Composed of light-absorbing, colloidal quantum dots linked to carbon-based fullerene nanoparticles, these tiny two-particle systems can convert light to electricity in a precisely controlled way.

FORBES: Quantum Dots and Fullerenes Team Up For Better Nanoscale Solar Panels

The ALA analyzed particle pollution levels two ways: short-term particle pollution, or high spikes in the level of soot and other toxins in the air that last a few hours to a few weeks, and year-round particle pollution, or the annual average of particle pollution levels.

FORBES: List: America's Most Polluted Cities

So physicists are eagerly seeking more, and two groups working at Fermilab, a particle-physics laboratory near Chicago, think they have found a candidate.

ECONOMIST: Cosmology and particle physics

The search for Higgs got its biggest boost in December when researchers at the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, near Geneva, Switzerland, said that data from two independent experiments had narrowed the range of the would-be particle's likely mass to between 124 and 126 gigaelectronvolts, or GeV.

WSJ: Physicists Find Signs of Higgs Boson, or 'God Particle'