Have a safe day!
Monday, Dec. 15
2 p.m.
Particle Astrophysics Seminar - WH6NW
Speaker: Eric Bell, University of Michigan
Title: The Outskirts of Milky Way Mass Galaxies — A Probe of Dark Matter-Driven Growth
3:30 p.m.
Director's Coffee Break - WH2XO
4 p.m.
All Experimenters' Meeting - One West
Tuesday, Dec. 16
1 p.m.
Particle Astrophysics Seminar (NOTE DATE, TIME) - WH6NW
Speaker: Kyler Kuehn, Australian Astronomical Observatory
Title: Optical Spectroscopy with Starbugs from TAIPAN to the Giant Magellan Telescope
3:30 p.m.
Director's Coffee Break - WH2XO
4 p.m.
Accelerator Physics and Technology Seminar - One West
Speaker: Denise Ford, Argonne National Laboratory
Title: First Principles Study of Impurity and Vacancy Structures in Niobium
Visit the labwide calendar to view Fermilab events
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Monday, Dec. 15
- Breakfast: oatmeal raisin pancakes
- Breakfast: sausage, egg and cheese croissant
- Cajun chicken sandwich
- Roasted pork loin with orange mustard glaze
- Liver and onions
- Classic club sandwich
- Sweet and sour chicken
- Texas-style chili
- Cuban black bean soup
- Assorted pizza by the slice
Wilson Hall Cafe menu
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Wednesday, Dec. 17
Lunch
- Pork tenderloin with brandy cream sauce
- Sweet potatoes
- Roasted broccoli
- Cranberry cake with warm caramel sauce
Friday, Dec. 19
Dinner
Guest chef: Marty Murphy
- Antipasto
- Baked mostaccioli
- Mixed green salad
- Spiedini
- Sauteed spinach
- Raspberry parfait with assortment of Christmas cookies
Chez Leon menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.
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ICARUS hits the road
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| A giant neutrino detector is traveling by truck from the Italian Gran Sasso laboratories to CERN to get ready for a new life. Photo courtesy of INFN |
On Tuesday night a 600-metric-ton particle detector became the world's largest neutrino experiment currently on an international road trip.
The ICARUS T600 neutrino detector — the world's largest liquid-argon neutrino experiment — is on its way from the INFN Gran Sasso laboratories in Italy to European research center CERN on the border of France and Switzerland. Once it arrives at CERN, it will undergo upgrades to prepare it for a second life.
"ICARUS is presently the state-of-the-art technology," says Nobel Laureate Carlo Rubbia, the leader of the ICARUS experiment. "Its success has demonstrated the enormous potentials of this detector technique … Most of the ICARUS developments have become part of the liquid-argon technology that is now being used is most of the other, more recent projects."
Since 2010, the ICARUS experiment has studied neutrinos streaming about 450 miles straight through the Earth from CERN to Gran Sasso. Neutrinos come in three types, called flavors, and they switch flavors as they travel. The ICARUS experiment was set up to study those flavor oscillations. Its detector, which works like a huge, three-dimensional camera that visualizes subatomic events, has recorded several thousand neutrino interactions.
Scientists see more experiments in the detector's future, possibly using a powerful beam of neutrinos already in operation at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago.
Read more
—Kathryn Jepsen
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Dianne Engram retires Friday after 35 years with Fermilab
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Dianne Engram
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Dianne Engram, Fermilab's Equal Opportunity Office manager, came to Fermilab in 1979 and hit the ground running. That year she developed a program to provide training in technician, machining and drafting skills for underprivileged but promising workers. The trainees would then enter the Fermilab workforce as lab technicians.
After 35 years, Engram retires from Fermilab with the strong legacy presaged by that first remarkable year. Her last day is Dec. 19.
Throughout her service to the laboratory, Engram has worked both to improve the work lives of employees and to enhance the education of science-interested students that could one day become employees of places like Fermilab.
At Fermilab she helped develop the class Managing Within the Law, now mandatory for all laboratory managers and supervisors. She also developed the first labwide Diversity Council, which aids employee recruitment and retention.
Engram's work with students is equally notable. In the 1980s, she helped secure funding that led to the TARGET internship program for high school students. She later strengthened the Summer Internships in Science and Technology so that the program's undergraduate participants would take a more active role in lab research. She also established a Fermilab internship program with Prairie View A&M University physics majors.
