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Lyle Goldstein discusses naval politics in book on China-Russia quasi-alliance
On Tuesday afternoon, students, faculty and community members convened in the Pickering Room of Hubbard Hall to hear Senior Fellow at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs Lyle Goldstein lecture on his newly released book co-authored by Vitaly Kozyrev, ”The New Cold War at Sea: Maritime Implications of the China-Russia Quasi-Alliance.” He […]
Skipped Lunch? Science Explains Why You're Suddenly Craving Happy Hour
Researchers at Brown University found a molecular link between hunger and alcohol cravings.
Amid bleak financial forecast, Brown Health announces buyouts, executive layoffs
Brown University Health announced a series of cost-cutting measures Thursday on the first day of its fiscal year, including executive layoffs and non-clinical buyouts. The hospital operator projects a $64 million deficit due mostly to federal budget cuts.
Community Focus: Program helps Rhode Islanders make healthy, affordable meals
Carrie Bridges, vice president of the Community Health Institute at Brown University Health, joins 12 News to talk about “Food is Medicine.”
JBU enrollment hits new record
John Brown University recently said its enrollment has risen to a record 473 new students. The incoming class includes a record 401 freshmen, 60 transfer students, and 12 students returning...
Did an international team of scientists get humanity's first glimpse of dark matter?
A Brown University physicist, one of the project's co-founders and lead researchers, filled us in.
LZ Sees Surprising Result in Search for Dark Matter
Key Takeaways Dark matter is the mysterious substance that accounts for the vast majority of matter in our universe. LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) is a world-leading dark matter detector and specializes in searching for WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles. A new LZ study found one particle interaction that is difficult to explain with known background processes and could potentially have been caused by a WIMP. LZ continues to run to see if additional data strengthens or weakens the hint of a dark matter interaction. For the better part of a century, people have been trying to understand dark matter. This invisible substance makes up roughly 85% of the mass in the universe but has never been directly detected. Determining exactly what it is remains one of the biggest questions about our world. Now, a new analysis from the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment has recorded a single particle interaction that researchers have great difficulty explaining with known background signals from normal matter. The result does not yet meet the statistical threshold required to claim a discovery, but is the most compelling hint of dark matter reported by the experiment to date. LZ is an international collaboration of 250 scientists and engineers from 39 institutions. The detector is managed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and operates nearly one mile below ground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in South Dakota. The experiment uses 10 tonnes of ultrapure liquid xenon to search for dark matter and is optimized to look for WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles. The results were presented in a scientific talk at the 2026 TeV Particle Astrophysics conference in Japan. The paper will be released on the online repository arXiv and submitted to the journal Physical Review Letters. “We’re very intrigued to see this event in the data, in the region where we expect dark matter to show up and the competing backgrounds are very low,” said Rick Gaitskell, a professor at Brown University and the spokesperson for LZ. “With only one event, we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. We are not claiming to have seen dark matter. But we have seen something interesting that we want to share with the scientific community for their input.” The LZ collaboration studies experimental data in batches. In the new result, researchers analyzed 220 live days of data collected between March 2023 and April 2024. The collaboration had previously searched this dataset for faint signals from the simplest kinds of WIMP interactions. The new analysis searched for a broader range of possible WIMP interactions that could deposit more energy in the detector. LZ is particularly sensitive to such signals while also minimizing false positives. “This was a detailed study in a region we hadn’t explored within this dataset, and we spent months of additional effort to understand all the possible causes of background events,” said Sam Eriksen, a senior research associate at the University of Bristol in the U.K. and lead author of the study. “We understand our detector and the backgrounds so well that even a single outstanding event, like the one we found, is important. We expect dark matter events to be extremely rare, so only a handful could mark the first detection of WIMP dark matter.” If the anomalous event was caused by dark matter, the WIMP that generated it would likely have a mass of at least 200 GeV/c2 (gigaelectronvolts), or more than 200 times the mass of a proton. It would also suggest a specific type of interaction between WIMPs and ordinary matter beyond the simplest model. The LZ results have not reached “5-sigma” significance, the statistical threshold considered a discovery in physics. The new analysis is 2.6 sigma, meaning there is approximately a 0.5% chance that the event could be explained by known backgrounds. With additional data, researchers can test whether the finding continues to grow in significance or fades away. LZ has already accumulated the world’s largest dark matter dataset and will continue to accrue WIMP search data at SURF, substantially improving their search statistics. LZ searches for dark matter by looking for signature flashes of light from energy deposited in the detector. The collaboration leverages multiple methods to prevent or account for particle interactions caused by normal matter. This includes the mile of rock that shields the detector from cosmic rays from space, a water tank and outer detectors that protect the central detector from background neutrons, and a suite of computational tools that disentangle particle interactions and reject dark matter mimics. “Outlier events in the data are not unexpected, but they usually stand out as a background of some kind when you look at them deeper,” said Aaron Manalaysay, a physicist at Berkeley Lab and the chair of LZ’s Institutional Board. “This is the first example in any experiment I’ve worked on of an outlier that appears valid in every way. Of course, we’re still twisting our brains trying to think if there’s a rare background mechanism we could’ve missed, but it’s thrilling to wonder if this could be the first hint of a dark-matter observation.” LZ is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy and Nuclear Physics, and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science user facility. LZ is also supported by the Science & Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom; the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology; the Swiss National Science Foundation; the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics; and the Institute for Basic Science, Korea. Thirty-nine institutions of higher education and advanced research provided support to LZ. The LZ collaboration acknowledges the assistance of the Sanford Underground Research Facility. ### Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) is committed to groundbreaking research focused on discovery science and solutions for abundant and reliable energy supplies. The lab’s expertise spans materials, chemistry, physics, biology, earth and environmental science, mathematics, and computing. Researchers from around the world rely on the lab’s world-class scientific facilities for their own pioneering research. Founded in 1931 on the belief that the biggest problems are best addressed by teams, Berkeley Lab and its scientists have been recognized with 17 Nobel Prizes. Berkeley Lab is a multiprogram national laboratory managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. DOE’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.
