Michigan State University is getting positive signals about the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, the elite, $680 million nuclear research facility that it was selected to host four years ago.

Congress is expected to tackle the ‘fiscal cliff’ after next month’s election. The “fiscal cliff’s” combination of programmed tax increases and spending cuts have many people concerned, including officials at Michigan State University.

It’s a world-class research university, America’s pioneering land grant college, the first place on the planet to study agriculture scientifically, and just passed a little-known school called MIT for No. 1 in graduate studies of particle physics.

As scientists from different disciplines and regions help design a world-class nuclear research facility at Michigan State University, a team of MSU researchers will conduct one of the first major studies of how teams work together.

As scientists from different disciplines an regions help design a world-class nuclear research facility at Michigan State University, a team of MSU researchers will conduct one of the first major studies of how teams work together.

A stop-gap funding bill that lawmakers hope will keep the federal government operating through March 27 would keep federal funding steady for the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams planned for Michigan State University.

Michigan State University's planned $680 million Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, FRIB, received an expected green light Friday from the school's board of trustees for $55 million in funding for construction. The approval was largely an internal, administrative task, so the university will be ready to begin construction if the necessary government funds are appropriated next year.

After a season of uncertainty, work has begun again on the future site of the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams. Work crews are putting in pilings for an earth retention system on a site just south of Michigan State University’s National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. Thomas Glasmacher reads it as a good sign.

Michigan State University trustees have approved the next step in the development of the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, or FRIB. WKAR's Scott Pohl reports.

In its first meeting of the new academic year, the MSU Board of Trustees voted Friday to approve a proposed $55 million budget for the Facility of Rare Isotope Beams, or FRIB. The trustees also approved an authorization to plan for a proposed $18 million expansion of the north end zone of Spartan Stadium.

When the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland seized the world record for the highest-energy collisions in 2010, it also sealed the fate of the leading US particle collider. The Tevatron, at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, was closed the following year to save money.

Since 2008 the number of colliders in the U.S. has dwindled from four to one. And the last surviving member of the species, the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y., may soon fall victim to the same budgetary blight that has already felled so many other towering scientific facilities.

Hendrik Schatz studies exploding stars — or more specifically, what connection exploding stars have to our planet’s existence and the existence of elements on Earth today.

GOP challengers to U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Howell, say the incumbent congressman has chosen the national spotlight over representing his constituents’ interests in Washington, D.C. Rogers mentioned his role in securing funding for the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams at Michigan State University and for a soon-to-built interchange at Interstate 96 and Latson Road in Livingston County.

"Go Green!" is often heard on MSU's campus, but when a note from professors worried about the survival of oak trees near the FRIB project goes viral, it sounds a little different. An email circulated urging concerned faculty and staff to contact the administration, and ask them to consider a change to the Facility for Rare Isotope building plans near the intersection of Bogue Street and Shaw Lane. Some student say they don't have an issue, so why should the professors?

The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, or FRIB, is a proposed construction project at MSU that would help the university continue its research in nuclear physics at a faster pace than it ever has before. If the project, which is proposed to cost more than half a billion dollars, is completed, it would not only benefit the scientific community, but help give the university worldwide recognition as a main contributor to the research of nuclear physics.

The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams at Michigan State University has cleared another hurdle on the path to fruition.

The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams is one step closer to construction after flying through two evaluations from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, or DOE-SC.

By all accounts, the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams project, or FRIB, is on track. The facility reached another milestone Monday when the U.S. Department of Energy announced the project passed its assessments. Now it's ready for the next phase.

The National Research Council says Michigan State University’s Facility for Rare Isotope Beams project should remain a major priority. A report issued June 27 by the NRC outlines the accomplishments of the nuclear physics field during the last decade and recommends a strategy for the future, including, as its first recommendation, “the timely completion of the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams and the initiation of its physics program.”

Nuclear physics is a discovery-driven enterprise aimed at understanding the fundamental nature of visible matter in the universe. For the past hundred years, new knowledge of the nuclear world has also directly benefited society through many innovative applications.

