A churn of saliva. A clashing of teeth. Way too much tongue.

These are just some of the components of a kiss many of us would rather forget.

So, it might come as a surprise to hear that more and more Brits have been searching for this kind of smooch on porn sites.

In fact, in the past two years, searches for the term ‘kissing fetish’ have surged by 67% on adult content marketplace, Clips4Sale, making it one of the most lucrative categories.

That’s kisses that are ‘wet’ and ‘smokey’, according to search terms, as well as those that you might associate with a good snogger, including ‘erotic’, ‘romantic’ and ‘SFW (safe for work)’.

In the r/dating subReddit, users have been sharing their love of a ‘sloppy and wet make-out session.’

‘I yearn for a sloppy make out session,’ wrote one user, while another said: ‘I love spit swapping, tonsil wrestling, tongue tied make out sessions.’

Our jaws hurt just thinking about it, but sex therapist Courtney Boyer is hardly surprised that kissing fetish is finally having its moment.

‘Kissing sits right at the intersection of emotional intimacy and physical arousal,’ she tells Metro. ‘The lips are packed with nerve endings, so even light contact can send strong sensory signals through the body.

‘Throw in eye contact, anticipation, scent, and emotional connection, and it becomes a powerful erotic trigger.

‘This is often more psychologically charged than overt sexual touch.’

Why are so many Brits getting off to kissing videos?

Courtney explains that, like most fetishes, our penchant for the intimate act develops through early imprinting. ‘Because kissing is often our first intimate act, it can hold emotional and erotic significance that carried into adulthood.’

That certainly makes sense, but what’s the appeal of the ‘washing-machine’ style snog?

Well, Courtney says the wet noises can hold a particular allure.

‘Sound and sensation amplify arousal,’ Courtney adds. ‘Wet kissing noises can heighten realism, and signal a mutual desire and immersion in the moment.’ Essentially, it shows that the pair are really digging the smooch.

Specific searches for things like ‘smokey kisses’ also point to a desire for sex acts that feel a little bit wrong.

‘These refer to kissing where smoke, often from cigarettes or vapes, is shared mouth-to-mouth,’ Courtney says. ‘For some, the appeal lies in taboo, the combination of all senses (taste and smell), and the intimacy of sharing air.

‘It blends rebellion with closeness, which can feel edgy and erotic.’

The fetish can also overlap with kinks like breath play, oral fixations, sensory play and even romantic dom and sub dynamics.

‘All of these center on closeness, control, and sensory immersion, which are core elements of erotic kissing,’ Courtney explains.

Keeping it PG

On the other end of the spectrum, SFW (safe for work) kisses were another frequently searched-for term, suggesting there are those out there looking for a more PG exchange.

‘Despite an increase among the younger generation in more aggressive acts like choking, there is also a growing appetite for softer intimacy,’ Courtney says.

‘Kissing that feels affectionate, slow, and emotionally grounded rather than overtly sexual.

‘In times of stress or digital overload, people often crave comfort, safety, and nostalgia. “SFW” content offers arousal rooted in connection rather than explicitness.’

While the kissing fetish spans all genders, Courtney says that research and clinical insights suggest women are more likely to eroticise kissing because they tend to ‘link arousal with emotion’.

‘That said, men absolutely share the fetish,’ she adds, ‘particularly when kissing is framed as a marker of mutual desire or conquest. It’s less about gender and more about how individuals eroticise intimacy.’

But why the sudden uptick?

With a dramatic increase in demand for kissing fetish videos in the past two years, you do have to wonder what sparked the surge in interest.

For Courtney, post-pandemic psychology plays a major role. ‘Periods of isolation heightened our awareness of touch deprivation,’ she says.

‘Kissing, intimate but accessible, became symbolic of reconnection. At the same time, dating culture has been recalibrating toward slower, more intentional intimacy.’

And while the act of kissing itself has always been erotic, the expert suggests its rise as a standalone fetish is tied to online culture, too.

‘Particularly, it’s the growth of searchable, niche content over the past decade,’ she says. ‘As people realise their specific turn-ons are shared by others, interest and visibility increases.’

