Fermilab Today Monday, February 6, 2006  
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Monday, February 6
2:30 p.m. Particle Astrophysics Seminar - Curia II
Speaker: T. Weiler, Vanderbilt University
Title: Neutrino Astrophysics, Coming of Age
3:30 p.m. Director's Coffee Break - 2nd Flr X-Over
4:00 p.m. All Experimenters' Meeting - Curia II
Special Topic: MiniBooNE Neutrinos at MINOS

Tuesday, February 7
11:00 p.m. Academic Lecture Series - 1 West Speaker: B. Kayser, Fermilab
Title: The New World of Neutrino Physics - Part I (1st Lecture)
3:30 p.m. Director's Coffee Break - 2nd Flr X-Over
4:00 p.m. Accelerator Physics and Technology Seminar - 1 West Speaker: P. Skands, Fermilab
Title: Beyond the Terascale with Muons

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Weather Mostly Sunny  35º/18º

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Secon Level 3

Cafeteria
Monday, February 6
-Minestroni
-Chicken & Mushroom Cheese Steak
-Baked Chicken Enchiladas
-Pot Roast
-BLT Ranch Wrap
-Assorted Slice Pizza
-Kung Pao Chicken

The Wilson Hall Cafe accepts Visa, Master Card, Discover and American Express.

Wilson Hall Cafe Menu

Cafeteria

Wednesday, February 8
Lunch
-Raspberry Chicken
-Spinach Risotto
-Mocha Cake

Thursday, February 9
Dinner
BOOKED

Chez Leon Menu
Call x4512 to make your reservation.

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Fermilab "Best in Class" for Program to Reduce E-waste
ewaste
According to the EPA, as many as 500 million personal computers will be thrown away between 2000 and 2007. Last year, Fermilab reused and recycled 200,000 pounds of electronics that would have otherwise gone into a landfill.
As last year's gadgets turn into this year's trash, landfills get more crammed with electronic junk. "E-waste is one of those problem items," said Eric Mieland, Fermilab recycling coordinator. "It contains cadmium, lead and mercury--toxic things you don't want to see in landfills."

Mieland says that Fermilab is working hard to eliminate e-waste. "The Property Office has created a lab-wide effort to reuse and recycle old electronics, which eliminated 200,000 pounds of e-waste last year alone," he said. This "e-cycling" program has been so successful that it won the DOE Office of Science Best in Class Pollution Prevention Award for 2006, and put Fermilab in the running for a White House Closing the Circle award, which recognizes federal facilities that have made significant contributions to improving the environment.

There are a few key ingredients to Fermilab's e-cycling success: In addition to a recycling education program and a waste dumpster surveillance program, which ensures that unauthorized items such as printed circuit boards are not left in on-site dumpsters, Fermilab has a comprehensive strategy for transferring electronics that can no longer be used for their original purpose to people who need them. "Say a computer is exceessed from directorate," said Jack Kelly, Fermilab's Inventory Control manager. "But someone else at the lab realizes they can still use that old computer to run their applications." That employee, says Kelly, can come down to the site 38 Property Management warehouse and find what they need. The warehouse holds everything from old oscilloscopes to last year's laptop. About 15 percent of Fermilab's personal computers are reused this way each year, and others are donated to local schools or listed on a government website, GSAExess.com, which seeks a new home for electronics at other federal agencies.

If the equipment in question cannot be reused as is, there is a second line of defense to becoming landfill material. The lab works closely with a reclamation company called "Reliable Computer Service," which breaks the equipment down into separate components to scavenge useful parts, and then recycles the rest. And if the material can't be donated or reused by Reliable, then it is sent to a de-manufacturing company called Intercon Solutions that finds yet more uses for it. Kelly says that Intercon helps him recycle everything from the plastic in a computer monitor to the integrated chips on a PC board. "They even melt the lead film from computer monitors so they can recycle the glass and properly dispose of the lead," he said.

All of these efforts have helped Fermilab cut down on costs--creating a near "cost neutral" disposal program, according to Mieland--in addition to scoring the lab "best in class" for greatly reducing e-waste. "Congratulations Fermilab," said Sally Arnold, DOE Environmental Scientist. "Winning the Best-in-Class category is distinctive indeed."
—Siri Steiner

In the News
Science @ Berkeley Lab,
January 30, 2006:

Looking Toward TeV: Where Cosmology and Particle Physics Meet

Theoretical physicist Hitoshi Murayama is an optimist. Contemplating a discipline that many think is fragmenting into ever more pieces, like a smashed vase with shards labeled "dark energy," "antineutrinos," "hidden dimensions," "charge-parity violation," "supersymmetry," and the like, Murayama sees physics coming together instead.