At its June 22 meeting, the Michigan State University Board of Trustees adopted 2012-13 budget development guidelines calling for a $14 per credit hour tuition increase for in-state undergraduate students. The budget also calls for a $44 per credit hour tuition increase for nonresident undergraduate students.

The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, or FRIB, and the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, or NSCL, will be part of a national organization to commercialize research from the labs, after MSU joined the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer, or FLC, a national network of federal labs last week.

Michigan State University is bringing its nuclear science technology commercialization effort to a national stage.

The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams is important for mid-Michigan. That’s easy to see: A billion-dollar impact over the next decade, 5,000 construction jobs, employment for 400 scientists, engineers and others.

Why is the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams important to pre-K12 education? Why should local educators be concerned with its funding? For one simple reason — it is the future here and now.

In the 1990s, leaders across Greater Lansing realized that General Motors would soon make an important decision about its outdated factories here.

The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams project at Michigan State University has received a favorable review from the U.S. Department of Energy, allowing the MSU to set baseline costs, scope and schedule for the $615 million project and to proceed with construction, pending further DOE approval.

U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Brighton, today announced the House Energy & Water Appropriations bill contains $40 million in funding for the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at Michigan State University.

Lawmakers want to spend more money on a proposed nuclear physics research facility at Michigan State University than the administration requested for next year.

The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, or FRIB, was thrown a $40 million lifeline in the search for funding to push the project forward at MSU.

A congressional subcommittee's appropriations bill budgets $40 million for the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams at Michigan State University in 2013, increasing the project's funding by $18 million from the federal government's proposal.

U.S. Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow say a Senate subcommittee has significantly increased the recommended annual funding for a planned $600 million physics research facility at Michigan State University.

U.S. Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow say a Senate subcommittee has significantly increased the recommended annual funding for a planned $600 million physics research facility at Michigan State University.

The House Committee on Energy and Technology on Tuesday adopted House Resolution 218, which calls for the federal government to keep its promise to Michigan and fully fund the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at Michigan State University.

The nuclear physics community has until January to tell the U.S. Department of Energy how spending priorities – including a planned research facility for Michigan State – could be revised given tightened federal budgets.

Recently we learned the President’s budget would reduce funding for the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams nuclear research project at Michigan State University. Predictably, politicians representing mid-Michigan lined up to issue statements chastising the administration for failing to fully support FRIB.

The Michigan Senate on Wednesday unanimously adopted a resolution calling on Congress to restore funding for the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams at Michigan State University.

Michigan Rep. John Dingell questioned today whether the U.S. Department of Energy is as committed to a nuclear physics facility planned for Michigan State University as it is to nuclear fusion reactor being built in France.

A national contingent of scientists will arrive in Washington on Monday to lobby lawmakers for increased support of a nuclear science facility in Michigan that they say could enhance national security while keeping the country's research efforts globally competitive.

Since the federal proposal to cut funding to $22 million from the original $55 million in committed funding for the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, or FRIB, earlier this month, several legislative voices are crying out to show continued support for the project.

Imagine winning the lottery — not once, but three times in a row. Getting this lucky is expected to happen regularly for nuclear scientists working in a Michigan State University laboratory that is already a world leader, researchers say. When MSU opens the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, it will increase MSU's current ability to find rare atoms by 100,000 fold, while building the facility will create hundreds of jobs and boost Michigan's economy by $1 billion.

State Sen. Rick Jones, R-Grand Ledge, on Wednesday introduced a resolution in the Senate requesting Congress to fully fund the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at Michigan State University.

Michigan State University's Facility for Rare Isotope Beams is a real game changer for mid-Michigan and the state as a whole. It is a clear signal that our region and state are making the transformation toward a knowledge economy and attracting the best and brightest young talent in the world.

President Barack Obama requested more money Monday for transportation, education and domestic manufacturing and wants to raise taxes on the very rich in a $3.8 trillion budget that sets a course to shrink the U.S. deficit to manageable levels by 2018.

