Fermilab Today Wednesday, August 29, 2007
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Wed., Aug. 29
THERE WILL BE NO FERMILAB ILC R&D MEETING THIS WEEK
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4:00 p.m.
Fermilab Colloquium - One West
Speaker: R. Harris, Fermilab
Title: Probing New Physics with Jets at the LHC

Thurs., Aug. 30
1:00 p.m.
ILC ALCPG Physics and Detector R&D Seminar - West Wing, WH-10NW
Speaker: J. Goldstein, Bristol University
Title: Vertex Detector Mechanical Studies
1:30 p.m.
Particle Astrophysics Seminar - Curia II (NOTE DATE & TIME)
Speaker: R. Levine, University of Colorado
Title: From Megaparsecs to Milliparsecs: Modeling Supermassive Black Hole Environments with Cosmological Simulations
2:30 p.m.
Theoretical Physics Seminar - Curia II
Speaker: S. Martin, Northern Illinois University
Title: Implications of Compressed Supersymmetry with Natural Dark Matter from Annihilation to Top Quarks
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
THERE WILL BE NO ACCELERATOR PHYSICS AND TECHNOLOGY SEMINAR TODAY

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

Weather

Weather

Chance of Thunderstorms 80°/60°

Extended Forecast
Weather at Fermilab

Current Security Status

Secon Level 3

Wilson Hall Cafe
Wednesday, Aug. 29
-Italian wedding w/meatballs
-Diner style patty melt
-Chicken skewered
-Mongolian beef
-Greek chicken panini w/feta cheese
-Assorted sliced pizza
-Chicken w/pesto cream

Wilson Hall Cafe Menu

Chez Leon

Wednesday, August 29
Lunch
- Grilled Tuna w/White Beans & Charred Onion Salad
- Fruit Tarts

Thursday, August 30
Dinner
- Closed

Chez Leon Menu
Call x4598 to make your reservation.

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Info

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

Send comments and suggestions to:
today@fnal.gov

Feature

Kim presents plan to Fermilab audience

Fermilab's Deputy Director Young-Kee Kim presents the Steering Group's draft report at an All Hands meeting on Friday.

The roadmap to Fermilab's future continues to point toward the proposed International Linear Collider, said Fermilab Deputy Director Young-Kee Kim at a labwide meeting on Friday. In case the construction of the ILC does not proceed on the proposed timeline, Fermilab proposes to pursue neutrino science and precision physics opportunities by upgrading the laboratory's proton accelerator complex. If the ILC experiences significant delay, Fermilab would use ILC technology to create a research program based on Project X, providing the laboratory with frontier physics opportunities while advancing the ILC. Project X would replace the 35-year-old injection complex at Fermilab, providing an intense source of protons to sustain a program of discovery in neutrino science and precision physics.

The two-tiered plan of working toward Project X and the International Linear Collider will tax current resources at Fermilab and in the U.S. particle physics community, but eventually pay off for American particle physics, said Kim, presenting the recommendations by the Fermilab Steering Group.

More than 500 lab employees and users attended the presentation in Ramsey Auditorium.

Kim repeatedly stressed that the ILC is Fermilab's highest priority and that the laboratory's current 160-person commitment for ILC research and development will not decrease.

Read More

Feature

Promotions for five scientists

On June 14, Fermilab Director Pier Oddone announced the promotion of five Fermilab scientists: Kevin Burkett, Eric James, Adam Lyon and Vladimir Nagaslaev were promoted to Scientist I, and Nancy Grossman was promoted to Scientist II. Their job promotion citations highlight their contributions to various laboratory experiments and projects. This promotion marks a big step in the life of a Fermilab scientist -- it recognizes valuable work done over the years.

Fermilab Today congratulates these scientists.

Images of recipients

Milestone

Nancy Michael retires today

Nancy Michael doesn't consider science her thing, yet she played a large role in one of Fermilab's big discoveries of the mid-1970s.

As a darkroom scanner she read the film from the now-defunct bubble chamber. From three different views she measured the arcs and streaks caught on film of particles shot through liquid.

It was there she saw it. To the untrained eye it looked simply like a line of dashes, but Michael saw the beginnings of a tell-tale V shape. She cranked up the magnification and there it was: Fermilab's first recording of the charm particle. Scientists rushed into the room to check the findings. "I got a bottle of champagne," Michael remembers.

She refused a similar toast to her retirement today, saying she would break down in tears having to say good-bye to the plethora of friends she's made at the lab from all over the world during the last 28 years. "I have met just the most wonderful people and learned what it's like to live where they live, what their traditions are," she said. "I've traveled and I haven't been anywhere."