Do you have a story to share?

Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@Metro.co.uk.

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Democratic leaders in Congress shared a list of 10 demands for reforms to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Wednesday, insisting they be added to the funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., put forward the following demands in a letter to Republican leadership, arguing that ICE has “has terrorized communities across the country.”

Targeted enforcement

Democrats say DHS officers must not “enter private property without a judicial warrant.”

SENATE DEMOCRATS THREATEN SHUTDOWN BY BLOCKING DHS FUNDING AFTER MINNESOTA ICE SHOOTING

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., released a list of 10 demands for a DHS funding bill on Wednesday. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

“End indiscriminate arrests and improve warrant procedures and standards. Require verification that a person is not a U.S. citizen before holding them in immigration detention,” Jeffries and Schumer wrote.

No masks

“Prohibit ICE and immigration enforcement agents from wearing face coverings,” the pair demanded.

REP JEFFRIES ESCALATES RHETORIC AGAINST NOEM, SAYS DHS LEADER SHOULD BE ‘PUT ON ICE PERMANENTLY’

Require ID

Schumer and Jeffries say ICE agents should constantly display their agency, unique ID number and their last name during immigration operations. They should also “verbalize” their ID number and name if asked during an operation, the pair argue.

The GSA removed a Minnesota Hampton Inn from all federal lodging programs after the hotel refused to accommodate ICE and immigration agents.

SEN RUBEN GALLEGO: I WON’T FUND A ROGUE ICE THAT SHOOTS FIRST AND CALLS IT LAW ENFORCEMENT

Protect sensitive locations

Jeffries and Schumer argue that federal funding should not be used to conduct immigration operations near “sensitive locations,” which they define as “medical facilities, schools, child-care facilities, churches, polling places, courts” and others.

Stop racial profiling

Top Democrats argue that DHS officers have been “conducting stops, questioning and searches based on an individual’s presence at certain locations, their job, their spoken language and accent or their race and ethnicity.”

They say that must stop, and that decisions should be based on prior evidence.

DHS SECRETARY NOEM STANDS BY BODY CAMERA REQUIREMENT FOR FEDERAL AGENTS FOLLOWING TRUMP COMMENTS

The Department of Homeland Security announced on Feb. 4 that there have been more than 4,000 arrests of undocumented aliens in Minnesota under operation Metro Surge.  (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Uphold use of force standards

Democrats say ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection must operate under a more robust use-of-force policy, involving expanded training and certification for federal agents.

“In the case of an incident, the officer must be removed from the field until an investigation is conducted,” the pair argued.

Ensure state and local coordination and oversight

“Preserve the ability of State and local jurisdictions to investigate and prosecute potential crimes and use of excessive force incidents,” the pair wrote. “Require that evidence is preserved and shared with jurisdictions. Require the consent of States and localities to conduct large-scale operations outside of targeted immigration enforcement.”

DEMOCRATS DEMAND KRISTI NOEM BE FIRED OR WARN IMPEACHMENT WILL FOLLOW

Build safeguards into the system

Schumer and Jeffries demanded that federal detention facilities “must abide by the same basic detention standards that require immediate access to a person’s attorney to prevent citizen arrests or detention.”

“Allow states to sue DHS for violations of all requirements. Prohibit limitations on Member visits to ICE facilities regardless of how those facilities are funded,” they wrote.

A person is detained by federal agents on Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026, in Minneapolis.  (Ryan Murphy/AP)

Body cameras for accountability, not tracking

The Democrats argue that federal agents must wear body cameras when interacting with the public.

They also say federal police should “prohibit tracking, creating or maintaining databases of individuals participating in First Amendment activities.”

No paramilitary police

“Regulate and standardize the type of uniforms and equipment DHS officers carry during enforcement operations to bring them in line with civil enforcement,” Schumer and Jeffries wrote.

ILHAN OMAR DEMANDS IMPEACHMENT OF NOEM AMID DHS FUNDING BATTLE: ‘WE MUST ABOLISH ICE’

Hakeem Jeffries escalated rhetoric against Kristi Noem during a press conference Thursday, arguing the DHS Secretary should be “put on ice permanently.” (Getty Images)

“Furthermore, there are steps that the Trump administration has the power to take right now to show good faith, including fully ramping down the surge in Minnesota and removing Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem from her position,” the pair wrote.