There is $22 million for the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams in the 2013 budget proposal released by President Barack Obama on Monday, hardly an inconsequential amount, but less than half of the $55 million stipulated for that year in Michigan State University’s original agreement with the US Department of Energy.

U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow today issued the following statement regarding Michigan State University's (MSU) Facility for Rare Isotope Beams.

Michigan has a fight on its hands to protect the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams at Michigan State University.

Overall, the budget numbers for the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Office of Science, the single largest funder of physical sciences research in the United States, look reasonably good. The office would see its budget climb by 2.4% to $4.992 billion. Three of the office's six major research programs, however, are slated for potentially devastating cuts. While programs with connections to clean energy technologies come out ahead, the fusion energy science, nuclear physics, and high-energy physics programs suffer.

US Senator Carl Levin, D-Michigan, announced on Monday his disappointment with diminished federal funding for the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at Michigan State University.

Michigan State University President Lou Anna K. Simon voiced disappointment in proposed funding for the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) that is substantially less than previously planned, saying it will extend the duration and cost of the project.

President Barack Obama’s 2013 budget proposal includes $22 million for the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, significantly less than the $55 million stipulated in Michigan State University’s original agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy.

Why do we want the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams here? Because you, me, this newspaper, your cell phone, our sun, and everything else in the universe – even man-made elements – are made out of only 92 naturally occurring elements, which are made from protons, electrons, and neutrons.

Amid the trillions of dollars of federal spending, there is a project that will change the course of mid-Michigan’s future – the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams that is in development at Michigan State University.

Konrad Gelbke is the cyclotron lab's director. Thomas Glasmacher is the person managing its most important project, the $615 million Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, which is 2 1/2 months away from its most important review by the U.S. Department of Energy, the review that will fix the cost, scope and schedule of the project and, if successful, allow MSU to go forward with construction.

Michigan’s economic recovery, well under way, must be constructed on a “knowledge industry” foundation if our state is to fully return to prosperity. The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, a federal center for critical nuclear physics research that would be located at Michigan State University, is an important part of that foundation.

The Michigan State University Board of Trustees on Friday approved the first construction phase for the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB), a half-billion-dollar project awarded to MSU by the federal government for nuclear research.

One of Greater Lansing's most important economic development assets is under attack, and without action by leaders in our community, might not get off the drawing board.

Michigan’s congressional delegation should be focused and united in making sure the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams slated for Michigan State University receives the funding it deserves. In a state devastated by the recession, the project is expected to create thousands of badly needed jobs. But equally important is its expected advances in the field of nuclear science, which would bolster this country’s global competitiveness.

ReWorking Michigan examines our evolving economy, as the people of the Great Lakes State explore new ways to make a living and build a future. Today, our reWorking Michigan Monday report looks at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, or "F-RIB" on the Michigan State University campus.

Michigan's congressional delegation, hard put to collaborate on much besides autos and the Great Lakes, needs to put one more item on its unity list: the suddenly endangered Facility for Rare Isotope Beams planned for Michigan State University.

What? No FRIB? That was a gasp and collective outcry you heard across Michigan on Wednesday when Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in Detroit that federal money is uncertain for the $600-million project.

Earthmovers and cranes are in place. Steam tunnels are being moved, and Michigan State University has hundreds of construction jobs ready to fill for a $600-million nuclear research facility.

Michigan's congressional delegation must pressure the White House and Congress to protect funding for the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams at Michigan State University.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., issued the following statement after public reports that Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in Michigan today that the department has not decided whether to move forward with the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams at Michigan State University.

Comments by Secretary of Energy Steven Chu at a meeting of the Detroit Economic Club this morning raised questions about the future of the Facility of Rare Isotope Beams at Michigan State University.

Federal funding for a $600 million nuclear research facility under development at Michigan State University could be in doubt in the face of the nation's economic problems and the federal budget squeeze, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Wednesday.

The fate of a $600 million federally funded research project that would cement Michigan's reputation as a center for advanced technologies and atomic research came into question today as Steven Chu, U.S. Department of Energy Secretary, said funding for the project is uncertain.