Highlights from the STAR experiment at RHIC

Ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions produced at RHIC differ significantly from a superposition of proton roton collisions. Evidence of collective expansion has been gathered. The yield of high transverse momentum particles has been found to be lower in head-on Au u collisions than is expected by scaling p-p collisions. Di-jet processes, which are frequent in p-p collisions, are almost absent in head-on Au u collisions. The current results from RHIC indicate that Au u collisions at √SNN = 130 GeV and √SNN = 200 GeV yield an expanding system that is opaque to high momentum partons. (author)