A drive to learn has propelled 16-year-old Maya Wallach to finish high school early and enroll at Michigan State University, where she is a sophomore studying experimental physics, and an intern at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams.

Scientists at MSU’s FRIB have built and tested a device that will allow pivotal insights into heavy elements, or elements with very large numbers of protons and neutrons. Ben Kay, physicist at Argonne National Laboratory, led this effort.

The $730 million FRIB at MSU is scheduled to come online in early 2022 – a game-changer in every sense for the U.S. and international nuclear-physics communities. With peer review and approval of the first round of experimental proposals now complete, an initial cohort of scientists from 25 countries is making final preparations to exploit FRIB’s unique capabilities.

New research by the University of Surrey's Nuclear Physics Group has shown that it's possible to mimic excited quantum states with exotic nuclei, opening up a host of opportunities for next generation radioactive beam facilities, such as the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams.

Scientists explore the origin of aluminum-26 in stars with a nuclear reaction that exploits the fact that neutrons and protons are stunningly similar. Scientists from the University of Surrey and the FRIB Laboratory at MSU teamed up to explore the origin of aluminum-26.