It may not be a serenely classical coming-together, restoring the fractured vessel of physics to a seamless work of art. Nevertheless Murayama, who is a member of Berkeley Lab's Physics Division and a professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley, foresees an approaching "synergy at the TeV scale," the experimental and theoretical regime where energies — and masses — are measured in trillions of electron volts.
Read More

Safety Tip
Eye Safety Month
goggles
One type of anti-fog goggle used in Fermilab's Accelerator Division.
The American Academy of Ophthalmology has declared February as Workplace Eye Safety Month. Though Fermilab has an effective eye safety program, we can do more to prevent eye injuries. Over the past ten years 98 eye injuries were reported to the Fermilab Medical Department, 67 of which were OSHA recordable. An eye injury can occur when a harmful agent enters the eye. Two-thirds of the eye injuries at Fermiab have been due to a small object like dust. The remainder of the cases have been caused by blunt objects, liquids and other agents. One-fourth of the time the delivery mechanism has been blowing, one-fourth has been active generation (especially grinding) and the remainder were things like struck by or fell from.

Fermilab relies on hazard analyses, safety procedures and the posting of warning signs to identify the type of eye protection needed. Non-prescription safety glasses are available from the Fermilab stockroom in clear, amber or dark (optical density 3) lenses. Organizations at Fermilab may purchase other non-prescription eyewear as approved by their division/section Senior Safety Officer. Prescription safety eyewear is available from a vendor that is onsite midday Wednesdays in Wilson Hall. Some Fermilab organizations, such as Technical Division's Machine Shop, impose strict requirements on the type of safety eyewear that may be used.

Safety Tip of the Week Archive

Accelerator Update
February 1 - 3
- Two stores provided 34 hours and 5 minutes of luminosity.
- Pbar Lens repaired.
- F17B3 power supply problem holds off beam.

Read the Current Accelerator Update
Read the Early Bird Report
View the Tevatron Luminosity Charts

Announcements
DOE FY 07 Budget Request
Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman will release DOE's FY 2007 budget request at a press briefing today at 11:00 a.m. CST.

Andrea Silvestrelli, Basso-Baritone
The Cultural Association of Italians at Fermilab presents Andrea Silvestrelli, basso-baritone, and Teresa Cullen, soprano, in recital with Eric Weimer, piano, on Wednesday, February 8, at 8 p.m. in the Ramsey Auditorium. Tickets are $15; for more information call 630-840-ARTS (2787).

Summer Housing Requests
The Fermilab Housing Office is now taking requests for houses, apartments, and dormitory rooms for the summer of 2006. Since there will be a large influx of experimenters, and requests are anticipated to be in excess of our available facilities, you are urged to submit your request for reservations to the Housing Office by Wednesday, March 1, 2006. Requests can be made for any period and need not commence on any particular date. For further information, please call (630) 840-3777 or email housing@fnal.gov. Individual housing requests can be made by using our online housing request form. (Requests for multiple housing units are best handled by direct email.)

Sunday Barn Dance
Fermilab Folk Club Barn Dance Sunday, February 12 at 6:30 p.m. with music by the Common Taters and calling by Paul Ford. More information.

Scottish Country Dancing
Scottish Country Dancing will meet Tuesday, February 7, at Kuhn Barn on the Fermilab site. Instruction begins at 7:30 p.m. and newcomers are always welcome. Most dances are fully taught and walked through, and you do not need to come with a partner. Info at 630-840-8194 or 630-584-0825 or folkdance@fnal.gov.

Professional Development Schedule:

February 7: Interpersonal Communication Skills
February 14 & 16 (am): Creating RPMs
February 20 - 22: Python Programming
March 1: Word Tips, Tricks and Techniques
March 6: Interpersonal Communication Skills
March 7 (am): Excel Pivot Tables
March 7 (pm): Word Mail Merge
March 8: Excel 2003 Advanced
March 14: Excel Power User / Macros
March 21 & 22:Intro to Dreamweaver MX
April 4 - 6: Python Programming
More information

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