Newswise — In Jordan, an international project to build a particle accelerator, called SESAME, hopes to bring together scientists from across the Middle East. The researchers would conduct experiments at the supermicroscope's laboratory outside Amman, where scientists could study a material's structural properties, such as the makeup of an intriguing rock sample, a newly invented material, or an archaeological discovery.

But the engineers building SESAME have faced daunting obstacles. The political infighting that the synchrotron had hoped to overcome now threatens to doom this experiment. Can scientists and engineers succeed in spurring science and peace where politics has failed?