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“These are common sense solutions that protect constitutional rights and ensure responsible law enforcement,” they said.

White House border czar Tom Homan already announced a drawdown of 700 federal agents from the Twin Cities on Wednesday. Noem also ordered federal agents in Minnesota to start wearing body cameras.

Before the release of the recent James L. Brooks film Ella McCay, film fans on social media operating (as they tend to do) somewhere between genuine fandom and irony-poisoned wiseassery, extolled people to take the “Ella McCay challenge,” namely posing next to the poster for the film and imitating star Emma Mackey (yes, Emma Mackey IS Ella McCay) adjusting her shoe mid-stride.

They might have tried something less specific; the true Ella McCay challenge, it turned out, was getting anyone to show up at a theater playing Ella McCay. The film is about the title character unexpectedly ascending to the office of governor (“of the state you were born and raised in,” unnamed) after her boss (Albert Brooks) vacates the job for a cabinet position. In other words, it was never expected to be a holiday blockbuster. But it nonetheless still felt like yet another blow to the idea of grown-up movies playing in movie theaters when, during the most lucrative several weeks of the box office year, Ella McCay not only became the lowest-grossing new wide release of December but made less money than fellow 2025 releases The Alto Knights, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, or (most damning) The Weeknd’s insane vanity project Hurry Up Tomorrow. Two of those three got significantly better reviews, too.

Now that Ella McCay is arriving on Hulu, viewers will have the chance to take the challenge at home. (Maybe they can adjust their slipper midstride?) Nearly anyone streaming it will find that certain criticisms of the film ring absolutely true. First and foremost: James L. Brooks, who was an ’70s sitcom titan via The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Taxi, an ’80s Oscar darling with Terms of Endearment and Broadcast News, and a ’90s shepherd of blockbusters in both cinema (As Good As It Gets) and TV (The Simpsons), does not have any of that juice in the 2020s, unless you count The Simpsons still being on and sometimes good.

Brooks seems to recognize this, too. He sets Ella McCay in late 2008, which his narrator (Julie Kavner) describes with wry knowingness as a time when people liked each other more. Uh, maybe. Which people, Jim? He doesn’t exactly name names, because despite the movie explicitly taking place during the 2008 financial crisis and cabinet-appointment season (which is to say, in the wake of the presidential election), the names “Barack Obama,” “John McCain,” or “George W. Bush” are not so much as obliquely alluded to, nevermind actually uttered. “Financial crisis” and different-styled phones are just about all you get for that ’08 feeling. The barely-subtext is that it’s set at this time because Brooks could still make sense of the world in 2008, which makes sense; after all, that was a full two years before his 2010 movie How Do You Know bombed expensively at the box office and presumably knocked some wind out of him.

The 2008 setting also allows flashbacks to Ella’s teenage years to get closer to the Brooks heyday, in the early 1990s. This would be especially convenient if any of the flashback scenes were a good idea. Instead, they have Mackey unconvincingly playing a 17-year-old in multiple scenes of hoary psychological baggage, where we learn that Ella has been let down by her philandering father (Woody Harrelson), bereaved by the death of her beloved mother (Rebecca Hall, clocking in for a single scene), and partially raised by her outspoken aunt (Jamie Lee Curtis, sometimes overdoing it). We also meet Ella’s younger brother Casey (Spike Fearn in his adult years) who later inexplicably shares a long scene with his ex-girlfriend Susan (Ayo Edebiri), a distracting break from Ella’s vantage point and a subplot that is abruptly dropped well before the movie ends.

Yes, it’s safe to say that Brooks, at the age of 85, is only slightly more convincing as a chronicler of urbane and anxious young people than Woody Allen. It’s also safe to say that against many odds, with an underdog scrappiness worthy of Governor McCay herself, Ella McCay is actually pretty charming. That is, Ella McCay herself is charming, because Emma Mackey gives what might be considered a superhuman performance in making her part seem playable at all.

