Professor Thomas Nilsson was inaugurated as the new Scientific Managing Director of the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research in Europe GmbH (FAIR GmbH) and the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH at a ceremony in Darmstadt on April 24. The ceremony took place on the campus of GSI and the international accelerator center FAIR, which is currently being built there, and was attended by several hundred guests from politics, universities and international scientific collaborations…

In a pioneering study, an international research team has uncovered a previously poorly understood mechanism of brain toxicity after radiotherapy for brain tumors. This can better explain the radiographic changes in patients treated for a brain tumor with charged particles or photons. This mechanistic discovery could open up new ways of treating and preventing radiation damage, which until now has often limited the effectiveness of radiotherapy...

More than 50 conference delegates of the XXXI. Quark Matter Conference participated in a visit to GSI/FAIR. The Quark Matter, one of the world's largest specialist conferences on ultra-relativistic nuclear collisions, took place in Frankfurt this year. During the excursion to Darmstadt, which took place in the framework of the conference program, the participants gained insights into the existing accelerator facilities and experiments of GSI as well as into the construction project FAIR.

A collaborative study tour was hosted recently as part of the GET_INvolved program and the pilot project #CatchThemEarly, welcoming international students from Leidsche Rijn College in Utrecht, Netherlands, and the Gutenbergschule in Wiesbaden. The study tour brought together 44 students and 5 teachers from two countries.

81 students aged between ten and 17 took part in this year's Girls’Day at GSI/FAIR. It’s the largest number of participants the Girls’Day has ever had on site at GSI/FAIR. On the day, the girls gained numerous impressions of everyday life at an international research center and found out about the accelerator facilities and experiments. Girls’Day is a nationwide day of action that encourages girls to explore professions in which currently only few women are represented.

The meeting of the FAIR-GSI Exotic Nuclei Community (GENCO) took place again this year at GSI/FAIR as part of the NUSTAR Annual Meeting. Not only the awarding of memberships and the Young Scientist Award were reasons to celebrate – also GENCO had its 25th anniversary.

A delegation of Big Science Sweden visited FAIR and GSI recently. The delegation included team members, the Steering Committee, and representatives from the Swedish division of the international corporation GE Healthcare. The aim of “Big Science Sweden” is to connect Swedish industry, universities, and research institutes with Big Science research organizations.

At a top-level meeting at the former nuclear power plant site in Biblis, Minister President Boris Rhein described laser-based nuclear fusion as a key technology for a clean and economical energy supply. Professor Thomas Nilsson, Scientific Director of GSI and FAIR, also took part in the meeting and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on nuclear fusion together with numerous representatives from politics, business and science.

Virtual worlds, playful moments, modern didactics and science you can touch: the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung and the international accelerator center FAIR, currently under construction, will focus even more strongly on promoting young talent and imparting knowledge in the future. With the new SCIENCE POP-UP in Darmstadt's city center, GSI/FAIR aims to enthuse young and old about science and technology: a hands-on space with hands-on science, open to all and tailored for…