Podcast: Kate Lunau on writing this week’s Higgs boson cover story

This is going to change everything: find out why

<p>This mosaic image of the magnificent starburst galaxy, Messier 82 (M82) is the sharpest wide-angle view ever obtained of M82. It is a galaxy remarkable for its webs of shredded clouds and flame-like plumes of glowing hydrogen blasting out from its central regions where young stars are being born 10 times faster than they are inside in our Milky Way Galaxy.</p>

This mosaic image of the magnificent starburst galaxy, Messier 82 (M82) is the sharpest wide-angle view ever obtained of M82. It is a galaxy remarkable for its webs of shredded clouds and flame-like plumes of glowing hydrogen blasting out from its central regions where young stars are being born 10 times faster than they are inside in our Milky Way Galaxy.

Our savvy science writer also explains in layman’s terms what the Higgs boson is, why physicist Neil Turok, director of the Canadian Perimter Institute is thanking his lucky stars, and what’s in store for the Large Hadron Collider–the world’s biggest machine–now. Also, there’s a reference to Superman III, which doesn’t happen every day.

Read reporter Katie Engelhart’s dispatches from CERN in Geneva here and here. And find Lunau and Engelhart’s eight-page special report on why the Higgs boson discovery does more than just explain why we exist on newsstands now.