Common vaccine linked to 24% lower dementia risk in older adults
A Brown University study found Shingrix reduced dementia risk by 24% over four years, building on prior research linking the shingles vaccine to brain health.
Public Health Advocates Are So Desperate for Help Against Conspiracies They’ve Turned to the Place You’d Least Expect
“We’re just trying stuff and seeing if it sticks,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, the director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University.
Will federal changes to research funding promote ‘accountability’ or politicize science?
A retired Brown University professor says the Trump administration is weakening a system that relies on subject-matter experts to judge scientific merit.
‘What am I going to do?’: Some Brown Health patients face loss of UnitedHealthcare coverage
The announcement follows a similar breakdown in contract negotiations over Brown University Health hospitals last year, which led to those hospitals going out of network with certain UnitedHealthca…
UHC Medicare Advantage patients set to lose in-network access to Brown Health physicians
Rhode Islanders insured under UnitedHealthcare’s Medicare Advantage plans may once again have to find new doctors amid contract negotiations between the insurer and Brown University Health.
Brown University names Francesca Beaudoin as public health dean
An alumna, Beaudoin has led the School of Public Health on an interim basis since January, and played a leadership role in the university’s healing and recovery effort in the aftermath of the campus shooting in December.
Rishika Kartik: Advancing accessibility through a blend of science, art and advocacy
Through a self-designed independent concentration, the Brown University senior has used art and design to expand agency, dignity and representation for people with disabilities.
Brown Athletics and Recreation Becomes Enterprise Member of Women Leaders in Sports
PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Brown University's Division of Athletics and Recreation will become an Enterprise Member of Women Leaders in Sports, Mencoff Vice Presiden...
I'm glad my daughter was rejected from an Ivy League college
My daughter had her sights set on Brown University, but the Ivy League rejected her. Thankfully, she went to Fordham where she found her true passion.
Recovery grants available for East Side merchants who lost business after Brown shooting
Recovery grants will soon become available to help Providence East Side businesses impacted during the roughly five-day manhunt for the gunman responsible for killing two students and injuring nine others at Brown University in December.
Teaching About Schooling: Integrating Education Politics into Political Science Curricula -
Teaching About Schooling: Integrating Education Politics into Political Science Curricula By Cameron J. Arnzen, Brown University and Chloe B. O’Neill, Columbia University Education is a cornerstone of democracy, yet political science curricula rarely treat it [...]
Rachel Caruso was the first mental health responder to the Brown shooting
Rachel Caruso, a social worker, was the first mental health responder to arrive at Brown University after Saturday, Dec. 13’s shooting
GoLocalProv | News | The Politics of Tragedies – “The Sunday Political Brunch”—December 21, 2025
By all measures, it has been a tough week. From the fatal shootings at Brown University and an MIT professor’s home, to the murders of an iconic Hollywood couple. There were also new developments in the Epstein case, some key votes in Congress, and another presidential controversy. Let...
Providence's East Side businesses seek to recover after Brown University shooting
While the city starts to heal after the manhunt for the Brown University gunman came to a close, small business owners are hoping to eventually recover from the
Business owners: No ‘hustle and bustle’ in Providence after Brown University shooting
Thayer Street has been unusually quiet for this time of year, with the capital city still reeling from last weekend’s deadly shooting at Brown University.
Hawaii lowers flags for Brown University, Bondi Beach victims
Flags are to be lowered now and will stay at half-staff until sunset on Friday, Dec. 19
Analysis: Two mass shootings many time zones apart shatter communities and expose fraught politics
At about 4:20 p.m. on a cold Rhode Island Saturday, a message from Brown University flashed up on cellphones all over campus — everyone should run or take cover from an active shooter.
There will be a long-term mental health impact after Brown University shooting
Fox News senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel discusses the shooting at Brown University on 'Fox Report.'
Boston 25 News
JUST IN: Health officials just shared an update on the condition of the 8 people who were wounded in the deadly shooting at Brown University.
‘Fog of war’: Brown University professor describes police swarm after shooting
Computer science professor Michael Littman said he was grading papers in a building next door to the active-shooter scene when Providence police swarmed the area.
WATCH: Trump calls deadly shooting at Brown University 'a terrible thing' and 'a shame'
President Donald Trump said late Saturday afternoon that he had been briefed on the shooting at Brown University that killed at least two people and critically wounded eight.
Ashish Jha to step down as Brown University public health dean
PROVIDENCE — Ashish K. Jha, one of the nation’s leading public health experts who became a household name during the Covid pandemic, is leaving his post
Dr. Ashish Jha to step down as Brown University public health dean
Jha will lead an initiative that aims to bolster the nation’s defenses against emerging pandemic and biological threats.