Open SESAME: Jordan’s particle accelerator breaks down atoms – and barriers

“We come from many countries,” Messaoud Harfouche, an Algerian beamline scientist, says as he checks a monitor. In what is being hailed as a breakthrough in science diplomacy, a particle accelerator in Jordan is breaking down atoms and barriers, offering scientists from across the fragmented Middle East the chance to work together, to better understand their shared past, and to find solutions for their common future. At the UNESCO-supported SESAME, or Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East, researchers and scientists have spent months learning from each other since the particle accelerator became fully operational this spring.