The best decision Brooks makes is to build a movie about a character who plays a bit like the woman Lisa Simpson could only grow into through her show’s many what-if future-set episodes. Ella is wonky, policy-focused, serious-minded, earnest as hell, and, in classic (as well as less-than-classic) Brooks fashion, has to do a lot of thinking aloud that only superficially involves other people. Mackey plays these qualities with the slightly frazzled confidence of a screwball professional, even though the movie talks itself pretty far afield from the genuine screwball delight it could have been. Often, the movie feels like a political comedy from 1946 talking itself down from farce.

Brooks characters talk in circles without necessarily realizing they do; sometimes I’m not even sure if Brooks realizes it. It can make his movies, especially his later-period stuff, seem weirdly uneventful; in the often funny How Do You Know, half the story is predicated on the Paul Rudd character getting in legal trouble that he doesn’t understand and most of the characters refuse to explain to him. Rather than a genuine dilemma, it feels like the movie is stalling for time. Ella McCay also feels like it’s running out the clock, though at least it’s for more thematically appropriate reasons, as a scandal threatens to derail Ella’s governorship before it’s begun. (That’s another reason Brooks must have wanted to jump back to 2008; the notion that this movie’s scandal involving Ella, uh, having sex with her husband could move the needle in any way does not track nearly two decades later. In a weird way, it comes across like Brooks is a bit nostalgic for what used to look like intransigence regarding sex. This may or may not have something to do with a truly bizarre post-coital shot of Ella where she appears to be wearing a scarf or a blanket around her neck.)

But! But!!! The relationship between Ella and her prickly mentor “Governor Bill” retains some of the old-fashioned Brooks good-sitcom zing, and the movie’s take on familial forgiveness has a tartness that most comedy-dramas would never touch. Moreover, this is Mackey’s movie, as she overthinks her way toward making the whole thing feel somewhat less like it was designed by space aliens intent on quietly destroying the reputation of the state Ella was born and raised in. Not for nothing, but I took my ten-year-old daughter to this movie – it was a Christmas-movie compromise (or, per Ella’s preferred terminology, consensus) between her refusal to see Song Sung Blue and my wife’s refusal to see a SpongeBob – and she was able to lock into this talky, apolitically political comedy-drama, with a rootable heroine and some funny moments of relatable neuroses. Families used to see movies like this together all the time, I think! It’s hard to remember. 2008 was a long time ago, much less 1995. I’m not sure where exactly Ella McCay wound up taking me, but I was happy to take the challenge of being whisked away to whatever state it was born and raised in.

---

How To Watch Ella McCay

If you’re new to Hulu, you can get started with a 30-day free trial on the streamer’s basic (with ads) plan. After the trial period, you’ll pay $10.99/month. If you want to upgrade to Hulu ad-free, it costs $18.99/month.

If you want to stream even more and save a few bucks a month while you’re at it, we recommend subscribing to one of the Disney+ Bundles, all of which include Hulu. These bundles start at $12.99/month for ad-supported Disney+ and Hulu and goes up to $32.99/month for Disney+, Hulu, and Max, all ad-free.

Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.

Stream Ella McCay on Hulu

BYLINE: Shannon Brescher Shea: Social media manager and senior writer/editor in the Office of Science’s Office of Communications and Public Affairs

Newswise — Scientists recognized by the Department of Energy Office of Science Distinguished Scientists Fellows Award are pursuing answers to science’s biggest questions. Mary Bishai is a senior physicist at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory.

If it wasn’t for a magazine, I may have become a completely different type of scientist. 

In 1985, my uncle – who was a prominent marine biology professor – was tutoring me in high school biology. As a science lover, he had copies of National Geographic lying around. Intrigued, I convinced my parents to get me a subscription. One article caught my eye – “Worlds Within the Atom.” It described how physicists used massive particle accelerators to study the tiniest things in existence. 

Even though I was born in and living in Egypt, I was enthralled by the research in Europe and the United States. I decided I would one day work at CERN in Switzerland or the Tevatron collider at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Fermilab.

