine is being warmed up to room temperature, the faulty fingers will buckle into the beam pipe. These fingers will then block the RF ball as it makes its way through the pipe, allowing us to identify the sectors requiring repair.”

Finelle’s team will be testing the machine arc by arc, using a simple aspiration technique to “blow” the RF ball through the beam pipe. “We will open the arc extremity, attach aspiration equipment, insert the RF ball and blow,” says Finelle. “Marek Gasior’s team (from the Beams department) have beam position monitors in place every 52 metres, which monitor the progress of the RF ball through the machine.” If there are no faulty fingers, the tests can be completed in just over 20 minutes. Where there is a problem identified, Nicolas Bourcey’s team (also from the Technology department) will cut into the machine and we will repair the fingers.

This week, CERN received the latest new transformers for the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS). Stored in pairs in 24-tonne steel containers, these transformers will replace the old models, which have been in place since 1981.

During LS1, the TE-EPC Group will be replacing all of the transformers for the main converters of the SPS. This renewal campaign is being carried out as part of the accelerator consolidation programme, which began at the start of April and will come to an end in November. It involves 80 transformers: 64 with a power of 2.6 megavolt-amperes (MVA) for the dipole magnets, and 16 with 1.9 MVA for the quadrupoles.

These new transformers were manufactured by an Italian company and are being installed outside the six access points of the SPS by the EN-HE Group, using CERN's 220-tonne crane. They will contribute to the upgrade of the SPS, which should thus continue to operate as the injector for the LHC until 2040.

More images

In our matter-dominated universe, the observation of new processes showing asymmetry between matter and antimatter allows physicists to test their theories and, possibly, to explore new territories. The LHCb collaboration has recently observed matter-antimatter asymmetries in the decays of the B⁰_s meson, which thus becomes the fourth particle known to present such behaviour.

Almost all known physics processes show perfect symmetry if a particle is interchanged with its antiparticle (C symmetry), and then if left and right are swapped (P symmetry). So it becomes very hard to explain why the universe itself does not conform to this symmetry and, instead, shows a huge preference for matter. Processes that violate this symmetry are rare and of great interest to physicists.

In the 1960s, Nobel laureates James Cronin and Val Fitch first observed violation of CP symmetry in neutral kaons. About 40 years later, another particle, the B⁰ meson (composed of a bottom antiquark and a down quark), showed similar behaviour in the BaBar detector at SLAC in the US and in the Belle detector at KEK in Japan. In more recent experiments at the B factories and the LHCb experiment at CERN, the B⁺ meson (composed of a bottom antiquark and an up quark) was also found to demonstrate behaviour different to that of its corresponding antiparticle.

Today, the LHCb collaboration has discovered asymmetric behaviour in the B⁰_S particle (a bottom antiquark and a strange quark). “We have analysed a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of one inverse femtobarn collected by the experiment in 2011,” says Pierluigi Campana, spokesperson for the LHCb collaboration. “Previous experiments installed at dedicated B factories and at the Tevatron were not in a position to accumulate large enough B⁰_s decay samples. Thanks to the LHC statistics and the particle-identification capabilities of the LHCb detector, CP violation in the B⁰_s-> K^-π⁺ decay has been observed for the first time with a significance of more than 5 sigma. ”

All these CP violation phenomena can be accounted for in the Standard Model theory incorporating the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) mechanism of quark-flavour mixing, though some interesting discrepancies demand more detailed studies. “From the same theory we also know that the total effects induced by Standard Model CP violation are too small to account for the matter-dominated universe,” says Campana. “By studying CP violation effects we are looking for the missing pieces of the puzzle, which provide stringent tests of the theory and are a sensitive probe for revealing the presence of non-Standard Model physics.”

The superconducting magnets on the LHC are connected in 1612 electrical circuits, supplied from 52 electrical distribution feedboxes via 3286 current leads. Were you to add up the electrical currents fed into all the magnets through the current leads, in nominal accelerator operation, you would get 3.3 million amps. The LHC is, above all, a giant electrical installation – so quality assurance testing of the electrical systems is important.

The Electrical Quality Assurance (ELQA) team has been testing the electrical circuits of superconducting magnets in the tunnel since 22 February, certifying their readiness for operation at 7 TeV per beam.

