Magazine

Cancer treatments have often followed hot on the heels of innovations in fundamental research. This edition explores particle therapy – an application of accelerators that looks set to surge in importance in the coming decades. The key to progress, our correspondents argue, is for accelerator and detector physicists to engage with clinical needs and the radiobiology of cells. This issue also marks the passing of Herwig Schopper and John Peoples, lab directors whose leadership shaped high-energy physics. Today, the future is being shaped once again. Experiments and experimental strategies are maturing in China, and Europe’s ongoing strategy process has published its physics briefing book – a key resource for deciding CERN’s next flagship collider. To help busy Courier readers navigate the document, ECFA chair Paris Sphicas has distilled hundreds of pages of insights into just four.