From the darkroom, Michael moved onto the plastic shop, SciDet and CDF. As an administrative assistant she took on the role of getting each building cleaned up and ready for its new experiment and then helping the scientists.

"Nancy has a lot of practical sense and an excellent work ethic. She has always gone out of her way to help others find a way to get things done at Fermilab," said Elaine Phillips, Particle Physics Division support staff supervisor. "I don't know how we will survive without her sense of humor which brightened many of our days!"

Michael is the brunt of her own long-running joke that's she's simply a summer hire. She only was supposed to work at the lab for one summer to pay off bills racked up at Disney Land with her family. But the work atmosphere was friendly, the lab scenic and she was in awe of how hundreds of hands and minds could work in unison to craft and operate mammoth research machines. Twenty-eight years later she's still here. "It's been a long summer," she said with a grin.

-- Tona Kunz

From ES&H

Weathering the storm

This week's column is written by Mary Logue, associate head of the Environment, Safety and Health Section.

Mary Logue

That was quite a storm last Thursday. Without advance notice, the National Weather Service informed us at 2:45 p.m. to seek shelter as there was a tornado warning for our area. We immediately spread the information across the lab via our sitewide emergency warning system, asking people to go to designated shelters in their respective work areas.

As the first warning was expiring, more were announced in its place. For those of us at Fermilab monitoring the storm and the National Weather Service, it was hard to keep up with what was happening. Our security force reported winds that buffeted their cars around. I don't remember ever seeing anyone as "sodden" as a security guard who ran from his car to the shelter of the ground floor of Wilson Hall at the height of the storm.

Although there was confusion about how long we needed to stay in the shelters, most employees followed our announcements and were safe from the storm. There were a few, however, who decided on their own to leave the site or watch the storm from their office windows. This was definitely not a good idea. Although no funnel cloud touched down at Fermilab, the wind speeds were over 78 miles per hour on site--certainly tornado-force winds. Just a few miles from the lab, a warehouse roof collapsed; forty people were hurt, and seven were sent to area hospitals.

Thursday's events reminded us of how dangerous storms can be. When told to seek shelter, our immediate reaction must be to go to designated tornado shelters. Watching the storm on the evening news with your family is a much better idea than being caught in the storm and getting injured.

In the News

From Science,
August 22, 2007

Borexino Awash in Neutrinos

A huge tank of liquid buried deep in the Italian Apennine mountains has made the first accurate measurement of low-energy neutrinos coming from the heart of the sun. The results generally confirm physicists' theories of how the sun's nuclear furnace generates its heat and support recent findings about the strange nature of neutrinos.

The nuclear fusion that powers the sun takes place in its deep core. It's hard for physicists to know what's going on down there because it takes photons many thousands of years to reach the surface. But neutrinos, which are a byproduct of many nuclear reactions, only very rarely interact with matter and so can zip out of the core and on to Earth in about 8 minutes. The problem is catching them.

Enter Borexino. Located at Italy's Gran Sasso National Laboratory--the world's largest underground facility for the study of subatomic particles from space--Borexino is a spherical vessel containing 300 tons of a liquid called pseudocumene with a small amount of a fluorescent material mixed in. When a passing neutrino hits an atomic nucleus in the liquid, the recoiling nucleus creates a brief flash of light, which is picked up by 2200 photodetectors surrounding the sphere. The detector is surrounded by shielding layers of liquid and is sited deep underground to protect it from other particles that might also create flashes.

Read more

Announcements

Have a safe day!

Blood Drive today
A blood drive will be held today from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Wilson Hall Ground Floor NE Training Room. Although sign up is recommended to keep wait times to a minimum, walk-ins will be accepted. Reservations are available online or by contacting Diana at x3771 or Margie at x3411. Donors will receive a very nice travel mug set (see posters for details).

EAP Office hours Thursday and Friday
This week, the Employee Assistance Program Office will be open on Thursday, Aug. 30, and Friday, Aug. 31.

Recreation facility 2008 memberships on sale starting Sept. 3
Recreation facility 2008 memberships go on sale Sept. 3. Prices have stayed the same. A regular membership is $85 per year and graduate student rate is $55. New members that purchase a membership in September will get that month free. 2007 memberships expire October 1, 2007 and 2008 memberships expire Oct. 1, 2008. More information can be found online.

Muscle Toning Class begins Sept. 6
Get a head start in getting fit and have fun doing it by joining the muscle toning classes. Gain strength, lean body mass and increase muscle definition with the Recreation Facility strength training classes held on Tuesday and Thursday in the Recreation Facility from 5:30-6:30 p.m. The next class will run four weeks, Sept. 6-27, and will cost $36.00.

Additional Activities

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