“We’re testing the electric circuits of the magnets and the instrumentation, " says ELQA project engineer Giorgio D’Angelo. "We do this by measuring their electrical parameters, including electrical continuity checks and tests of the insulation against earth.” The team applies a high electrical potential to the circuits and checks that the resulting readings are within the specifications. "If we get an unexpected result, we continue troubleshooting until we find out exactly where the problem lies," says D'Angelo.

The slightest short-circuit could lead to a major breakdown and seriously damage the magnets, so each circuit is fitted with a protection system. In the event of a quench, the protection system takes over, discharging the accumulated energy and bringing the current down to zero.

The tests need to be done with the LHC in a cold state (1.9K), and again an ambient temperature (300K), to check for any damage to the electrical system caused by thermal expansion. In addition, during LS1, 18 magnets (15 dipoles and 3 quadrupoles) will be replaced. The ELQA team will need to test them once they are installed and connected.

For LS1, 25 experts from the Henryk Niewodniczański Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IFJ-PAN) have come on board to bolster CERN’s ELQA team. "CERN’s collaboration with IFJ-PAN – which trains Electrical Quality Assurance experts – dates back to 2005," says ELQA project engineer Jaromir Ludwin. "Engineers from the institute were on hand during the construction of the LHC, and the expertise they have developed will be indispensable to the ELQA testing programme during LS1."

So far, cold tests have been done in sectors 1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 5-6, 6-7, 7-8 and 8-1. Testing should be completed by the end of April, when it will be time to restart the cycle, this time at ambient temperature.

The inaugural TEDxCERN event, themed "Multiplying Dimensions" kicks off in the Globe of Science and Innovation today.

Going beyond particle physics, TEDxCERN, organized with the generous support of Rolex, will provide a stage for the expression of science in multiple disciplines, unveiling bold new insights into emerging research and innovations that may fundamentally shape the course of things to come.

Watch the live webcast here from 1.45pm CET.

The entire programme and speakers bios are available on the TEDxCERN homepage.

Last week at CERN an event was held to inaugurate "the CERN Computer Centre Consolidation". The consolidation has entailed the creation of a new room, which will play host to critical IT systems at the organization, including email, financial, and HR systems, thus allowing them to be decoupled from non-critical ones. Decoupling critical systems in this manner enables them to be kept running should a major incident occur.

Construction of the consolidation project started back in April 2011 and work is scheduled to reach full completion this July. However, the new IT room, which hosts 90 racks of servers, has been operational since the start of this year. The racks are water cooled from an independent cooling system, with passive heat exchangers in the rear doors, which have a low risk of failure. This cooling approach was chosen because of the power savings it offers, as well as being relatively inexpensive compared to many other cooling methods. Such passive systems also avoid issues relating to fan failures. The average power density of each rack is 5 kilowatts, meaning that the new room has a total power density of 450 kilowatts, despite being designed to accommodate up to 480 kilowatts. “The consolidation has allowed us to restore important redundancy, secure the critical systems and  has also allowed us to increase the overall computing power capacity of the IT Centre from 2.9 to 3.5 megawatts and,” says Frédéric Hemmer, head of the CERN IT department.

Having an independent cooling system makes the new IT room ideally suited for the housing of critical systems. The power supply for the whole CERN Data Centre has also been extended with the creation of new electrical rooms containing uninterruptable power supply (UPS) systems, together with 500 batteries. Should the main power supply fail, these batteries, combined with others located in other on-site UPS rooms, can provide operators with 10 minutes’ worth of additional power in order to shut down servers. This time could prove extremely useful when it comes to avoiding data failure or corruption for major services, such as the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid, for which the CERN Data Centre is the Tier 0 site. Critical systems are provided with yet further backup from the site diesel generators.

During construction of the extension, concerns relating to the stability of the underlying slab and its ability to support the load of the new rooms, which also house heavy copper cables, led to a redesign of the pre-support structure of the electrical rooms and a faulty coil led to a fire in the UPS system last year. Despite these setbacks, the consolidation is set to be fully completed on time and on budget. Hemmer says: “This is a major step forward in ensuring the continuity of CERN critical computing systems and is one element of the business continuity plan of the IT department”.

The organization of the Passport to the Big Bang inauguration on 2nd June is in a critical situation.

The event will take place on 2 June and the organizers are still seeking 80 volunteers. Volunteers are needed to help at the Prevessin site between 7am and 10.30am, to help on different LHC sites of the inauguration between 1.30pm and 6.30pm, and as "signaleurs" along the 54km cycle race circuit between 9am and 1.30pm.

