Monday, Aug. 12, 2013
spacer
Search
spacer
Calendar

Have a safe day!

Monday, Aug. 12

PARTICLE ASTROPHYSICS SEMINARS WILL RESUME IN THE FALL

3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over

4 p.m.
All Experimenters' Meeting - Curia II

Tuesday, Aug. 13

2 p.m.
Computing Techniques Seminar - One West
Speaker: Adam Lyon, Fermilab
Title: Big Science On the Move: Transporting the Muon g-2 Magnet from New York to Fermilab

2:30 p.m.
Theoretical Physics Seminar (NOTE DATE, LOCATION) - WH3NE
Speaker: Diptimoy Ghosh, INFN
Title: Shining the Torch on stops and sbottoms

3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over

4 p.m.
Accelerator Physics and Technology Seminar - One West
Speaker: Haci Sogukpinar, Ankara University
Title: Turkish Accelerator Center Proton Accelerator Project: Current Status

Click here for NALCAL,
a weekly calendar with links to additional information.

Ongoing and upcoming conferences at Fermilab

Campaigns

Take Five

Weather
Weather Chance of thunderstorms
82°/60°

Extended forecast
Weather at Fermilab

Current Security Status

Secon Level 3

Current Flag Status

Flags at full staff

Wilson Hall Cafe

Monday, Aug. 12

- Breakfast: apple cinnamon multigrain pancakes
- Breakfast: sausage, egg and cheese croissant
- Gyros
- Smart cuisine: sweet and sour apricot chicken
- Garam masala salmon with mustard sauce
- Spicy Asian chicken wrap
- Stir fry sensations
- Spicy Thai beef noodle soup
- Texas-style chili

Wilson Hall Cafe menu

Chez Leon

Wednesday, Aug. 14
Lunch
- Cumin-crusted pork soft tacos
- Refried beans
- Spanish rice
- Hummingbird cake

Friday, Aug. 16
Dinner
Closed

Chez Leon menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.

Archives

Fermilab Today

Director's Corner

Frontier Science Result

Physics in a Nutshell

Tip of the Week

User University Profiles

Related content

Info

Fermilab Today
is online at:
www.fnal.gov/today/

Send comments and suggestions to:
today@fnal.gov

Visit the Fermilab
home page

Unsubscribe from Fermilab Today

From symmetry

Miniboone the band meets MiniBooNE the experiment

A New York rock band named after a Fermilab neutrino experiment recently visited their namesake for the first time. Photo: Reidar Hahn

Doug Schrashun once wrote a song named after a concept in quantum mechanics for a band named after a neutrino experiment.

But he is not, by any means, a scientist.

Schrashun is a financial consultant and a founding member of the band Miniboone, which shares a name with the first phase of the Booster Neutrino Experiment at Fermilab. Miniboone the band recently visited MiniBooNE the experiment for the first time.

Though Schrashun has never formally studied physics, he seems to have picked up enough to use it in his lyrics.

"'Live fast and die young' is just an expression," Schrashun sings in the song "The Superposition of Affection." "You live fast and live long, or relativity is totally wrong."

At Fermilab in Batavia, Ill., the MiniBooNE experiment uses 1520 individual detectors, called phototubes, to study the mysterious properties of neutrinos, tiny particles that rarely interact with regular matter. In the bars and concert venues of New York City, Miniboone is a five-member rock band, an energetic collision of guitars, drums, keyboards and vocals.

It originally started as a two-man side project in which Schrashun and his college classmate, Craig Barnes, would write and perform songs from the perspective of a physicist in love—a kind of amalgamation of science and romance. Schrashun doesn't remember exactly where he encountered the name of the MiniBooNE experiment, but once he did, it stuck.

"I thought it was an interesting word," he says. "And despite knowing as little as I do about particle physics, I thought it was an interesting project."

Miniboone soon moved from side project to main gig—though the physicist-in-love concept didn't stick. Schrashun and Barnes began recruiting other musicians and eventually rounded out their current lineup with band members James Keary, Tony Aquilino and Drew St. Aubin. They played their first show in December 2008 and, despite the demands of their day jobs, have been touring ever since.

In April, a tour brought them to Chicago, a mere 40 miles from their namesake experiment. They decided to make a pilgrimage to the lab on the invitation of one of their fans, postdoc Joe Grange from neighboring Argonne National Laboratory.

"I'm the one who has the most interest in science," Schrashun says. "But when we came out to Fermilab, I think the other guys sort of got more of a sense of what everything was about, too. We have some sort of a sense of at least what's involved in the experiment, even if we don't know exactly all of the theoretical concepts behind it and all of that."