She's taken on leadership roles as well. Engram is the chair of Tomorrow's Scientists, Technicians and Managers, which exposes middle and high school students to STEM education programs. She is also the Fermilab representative for the GEM Consortium, a nationwide coalition of universities and employers that offers fellowships and internships to minorities.
Once Engram retires, she plans to devote more of her time to the public service organizations where she volunteers currently.
Say goodbye to Engram at her retirement celebration Tuesday, Dec. 16, at 2 p.m. on the second-floor crossover.
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Podcast: Citizen science answering the call
From Physics Central Physics Buzz Blog, Dec. 10, 2014
Over the past decade, citizen science projects have been popping up in every conceivable discipline, evolving with the internet to bring the power of the public to bear on increasingly large datasets. Astronomy has a long history of amateur involvement, and many projects are now up and running to process piles of data from space telescopes, sky surveys, and planetary orbiters. [We] take a look at a few of these projects to find out why they're so useful and what drives citizen scientists to volunteer.
Listen to the podcast
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Cosmic mystery solved? Possible dark matter signal spotted
From Space.com, Dec. 11, 2014
Astronomers may finally have detected a signal of dark matter, the mysterious and elusive stuff thought to make up most of the material universe.
While poring over data collected by the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton spacecraft, a team of researchers spotted an odd spike in X-ray emissions coming from two different celestial objects — the Andromeda galaxy and the Perseus galaxy cluster.
Read more
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Keep the holiday season a safe season
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| Hot tip: Keep Christmas trees away from fireplaces to help avoid accidents. |
Since many of us are in holiday preparation mode, the Fermilab Fire Department would like to remind you to add a few more things to your already growing seasonal list of things to do and remember.
- Space heaters need space. Keep anything that can burn at least three feet away. Make sure that any unit you have carries a UL approval tag and is equipped with a tip-over switch. Avoid using space heaters in a bathroom or anywhere where it can come in contact with water.
- Never use your stove top or oven as a heating device. They are not designed to heat surrounding areas, and they produce carbon monoxide, which can be harmful if not deadly to humans and pets.
- When cooking, stay in the kitchen. Never leave a stove, fryer or grill unattended, even for a short time. If you must leave the area, turn them off.
- Be very careful when discarding ashes from a fireplace, as ashes can stay hot for a very long time. Never leave ashes inside the home or even in a close proximity to the house outside. Always place them in a metal container, well away from the home.
- Keep your fireplace clean. Have it professionally inspected once a year, and keep the area in front of the fireplace clear of any flammable items.
- If you have an artificial tree, make sure it is labeled, certified or identified by the manufacturer as fire-retardant. If you have a real tree in your home, make sure it is one with fresh, green needles that do not fall off when touched.
- Always cut at least one to two inches from the base of the tree before placing it in the stand, and add water daily.
- Check all lights prior to placing them on the tree and discard any that have frayed or worn wires or loose bulbs. Always turn tree lights off before leaving the home or going to bed.
- Keep the tree well away from any heat source such as fireplaces, radiators, heat vents, candles or light fixtures.
- Get rid of the tree when the needles begin to drop. Dried out trees should never be left inside the home, garage or immediately outside to the house.
- Check those smoke alarms. This is a great time to change the batteries and check to make sure that they are all working properly.
Have a happy and safe holiday season!
—Fire Chief Chuck Kuhn and the Fermilab Fire Department
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Got a Minute? The Large Hadron Collider: Why collider?
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The Large Hadron Collider is the most powerful particle accelerator in the world. Why do we use a collider? Fermilab scientist Tia Miceli tells us more.
View the video. Video: U.S. CMS |
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Lookout at Indian Creek Road
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| A hawk alights on one of its favorite perches at Fermilab: a road sign. Photo: Skyler Sherwin, PPD |
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New employees - December
The following regular employees started at Fermilab in December:
Robert Ainsworth, AD; Brittny Bouye, WDRS; Davide Braga, PPD; Ryan Heath, CCD; Muntasar Mohammed, CCD; Orlando Rivera, AD; Theodore Staberow, SCD; Antonios Vouris, TD. Artur Galt, TD, started in November.
Fermilab welcomes them to the laboratory.
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Rain
Tip of the Week: Safety