The "signaleurs" will indicate the path to the participants along the 54 km circuit and their presence will help guarantee the participants'  safety at locations where the circuit crosses public roads. The "signaleurs" volunteers must have a valid driving license, be able to go by their own means at their assigned location and be confident to fulfill this mission. They have to sign up before Wednesday 15 May, when the organizers have to provide the Prefecture de l'Ain with the names of all "signaleurs" in order to receive the authorization of the race.

30 "signaleurs" are still missing for the cycle race and if we don't find them CERN will be forced to cancel the race. This last minute cancellation would undoubtedly damage the image of the Organization within the local community.

Sign up now

Volunteers have to speak an only basic French.

The Passport to the Big Bang project is important for the reputation of CERN in the region. On behalf of the Organization, I would like to thank you in advance for your commitment.
Rolf Heuer

In response to the worldwide interest in our organization provoked by the recent physics discoveries, we have decided to use the unique opportunity of the present long shutdown to again open our doors to the public during the last weekend of September this year.

As during the 2008 Open Days, industrial partners and local authorities will be invited to visit on Friday 27 September. The weekend - Saturday 28 September and Sunday 29 September - will be open to CERN people and the general public.

Considering the success of the past Open Days together with CERN's current visibility, up to 100,000 visitors could be expected. It will not be possible to properly handle such a large quantity in a single day. First of all, CERN does not have the infrastructure to accommodate such a large number of visitors without creating major congestion. Secondly, this amount of visitors would lead to long and frustrating queues at every visiting point.

In order to mitigate this and make these Open Days as successful as possible for such a large audience, the following arrangements have been made:

• contrary to the last Open Days in 2008, when the Saturday was closed to the general public, this year we will invite the general public also on Saturday
• the opening times on both visiting days - Saturday 28 September and Sunday 29 September - will be extended by one hour from 9am to 8pm

This way we will be able to welcome our visitors with reasonable parking facilities, enhanced public transport and shuttle bus services.

In addition, since the capacity of the accelerator and detector underground visit points will not be sufficient to satisfy the demand, visitors will be requested to make reservations, free of charge, for all underground visits to prevent long and frustrating waiting times. The reservation system will be activated in August on the Open Day web site and the full volume of reservations will be distributed in several batches during the following weeks to give everyone a chance to get a place.

A rich and diverse programme will also be proposed on the Meyrin and Prevessin sites in order to supplement the underground visits.

To stay tuned, you are invited to follow the evolution of the event on the website. 

Finally, I would also like to announce here that a party will be organized on the evening of Monday 30 September to celebrate the recent discoveries, the performance of our installations, the Open Days, and, most importantly, your engagement.  At the moment, I can only tell you that this special event will be named “Bosons & More”. More information will be communicated in due time.

The critical safety equipment around the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), including the machine protection systems, is connected to Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS).  In case of mains failure, the UPS systems continue to power, for a limited time, these critical systems and ensure a safe shutdown of the accelerator. This week, work began to upgrade and replace more than 100 UPS systems in the LHC.

For the LHC, even a perturbation on the mains is more than just an inconvenience: it often results in beam dumps and, in some cases, requires an energy extraction from superconducting circuits. When this occurs, machine protection systems, and in particular the Quench Protection System, must remain active to correctly carry out the shutdown procedure. With the UPS systems, 10 minutes of crucial power can be provided to the protection systems during this critical phase.

There are currently two UPS systems in place in each one of the 32 LHC UPS zones. Originally one was used as a backup if the first system were to fail. Then, in 2009, a major upgrade on the UPS distribution was made in order to provide two independent and redundant power paths for the machine protection systems. “Redundant powering is the best solution for machine protection but in the present configuration, a failure of one of the UPS systems obliges us to shut down the accelerator,” says Vincent Chareyre, project leader for the replacement of the UPS systems.

The Electrical Engineering Group (EN-EL) will first replace the existing UPS systems with new ones based on a more robust technology. But also, an additional UPS system will be added to each zone. This third UPS system will act as a backup for the two UPS systems on the front line.

Chareyre says: “With the three-system layout in each one of the zones, the failure of a single UPS system will be invisible for the machine protection systems. The LHC will continue to run thus minimizing time lost for physics.”