Read more

Laura Dattaro

In the News

Novel muon imaging technology can help calculate Fukushima damage: Study

From ANI News, Aug. 8, 2013

Washington, Aug. 8 (ANI): A recent study has attributed muon imaging to have the ability to assess damage inside Fukushima nuclear reactors and locate the melted fuel from the core.

A study in the journal AIP Advances by a team of scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) shows that muon imaging may offer the best hope of assessing damage done to the reactor cores from the earthquake and tsunami disaster of 2011.

Muon imaging, which utilizes naturally occurring muons created in the atmosphere by cosmic rays to image dense objects, should solve the problem of determining the spatial distribution of the reactor fuel in the short term, the LANL team said.

Read more

In the News

FRIB gets critical approval from Department of Energy

From the Lansing State Journal, Aug. 1, 2013

The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams at Michigan State University has received a critical approval from the U.S. Department of Energy, in effect cementing the department's commitment to the project, and clearing the way for the start of civil construction.

Known as Critical Decision 2, "it's a commitment on the energy department's part that, 'We really want to do it,'" said FRIB project manager Thomas Glasmacher. "Until now, it was, 'Yeah, we want to do it, but we'll see.'"

The DOE decision fixes the cost of the planned nuclear science research facility at $730 million, with $94.5 of that coming from MSU and the state. It shifts the schedule back two years, pushing the official completion date to 2022, though project leaders say they're aiming for late 2020.

Read more

Tip of the Week:
Ecology and Environment

Sign up for a GreenRide and cash in

Sign up for GreenRide Connect to find others to ride to work with and carpool. If you sign up by Aug. 26, you'll be entered in a drawing for a gas gift card.

Want to save money, make new friends and help the planet at the same time? A website called GreenRide Connect, run by Argonne National Laboratory, enables you to locate fellow employees with similar commutes to ride together to and from work. You can also track your cost savings and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions through the website whether you travel by train, car or bicycle. (You can connect with the site through the Fermilab Sustainability website as well.) Go to the website and sign up by Aug. 26, and you'll be entered into a drawing for a $100 gas gift card.

The federal sustainability policy aims to reduce GHG emissions, most notably carbon dioxide. Fermilab unavoidably emits GHGs by using electrical energy and by burning fossil fuels in fleet vehicles, boilers and other equipment. But we also emit carbon dioxide and other GHGs indirectly by driving our cars to work daily. A survey of Fermilab employees in 2011 revealed that the average commute is roughly 30 miles round-trip. At the national average of 25 mpg, that's 1.2 gallons per day, which translates into emissions equivalent to 22.7 pounds of carbon dioxide. Seventeen hundred employees commuting roughly 250 days per year results in a carbon footprint of nearly 5,000 tons of GHG emissions in a year!

We have more control over our commuting behavior than over many other things in our lives. You could purchase a car with better mileage or move closer to work to lower your carbon footprint, but ride-sharing is a much less burdensome option. The 2011 survey indicated that 35 percent of Fermilab employees are interested in ride-sharing. The problem is finding a driver close to home to share with.

The GreenRide Connect website makes this process much easier and helps track the benefits of ride-sharing. But the site is of no benefit unless it is populated with lots of potential riders. The Fermilab Sustainability Committee and Employee Advisory Group are investigating ways to incentivize our employees to "join up" and try ride-sharing. In addition to the chance to win free gas, carpoolers will have the opportunity to use designated parking spots close to Wilson Hall. So take the first step to reducing our carbon footprint by registering today and greening your commute.

Rod Walton

Photos of the Day

Egret unmoved

This egret doesn't go for the easy prey. It stands idly—so perhaps mercifully—by as nearby fish struggle to get to deeper waters at the connection between the two small ponds by the east entrance. Photo: Jesus Orduna, Rice University
This hungry egret appears not to be as merciful. Photo: Steve Werkema, AD
An egret walks away from two great blue herons at A.E. Sea. Photo: Barb Kristen, PPD
Announcements

Budker Seminar - today

Fermilab Heartland Blood Drive - today and tomorrow

Employee massage day - Aug. 15

Fermilab Arts Series: The Congregation band - Aug. 17

UChicago Tuition Remission program deadline - Aug. 22

An Honest Approach to Weight Management - register by Aug. 22

URA Visiting Scholars program deadline - Aug. 26

Kyuki-Do martial arts

English country dancing at Kuhn Barn

Scottish country dancing meets Tuesday evenings in Auditorium

International folk dancing in Auditorium for summer

Chicago Fire discount tickets