The detection of the electron neutrino by Clyde Cowan and Frederick Reines gave Reines the 1995 Nobel Prize for physics.

BBC: Science finds particle perfection

Others are created by electron scattering, when a neutrino of any flavour collides with an electron.

ECONOMIST: The news that neutrinos have mass is both good and bad

One explanation for the solar-neutrino deficit (only a third of the predicted number have been detected) is that electron-neutrinos produced by nuclear-fusion reactions in the sun's core mutate into the other two types, which are harder to detect.

ECONOMIST: The news that neutrinos have mass is both good and bad

If and when a neutrino does bump into something, the interaction spits out one of three particles an electron, a muon or a tau (the last two are heavy, unstable objects with most of the characteristics of an electron).

ECONOMIST: Neutrinos

Besides being a useful source of dark matter, it may explain the solar-neutrino deficit (the gap between prediction and observation would be caused by a different mutation, from electron neutrinos into undetectable tau neutrinos).

ECONOMIST: Neutrinos

Using the underground Sudbury neutrino detector, an international group of researchers has been able to determine that the observed number of electron-neutrinos is only a fraction of the total number emitted from the Sun - clear evidence that the particles change type en route to Earth.

BBC: SNO, SNO