Although my engineer parents wanted me to follow in their footsteps, I entered the American University of Cairo as a physics major instead. An exchange program later brought me to the United States.

Then nearly 13 years after I first read about the Tevatron at Fermilab, I was there. Fulfilling my dream, I delved into the interactions between the Standard Model of Particle Physics fundamental particles called Quarks and Gluons.

But that’s not the end of the story. Along the way, another type of physics caught my eye – neutrino physics. Since then, I’ve pursued the question – how can neutrinos help us answer some of the biggest questions about how our universe evolved?

The little neutral one

Neutrinos are a type of fundamental particle. They’re in a group called the leptons, which also includes electrons. However, neutrinos are much smaller than their familiar cousins.

Neutrinos are incredibly abundant. On the tip of your tongue right now, there are 300 neutrinos left over from the Big Bang. The sun, Supernovae, cosmic rays interacting with the atmosphere, and nuclear reactors also produce neutrinos. They’re the second most abundant particle in the universe, after photons (particles of light). Neutrinos are everywhere. 

Despite them being so common, neutrinos interact very little with other matter. Every second, 100 billion neutrinos produced by the sun move through your thumbnail and never leave a mark. A neutrino would have to travel 1.6 light years through lead – or 100,000 times the distance from the Earth to the sun – to interact with a single atom. Or as writer John Updike declared in the poem “Cosmic Gall,” “The earth is just a silly ball / To them, through which they simply pass, / Like dustmaids through a drafty hall / Or photons through a sheet of glass.” This lack of interaction inspired the nickname of “ghost particles.” 

Scientists are interested in neutrinos because of their ubiquity and the fact that they could hold the answers to some of physics’ biggest questions. One of those questions is the issue of why there is something in our universe rather than nothing. 

But none of that drew me to neutrino research. Wave-particle duality – or the idea that all matter can act like waves or particles – is a key concept in quantum mechanics. Scientists in the 1960’s stipulated that if neutrinos have non-zero mass, one type of neutrino could convert to another then back again. This would be a direct signature of quantum interference and wave-particle duality. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, experimental results confirmed the observation of neutrino “oscillations.” Hearing about one of the experiments, I said, “Oh my God, this is wave particle duality. It’s quantum mechanics and it’s just there. That’s cool, that’s what I want to do.” 

When I joined DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory in 2004 to study neutrinos, I joined a history of “ghostbuster” physicists.  

A history of ghostbusters

Our story starts in the 1930s. At that point, scientists were interested in how radioactive particles fall apart. Beta decay is when a nucleus emits an electron or its anti-matter partner, the positron. When a Nuclei nucleus undergoes beta decay, it transforms into another type of nucleus. When scientists looked at this process, they expected it to release a specific amount of energy. But it didn’t. It seemed like this result contradicted the Law of Energy Conservation, where energy can neither be created nor destroyed. 

Enter our first ghostbuster – Wolfgang Pauli. In a letter to fellow physicists attending a workshop, he proposed the idea of a yet-unknown particle that would carry away some of the energy. It would be neutral and have extremely small mass. While he valued his research enough to write the letter, it didn’t win out over a social obligation. In the same letter, he explained that he couldn’t have traveled to the workshop “since I am indispensable here in Zurich because of a ball.” Physicists do like to party. 

Now let’s jump ahead to the 1950s at DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory. Determined to track down these mysterious particles, Fred Reines and Clyde Cowan pursued the “poltergeist project.” While they first proposed detecting neutrinos from nuclear bomb testing, that idea was dismissed. Instead, they placed particle detectors near the Hanford and Savannah River nuclear reactors. The detectors sensed a telltale: two flashes of light from ghost-like neutrinos emitted by the reactors interacting with the material in the detectors. By counting these flashes, the scientists could count the neutrinos being captured by the detector. Developing the first neutrino detector netted Reines the Nobel Prize in 1995.

In addition to reactors, scientists realized that they could produce neutrinos in particle accelerators. From early on, Brookhaven was a leader in neutrino research. Physicists Leon Lederman, Melvin Schwartz, and Jack Steinberger used a proton beam from Brookhaven’s Alternating Gradient Synchrotron to slam protons into a target. A type of particle called a pi meson emerged, which then decayed into a neutrino and a Muons (another cousin of the electron). 

