CERN and the Midlands
By our reckoning Birmingham is unique amongst UK universities in that it is now taking part in three out of the four major experiments on the large ring that makes up CERN's large hadron collider.
And since two of those experiments, and are competing with each other to find the Higgs boson I don't think it's possible for any group or institution to get a "full house" and work on all four. Physicists are a competitive bunch.
Just for fun I tweeted something along these lines to see if people disagreed and it's worth pointing out that since there are many experiments at CERN the University of Warwick was also able to claim it was working on more than one.
But Birmingham seems to be the only one working on three out of four of the biggies. Or as one of the physicists I spoke to put it; "Birmingham is the most diverse experimentally".
And the big picture is that 2012 will be a hugely exciting year for CERN and for phyics with our local talent at the heart of it.
I'm David Gregory, Ö÷²¥´óÐã Science Correspondent for the West Midlands. My first law states: "Science is the answer." There is no second law. Feel free to drop me a line: 
Comment number 1.
At 25th Dec 2011, BluesBerry wrote:Researchers from Birmingham University are part of a 3,000-strong team of scientists from all over the world who are working on the "ATLAS" experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva in Switzerland. After smashing protons together 100 trillion...They have arrived at the Higgs' Boson.
But here's the scoop: Everything is energy and light, and the exchange between the two. So the Higg's Boson will turn out to be essentially nothing.
Long ago it was said by someone far more advances than I: "If they ask where you come from tell them you come from the light and shall return to the light."
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Comment number 2.
At 25th Dec 2011, BluesBerry wrote:I can understand the excitement, but must we call this so-called particle that gives mass and shape to our world: The God's Particle. Has someone asked God, has God answered, & not told the rest of us?
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