  I discuss some recent progress in our understanding of high energy nuclear
collisions. I will focus on two topics which I was lucky to co-pioneer in the
recent past. One is recombination of quarks and its interpretation as a signal
for deconfinement, the second is electromagnetic radiation from jets passing
through a quark gluon plasma. This talk was given during the award ceremony for
the 2007 IUPAP Young Scientist Award.
