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The article explores on the fate of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois. The facility is undergoing a financial crises wherein they some of their employees like David Mason, a particle physicist, requires to take one week every two months as unpaid leave. Such reduction in the employees wage is detrimental to them because some of them have families who depended on their salary. It reveals that the budget crunch leaves the future of the 40-year-old laboratory in an uncertain state. Discussed are the details of the facility's standing.

The article presents information on Barry Barish, a particle physicist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, who is working with several researchers to build a different conception of the International Linear Collider (ILC), and an accelerator in Batavia, Illinois. Barish is the chairperson of the panel which resolved the decisive technology issue and the head of the ILC's Global Design Effort. Michael Turner, a cosmologist at the University of Chicago in Illinois is very optimistic about the ability and leadership of Barish. Various information related to Barish's educational background and experiences are presented including his doctorate from the University of California. Barish's daughter Stephanie, a multimedia producer in Venice, California, says that Barish is very ethical and that underlying ethics within him makes him very effective and successful. Samoan Barish, Barry's wife who is a social worker and a psychoanalyst says that Barish posses an incredible self-confidence which enables him work under pressure. INSET: Why the International Linear Collider?.

The article discusses about the state of particle physics in the United States, following the impending closure of some colliders in the United States. According to the article, back in February 2008, the CESR collider of the Cornell University had been shutdown and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in Menlo Park, California will close the PEP-II collider by April 7, 2008. This would make the Tevatron at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois as the remaining particle smasher in the United States. Particle physicists hope are thinking of how can they continue their work and hopes that they would be able to host the proposed International Linear Collider at Fermilab despite budget cuts from the congress and competition from Europe and Japan.

The article reports on the decision of Raymond Orbach, U.S. Department of Energy Under Secretary for Science, to add 5 years or more to the timeline of building the International Linear Collider (ILC) at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois. In bridging the projected gap, Orback requested the government's High Energy Physics Advisory Panel to establish a program of smaller projects from researchers whose experiments had been cut. During the panel meeting in Washington, D.C., Orbach mentions that research and development and engineering for the ILC will be continued.