The scientists wanted to know if these were the same type of neutrinos as the ones from beta decay. The tracks the neutrinos left in their detector revealed mostly muon neutrinos and not electron neutrinos which are the type of neutrinos from beta decay. Another Nobel Prize-winning discovery. Later experiments at Fermilab confirmed a third type of neutrino called the tau neutrino – the neutral partner of the tau lepton, the heavier sibling of electrons and muons.

But both reactors and accelerators are made by humans. What about neutrinos from the sun? That was Ray Davis’s question. A chemist and physicist from Brookhaven, Davies began a long-standing physics experiment in 1967. He wanted to test the models that predicted how many solar neutrinos Earth receives. 

Davies installed a particle detector with 615 tons of cleaning fluid in the Homestead gold mine in South Dakota. The solar neutrinos interacted with the chlorine in the cleaning fluid to produce a unique isotope – argon-37. To track the interactions, he painstakingly counted the atoms of argon-37. He kept this up for almost 20 years! For demonstrating how to detect solar neutrinos, he also received a Nobel Prize. 

As these experiments revealed different types of neutrinos – called “flavors” – they also brought up new questions. From studying beta decay, scientists knew that neutrinos are extraordinarily light. In fact, they assumed that neutrinos didn’t have mass at all, like photons. But observations suggested that assumption was wrong. 

In the late 1950s to 1960s, scientists suggested that the different flavors of neutrinos were different mixes of quantum states. In highly relativistic particles like neutrinos, mass, energy, and momentum are all closely related. So when neutrinos act like waves and not particles, you can use their speed to understand their mass. If the different flavors had different speeds, neutrinos would have to have mass. One sign of neutrinos having mass would be one flavor of neutrino turning into another. 

While theory supported that idea, no one had observed that behavior – at least not until 1998 at the Super-Kamiokande (Super-K) detector. This experiment studied neutrinos created by cosmic rays smacking into the atmosphere. It identified if they were muon or electron neutrinos, as well as the direction they came from. The number of neutrinos that came from near the experiment matched well with estimates. In contrast, the ones from far away had a major deficit. The “disappearing” neutrinos were the first observations of neutrinos changing flavor, called oscillation. 

Later experiments confirmed the idea of neutrino oscillation. They also gave evidence of at least three different masses. The results won the leaders of the Super-K and Sudbury Neutrino Observatory experiments yet another Nobel Prize.

From not knowing that neutrinos existed to realizing that they change flavors over time, a lot changed in neutrino science in 60 years. But there was so much we still didn’t know.

Becoming a ghostbuster

This is where I come back into the story. The results from the KamLAND experiment following the Super-K project were so intriguing that I wanted to study this bizarre particle. 

One of the earliest projects I worked on was the Daya Bay experiment. This was an extremely difficult project. This experiment measured neutrinos from one of the most powerful nuclear reactors in the world. We had three detectors: one close to the reactor core, one a few hundred meters away, and a last one about a kilometer away. Spreading out the detectors allowed us to study the differences between them. Taking data over the course of 10 years, we detected 5 million anti-neutrino interactions! They were the most precise measurements in the world of antineutrinos from reactors. 

With these results, we knew there were three mass states and three flavors of neutrino. Each mass state is a different mix of flavors. The first mass state is dominated by the electron neutrino flavor. The second mass state has almost equal amounts of all three types. The third mass state is almost all muon and tao neutrino with a tiny amount of electron neutrinos. While we knew the second mass state was heavier than the first one, we didn’t know if the first mass state was heavier or lighter than the third one.

These flavors and mass states brought up a new question – could neutrinos explain why there is something rather than nothing? There is a fundamental principle called charge-parity symmetry. It states that if a particle is swapped with its anti-particle and left and right are swapped, the laws of physics will act in an identical way. However, if this law was universally true, there would have been equal amounts of matter and anti-matter at the beginning of the universe. As matter and anti-matter completely destroy each other and the universe is dominated by matter, we know there must be an exception. If neutrinos and anti-neutrinos demonstrate different mixing of neutrino flavors, this could be the exception. But to find out, we needed to better understand how neutrinos change flavor. 