During LS1, around 170 UPS systems with their batteries will be installed. As most of these are used for the LHC, there is an additional logistical challenge to the operation. “Most of the UPS zones are located underground,” says Chareyre. “We will have to move more than 80 tons of electronics and more than 280 tons of batteries.” The operation will take over one year to complete, and will involve external contractors as well as members of the EN-EL Group.

This June, CERN will take part in the Swiss "Bike to Work" campaign once again. In this Swiss national campaign, which has attracted more than 50,000 participants, teams of four colleagues encourage each other to cycle to work throughout the month of June.

Participants of the “2012 Bike2CERN through the year” campaign - with the campaign winners, Tim Smith, Martial Dujardin and Mika Huhtinen - alongside the organisers and cycling enthusiasts.

Participating is easy! Simply get together with three of your colleagues and register your Bike to Work team online before 31 May. There are no fees for registering teams, there is no minimum distance, and parts of the journey can be done using public transport. There is even an opening for non-cyclists: one member per team can be a pedestrian or a skateboarder or use any other means of transport that does not depend on an engine.

In addition to the June event, CERN is also supporting "Bike to CERN through the year" - an "unofficial" Bike to Work event. There were several prizes to be won last year, which were handed out at a recent ceremony, and a diploma was given to all contestants based on our very specific karma levels. We hope to get sponsors for prizes next year too, but in any case we can promise more karma to come your way!  Descriptions of both events can be found on our dedicated web pages.

Cycling is going mainstream! We encourage you to get in on the trend and join teams to take part in both the "Bike to Work" and the "Bike to CERN through the year" events.

Prizes

Each participant will receive a CERN bicycle seat cover, custom made for the event. As if this weren’t enough, there are also prizes up for grabs for participants who cycle at least every other day. There are 20 working days in June, which means that just 10 days on your bike will be enough to take part in the prize tombola.

Joining a team

If you are looking for a team or members to complete your team, please consult this link.

Previous Participants

If you took part in last year’s "Bike to Work" campaign, you are encouraged to split your previous team into two. This way we will have double the number of teams participating this year compared to last year.

Safety

There are obviously risks related to the use of bicycles and everybody, whether  a pedestrian, a cyclist or a driver, is responsible for reducing them. For those of you who are not regular bike users, you have until June to acquire the standard safety equipment. The HSE Unit is also on hand to advise you and to increase your awareness of safety issues. Remember that the route you usually take by car is not necessarily the shortest or safest route when you cycle. Information on cycle routes in the Geneva area can be found here.

On a practical note…

Fear of arriving at work all hot and sweaty is no excuse! There are shower facilities for men and women in the Pump Room (Building 216) and on the ground floor of Building 5.

This year's relay race around the Meyrin site will start at 12.15pm today. Come along and cheer on the participants!

Each team comprises six runners, with stages of 1000, 800, 800, 500, 500 and 300 metres. The times for the race range from under 11 to over 17 minutes, and around 100 teams take part each year.

New this year:

• A handbike race will be held over one lap of the relay race course, with the participation of Paralympic skier Jean-Yves Le Meur. The race is open to anyone who wants to try handbiking. Six handbikes will be available for competitors to use, or bring your own
• A new prize category for the team with the best fancy dress is sponsored by the CERN Micro Club.

As last year, the Nordic Walking event will take place over a slightly shortened version of the Relay Race circuit.

In the start/finish area, on the lawn in front of Restaurant 1, there will be a bar with beer and other drinks. The Novae restaurant will have a counter serving food and snacks. There will be demonstrations from the Fitness and Boxing clubs, and lots of other CERN associations will also be there with stands presenting their activities.

So come along, cheer on the participants, and enjoy the sunshine!

Check your results for the CERN relay race here [Nice Login required]

On 3 May, CERN hosted its inaugural TEDxCERN event. Missed the event? 

Watch the TEDxCERN talks here

I have the great pleasure to announce that CERN has today received the 2013 Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research, shared with theorists Peter Higgs and François Englert. This award has been given by the Prince of Asturias Foundation, which seeks to encourage and promote scientific and cultural values. Felipe de Borbón, Prince of Asturias and heir to the throne of Spain, is the Honorary President of this foundation since its creation in 1980. On behalf of CERN and the thousands of particle physicists involved in the laboratory’s activities, I graciously accept this prestigious award, which recognizes that science is performed through the collaboration of theory and experiment.

Rolf Heuer