Obama representative eyes Fermilab's economic future

Michael Kelleher (center), a representative from U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's office, toured Fermilab's accelerator tunnels and experiments last Friday.

A representative from the office of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., toured Fermilab Friday, affirming a commitment to support the laboratory.

Michael Kelleher, the director of outreach and economic development in Obama's office, has toured the laboratory twice before as a friend of James Santucci, in the Accelerator Division.

He returned Friday to view the laboratory with a critical eye to its economic impact now, and potentially in the future. The laboratory has an annual budget of about $340 million, a figure that would grow if Fermilab was to host the proposed International Linear Collider in the next decade.

"[Fermilab] has tremendous economic benefits to the state, and first and foremost Barack Obama is an Illinois senator. This is an asset we need to nurture and preserve," Kelleher said.

Santucci led Kelleher and other staffers on a whirlwind tour of accelerator tunnels and experiments at the laboratory.

Kelleher also received briefings on the proposal for the ILC and Fermilab's major role in the project's research and design. The tour incorporated a look at infrastructure for ILC research and development.

Kelleher met with scientists; Pier Oddone, Fermilab director; and Young-Kee Kim, Fermilab deputy director. Oddone explained the laboratory's forthcoming proposal for Project X, an interim accelerator that might be built if the ILC is delayed.

Halfway through his full-day tour, Kelleher said he was impressed with the experiments he had seen. Kelleher's interest in science has made him a de-facto translator for much of the Illinois delegation, explaining why they should care about science, including high-energy physics. A consensus exists among legislators that the United States needs to catch up to other nations in the study of math and science.

"The economies in the last 500 years that have thrived and produced the highest standard of living are those that have captured technology and been at the leading edge," Kelleher said.

Keeping top scientists in Illinois at Fermilab and in the nation as a whole spurs industry and boosts the economy. "That infrastructure, the brains, is so important for Chicago," he said. "I don't know why anyone would want it to leave."

-- Tona Kunz

Tunnel vision

From Kane County Chronicle, Sept. 16, 2007

BATAVIA - Momentarily blinded by the sun after emerging from the 350-foot shaft into the earth's crust where scientists blast a stream of high-energy particles to Minnesota, Roger Vernon of Aurora turned to peer at the access building.

"I can see something like this very easily in a residential neighborhood," he said.

Vernon, who represents Aurora's Big Woods/Marmion neighborhood, was one of the local representatives who toured Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory's underground Neutrinos at the Main Injector facility, NuMI for short.

The purpose wasn't sightseeing, nor was it learning how neutrinos change after being blasted through the earth from Batavia to a lab in northern Minnesota.

The tourists were members of the International Linear Collider Citizens' Task Force, a group of local officials and lab neighbors trying to see whether a Fermilab tunnel under their homes would work.

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Oldest stars may shed light on dark matter

From Science Daily, Sept. 14, 2007

The universe's earliest stars may hold clues to the nature of dark matter, the mysterious stuff that makes up most of the universe's matter but doesn't interact with light, cosmologists report.

The first stars in an early universe filled with moderately energetic, or "warm," dark matter would probably have developed in long strings, according to a study in the 14 September issue of the journal Science, published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society. In contrast, simulations with slow-moving, cold dark matter generally show the first stars forming in clumps.

Efforts are underway to find some of these ancient stars, so it's hypothetically possible that new star discoveries could help clarify whether the universe is made up of warm or cold dark matter.

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