The ultimate neutrino experiment

Exploring this issue was why we designed the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE). 

In the early 2000s, a multidisciplinary, multi-institutional team proposed the ultimate neutrino experiment. We picked two facilities with a long history of neutrino research – the former Homestake Mine and Fermilab. Where Ray Davies once studied solar neutrinos is now home to the Sanford Underground Research Facility. Fermilab has a particle accelerator that produces the most powerful neutrino beam in the world. The locations are 1,300 kilometers apart, enough space for us to capture plenty of oscillations.

Besides the sheer distance, DUNE is extremely large and complex. From the beam line to the shielding, everything must be extremely precise. The detectors use 17 kilotons of liquid argon that must be kept at -300 degrees F. Each of the two cryostats that keep the liquid cold is the size of a Boeing 787 plane. To fit the equipment, we had to massively expand the underground space of the former mine.

In addition to detecting neutrino oscillation, DUNE should also provide us with new insights into other issues. It will look for new particles, several types of proton decay, and neutrinos produced by supernovas. 

Recognizing the importance of this experiment, more partners joined the effort. Currently, we have 1,400 scientists from 209 institutions. Our international partners at CERN and elsewhere have made essential contributions to building and testing parts of the detectors.  

I have been involved with DUNE since early in its conception and served as DUNE project scientist from 2012 to 2015, leading the conceptual design of the project. I was also honored to serve as DUNE co-spokesperson from 2023 to 2025. In August 2024, we celebrated our biggest milestone yet – the ribbon cutting of the cavern expansion. The next milestone will be installing the first of four detectors underground. 

Looking forward, I hope that DUNE provides the next generation of scientists and engineers with the same opportunities I had. Working in experimental particle physics at the DOE National Labs has given me the incredible opportunity to study the fundamental science of our universe. I am lucky to study the worlds within the atom that I first read about in a magazine 40 years ago.

CALGARY – Devin Cooley was the first to admit that his second career start against the Edmonton Oilers went way better than his first.

Cooley made 36 saves on Wednesday to backstop the Calgary Flames to a 4-3 victory over Edmonton as both teams wrapped up play and now head into the Olympic break.

“It was honestly really fun,” said Cooley.

“When it’s back and forth, and maybe I give up a goal that I don’t really want to give up and it’s like, oh, shoot, now it’s tied again. We’re going to the third, they get a power play. That’s what I live for, that’s where I have the most amount of fun, and it’s where you get the most amount of adrenaline and it’s awesome.”

It was in his fifth career start, while he was with the San Jose Sharks, when the Oilers lit up Cooley for eight goals on 22 shots before he was pulled 14 minutes into the second period.

“I’m glad that tonight went a lot better than that one,” said Cooley, laughing as he recounted that night on April 14, 2024. “Those are the games where it’s like get me out of here. I’m not really enjoying it. I’m glad I was I was able to get some redemption.”

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Cooley’s impressive body of work on Wednesday night, eight of his stops coming against NHL leading scorer Connor McDavid, who failed to get a puck past him, epitomized how his rookie season has gone so far.

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Despite Calgary (23-27-6) languishing near the bottom of the overall standings, Cooley hits the Olympic break with a 7-6-3 record

Of 74 goalies with five or more starts, Cooley’s .921 save percentage ranks him No. 1. Tampa Bay’s Andrei Vasilevskiy is second at .918.

“It’s nice to see him have such success early in the year for us. He’s come in and done a very good job,” said Flames coach Ryan Huska. “He’s allowed us to take some of the load off of Dustin (Wolf) and when he’s been in that, he’s given us a chance to win every night.”

That trust from the coach took a while to build, though.

After winning the backup job in training camp, despite going 0-2 with a .846 save percentage, Cooley only started twice in the first 16 games. When Calgary opened the season with games on back-to-back nights and three games in four days, Wolf started all of them.

But Cooley’s consistent play has earned him more playing time and the last 12 games have been split six games each.

