Fermilab's New Commercial Research Center

PolygamousRanchKid writes "When completed in 2013, the new research center will wrap around the Collider Detector at Fermilab and provide a state-of-the-art facility for research, development and industrialization of particle accelerator technology. Whereas particle accelerators like Fermilab's now-defunct Tevatron were once the realm of the scientist doing basic research on the nature of the universe, accelerators now have a broader mandate for commercial applications, said Fermilab Director Pier Oddone. The goal for the facility is to develop relationships between scientists and private businesses to develop accelerator technology that can be used in medicine, industry and national security. Though most people think of accelerators on the scale of Fermilab's Tevatron or the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, more than 30,000 smaller particle accelerators exist around the world and can be used for applications other than basic science research. 'The innovation now implemented in many areas often came about as the by-product of our pushing the technological envelope of our own accelerators...needed for advancing particle physics,' said Oddone."

Also...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Fermilab Director Pier Oddone also managed to mention that the Fermilab gift shop is now stocking a variety of novelty plush quarks, 'Experi-mint' brand candies, and similar knicknacks before breaking down and sobbing something about 'Is this why I made it through my postdoc?'

Fermilab Commercial Research

[Anonymous Coward]

"By accelerating them to near the speed of light, we can collide the particle of marketing together to create new ones, and investigate the elementary structure of the advertising universe.

Recently were were able to create a high energy Bear Grylls by colliding the Geico Gecko and the T-Mobile girl. We are now actively searching for the Heineken bozon."