Monday, Jan. 12, 2015
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Have a safe day!

Monday, Jan. 12

2 p.m.
Particle Astrophysics Seminar - WH6NW
Speaker: Myoungwon Jeon, University of Texas at Austin
Title: Formation of the First Galaxies Under Stellar Feedback

3:30 p.m.
Director's Coffee Break - WH2XO

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

Tuesday, Jan. 13

3:30 p.m.
Director's Coffee Break - WH2XO

4 p.m.
Accelerator Physics and Technology Seminar - ICB Hermitage
Speaker: Mike Kelly, Argonne National Laboratory
Title: Superconducting RF Technology: The Last 15 Years

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Weather Mostly sunny
19°/20°

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Flags at full staff

Wilson Hall Cafe

Monday, Jan. 12

- Breakfast: oatmeal raisin pancakes
- Breakfast: sausage, egg and cheese croissant
- Cajun chicken sandwich
- Spinach and jack cheese enchiladas
- Liver and onions
- Classic club sandwich
- Pork carnitas soft taco
- Sweet and sour chicken
- Chicken and sausage gumbo
- Texas-style chili
- Assorted pizza by the slice

Wilson Hall Cafe menu

Chez Leon

Wednesday, Jan. 14
Lunch
- Chicken marsala with linguine
- Mixed green salad
- Tiramisu

Friday, Jan. 16
Dinner
- Stuffed mushrooms
- Filet mignon with cabernet sauce
- Roasted new potatoes
- Green bean and blue cheese gratin
- Strawberry crepe

Chez Leon menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.

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Milestone

Hasan Padamsee chairs Tesla Technology Collaboration

Hasan Padamsee

Hasan Padamsee is the new chair of the Tesla Technology Collaboration. His three-year term began in December.

The collaboration's mission is to advance superconducting radio-frequency technology R&D and related accelerator studies across the broad diversity of scientific applications and provide a bridge for communication and sharing of ideas, developments and testing across associated projects. It includes 57 institutions around the world.

From SLAC

World's most powerful camera receives funding approval

SLAC is leading the construction of the 3,200-megapixel LSST camera, the largest ever built. The camera, which has recently received CD-2 approval from the U.S. Department of Energy, will allow LSST to create an unprecedented archive of astronomical data. Fermilab is a member of the LSST collaboration. Image: SLAC

Menlo Park, Calif. — Plans for the construction of the world's largest digital camera at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have reached a major milestone. The 3,200-megapixel centerpiece of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), which will provide unprecedented details of the universe and help address some of its biggest mysteries, has received key "Critical Decision 2" approval from the DOE.

"This important decision endorses the camera fabrication budget that we proposed," said LSST Director Steven Kahn. "Together with the construction funding we received from the National Science Foundation in August, it is now clear that LSST will have the support it needs to be completed on schedule."

Science operations are scheduled to begin in 2022 with LSST taking digital images of the entire visible southern sky every few nights from atop a mountain called Cerro Pachón in Chile. It will produce the widest, deepest and fastest views of the night sky ever observed. Over a 10-year time frame, the observatory will detect tens of billions of objects — the first time a telescope will catalog more objects in the universe than there are people on Earth — and will create movies of the sky with details that have never been seen before.

Read more

In Brief

Second Temple Grandin talk added to Fermilab Arts and Lecture Series - May 14

Following sell-out ticket sales for Temple Grandin's May 15 public lecture at Fermilab, the Fermilab Arts and Lecture Series has added a second lecture date to the schedule.

Tickets are now on sale to hear Temple Grandin speak on Thursday, May 14, at 8 p.m. in Ramsey Auditorium. The lecture, titled "Different Kinds of Minds Contribute to Society," is expected to sell out as well, so consider purchasing tickets soon if you are interested in attending. Tickets are $7.

For more information or to purchase tickets to the talk, visit the Fermilab Arts and Lecture Series Web page or call 630-840-2787.

In the News

Why neutrino 'bullets' don't pop 'bubbles'

From Futurity, Jan. 5, 2015

In what they call a "weird little corner" of the already weird world of neutrinos, physicists have found evidence these tiny particles might be involved in a surprising reaction.

Neutrinos are famous for almost never interacting. As an example, ten trillion neutrinos pass through your hand every second, and fewer than one actually interacts with any of the atoms that make up your hand.

However, when neutrinos do interact with another particle, it happens at very close distances and involves a high-momentum transfer.

But new findings show neutrinos sometimes interact with a nucleus but leave it basically untouched, inflicting no more than a "glancing blow" resulting in a particle being created out of a vacuum.

Read more

Tip of the Week:
Ecology and Environment

Economics of the ecological

The Robert F. Betz Prairie in the middle of the Main Ring provides not only a great view but also services such as carbon sequestration and stormwater retention. Photo: Reidar Hahn

There are many ways to think about how valuable nature is to us. Most of us like to go out and appreciate the natural surroundings, looking at trees, spring flowers and birds. The aesthetic and spiritual value of nature is something we take for granted most of the time. But sometimes it is useful to think about nature in more quantifiable terms. It is commonplace to put economic measures on natural phenomena like floods, storms earthquakes and fires. It is relatively easy to come to the "negative value" of such events by adding up the cost of rebuilding or replacing.

It is likewise possible to evaluate the positive aspects of nature — often referred to as ecosystem services — by determining the economic value to humans of wild nature. Perhaps the most familiar ecosystem service is insect pollination. Not only honeybees but also lots of other insects pollinate plants, including crops, inadvertently, in insects' search for nectar. For an orchard owner, that service can be incredibly valuable, essentially accounting for the cash value of the entire crop!

Other animals, including insects, prey on plant pests, reducing the need for larger amounts of pesticide, thereby decreasing the cost of raising the crop. Here at Fermilab the coyote population has a large impact on rodents, groundhogs and Canada geese, all of which can cause problems when their populations are unchecked.

Other services may not be directly related to crop production. Wetlands function to retain stormwater, sort of as a sponge, before releasing it slowly downstream. They also play an important role in cleansing water that may have become polluted by human activity. These services would be extremely expensive if we had to design and build new retention structures and water treatment plants. With available ecosystem services, we can avoid those costs. It has been estimated that the annual worldwide value of these services is over $1 trillion.

Even the restored prairie can be valuable to us by capturing atmospheric carbon and transporting it to the deep roots of the plants and from there to complex chemicals underground, effectively sequestering extra carbon from burning fossil fuels.

This economic way of thinking is itself valuable if we keep in mind that whether we enjoy birdwatching or a prairie walk, these natural ecosystems are valuable to us in much more tangible ways.

Rod Walton

Photo of the Day

Steel standing

A distant coyote stands on the steel pipelines by Swenson Road. Photo: Julius Borchert, FESS
Announcements

Today's New Announcements

Scottish country dancing Tuesday evenings at Kuhn Barn

Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) end of life today

Goal setting in FermiWorks on Jan. 13

Muscle Toning registration due Jan. 15

Lecture Series: Revealing the Nature of Dark Matter - Jan. 16

Register for ELBNF collaboration meeting - Jan. 22-23

Writing for Results: Email and More - Feb. 27

2015 FRA scholarship applications accepted until April 1

GSA updates mileage rate to 57.5 cents for 2015

OS X 10.10 Yosemite certified for use

2015 float holiday

Charitable donations through payroll deduction

The Take Five challenge and poster winter 2014/2015

Scottish country dancing Tuesday evenings at Kuhn Barn

Indoor soccer

Fox Valley Fitness offers employee discount