“I actually thought early in the game he looked a little shaky, and then once the game went on, he looked really comfortable,” said Huska. “Sometimes when a goaltender lets one in that he doesn’t want to go in, or he thinks he should have had, they typically dig right in from that point.

“That was the feeling we had on the bench tonight, and he most definitely did that as the game went on in the third.”

Calgary led 3-2 in the third when Kasperi Kapanen tied it for Edmonton on a shot that Cooley partially stopped, but it rolled down his arm and dribbled over the line.

But the Flames answered right back with Ryan Lomberg scoring the game-winner less than three minutes later.

“He’s an easy guy to play for, for sure,” said Lomberg. “His personality and the character he has, he’s great in our locker room and the boys love him and are hungry to play in front of him.”

Full of personality, colourful quotes and the owner of a rabbit, Tito, who has his own cult social media following, Cooley is a vibrant character off the ice and Huska said it’s the same on the ice.

“I try not to listen to any of the comments that come out of his mouth,” said the Flames bench boss with a smile. “He’s very much a free spirit. The players really enjoy having him around, and they really enjoy playing in front of him. There’s something to be said about people that have a positive vibe or an aura about them.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 5, 2026.

&copy 2026 The Canadian Press

For days, Abrar Sarwari has been concerned for the safety of his grocery store’s delivery drivers stranded in cold temperatures.

Sarwari is the assistant manager of Tetlit Co-op grocery store in Fort McPherson, N.W.T. He said they are struggling these days to keep the shelves stocked.

That’s because high winds, snow and poor visibility has closed the Dempster Highway for days, between Eagle Plains to Fort McPherson.

“They [truck drivers] were stuck for six days and some of them did not have a place to stay. They were freezing inside the cabins of their trucks … we’re concerned for their safety,” Sarwari said.

The store has run out of perishable food such as milk, eggs and fresh produce, and is low on backup stock, he said. Even worse, he says, is when trucks make it to the store with loads of food already expired.

“We can only stock up on so much… we end up losing margins, we end up losing potential sales.”

Sarawari has lived in Fort MacPherson for several years and he says this is the longest closure of the highway he’s experienced.

The mayor of Fort McPherson, Rebecca Blake, calls it “unprecedented.”

She says Dempster Highway has been mostly closed for over two weeks now, with short openings. The Northwest Territories’ Infrastructure department has not confirmed the length of the closure with CBC News, but according to the department’s last update on Feb. 1, the highway is seeing high winds, blowing snow and poor visibility.

Blake says while grocery supplies and mail delivery are her top concerns, the community is managing with access to supplies from Inuvik.

She worries that these sort of closures may become more common as the climate changes, and she wants to N.W.T. government to monitor impacts on infrastructure.

“It’s happening more and more often… with climate change and the different weather patterns, Dempster Highway can close for long periods of time,” she said.

“People in the fuel industry, in the grocery industry can adapt their planning around that.”

Meanwhile, Sarwari says his store right now has supplies of frozen bread and shelf stable milk — though they’re more expensive.

“Nobody wants to have shelf stable milk quite often. It’s only when there are no options left,” he said.

The territory’s Infrastructure department has not said when the Dempster Highway might reopne in the area.

Firefighters are at the scene of a fire at the Halifax Armoury, a Department of National Defence building near the city’s downtown. 

Crews responded to reports of alarms shortly after 4 a.m., according to Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency.

Assistant Chief Jim Stymiest said the fire was brought under control shortly before 7 a.m. There are no injuries, he said.

Firefighters found fires on the first and second floors, he said, and are still searching out hotspots. The cause will be investigated.

Halifax police said they have blocked off Cunard Street between North Park and Maynard streets, and a northbound section of North Park Street.

The Halifax Armoury was constructed in 1899 and is a National Historic Site. It is undergoing extensive restoration work.

The first firefighters to arrive on scene noticed smoke and haze, Stymiest said. Sprinklers in the building had deployed, he said.

Firefighters opened up walls and ceilings, “chasing hidden fire,” he said, and the roof of the building was also opened up for ventilation.

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