Critter-gitter explains how Fermilab balances wildlife

Jim Kalina shares wildlife tips in a NALWO-sponsored talk on June 12.

A call went out over the Fermilab radio. Two bucks had locked antlers in a duel to the death. It didn’t end there. The victor was locked to his opponent’s carcass.

Jim Kalina rushed to the scene. Using a bow saw he cut the struggling buck free. Ever since, Kalina has been known at Fermilab as the expert “critter-gitter.”

In a talk sponsored by NALWO on Thursday, Kalina related this and many other Fermilab wildlife encounters to a group of about 25 wide-eyed children and Fermilab employees.

As lead groundskeeper for more than 30 years, Kalina has been a helper to wildlife who have found themselves entangled in Fermilab’s electrical system, displaced by new facilities and struck by speeding cars.

In the winter, snakes, mice and raccoons looking for a warm spot to nap find their way into the power grid and laboratory basements. “This can result in expensive power failures and some very frightened people,” Kalina said. He has removed snakes from rafters, skunks from basements and dead fish from the drain at the main ring.

As a kind of mediator between wildlife and the laboratory, Kalina also works to keep animals out of trouble by teaching people how to coexist with them. He points out that many animal situations are caused by people’s negligence. It helps if drivers slow down, managers secure buildings and people don't feed wild animals.

“The animals were here before us and they serve a purpose,” Kalina said.

Predators such as the falcon, hawk and coyote help maintain the ecosystem naturally by reducing overpopulated wildlife sectors. “Coyotes might make people nervous, but we need them here and we should respect them,” Kalina said.

-- Jenny Johnson

British satirist Chris Morris talks physics at CERN

From New Scientist blogs, June 13, 2008

With the world's most powerful particle smasher due to switch on later this year at CERN, the European centre for particle physics near Geneva, it's no surprise that websites are buzzing with speculation about the exotic particles it might discover. But it's curious to hear it coming from notorious English satirist Chris Morris.

Morris has fronted UK TV programmes such as The Day Today, a send-up of news programmes, and the controversial spoof documentary series Brass Eye, in which Morris hoodwinked unwitting celebrities into bogus campaigns (see a clip here). But at cernpodcast.com, a website run by particle physicist Brian Cox, you can listen to Morris having a serious discussion about particle physics with Cox and two other physicists, Thorsten Wengler and Albert De Roeck, during a visit to CERN.

It turns out that Morris and Cox have been friends for several years, and Cox invited Morris to CERN to take a look around. In their podcast, Morris asks simple questions about particle physics and the speed of light, and the physicists give chatty and pleasantly unrehearsed answers.

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Sun might hold secret
of dark matter

From USA Today, June 17, 2008

The identity of the mysterious dark matter thought to pervade the universe has eluded astrophysicists for decades. Now, for the first time a team hopes to look inside the sun for one of the prime candidates.

The invisible stuff called dark matter is thought to make up as much as 90 percent of the universe's matter. To date, astrophysicists have only inferred the existence of some mysterious substance by identifying its gravitational effects on visible matter such as stars and galaxies. (For instance, dark matter makes galaxies spin faster than otherwise expected.)

Two hypothetical particles have become the prime suspects to explain the fundamental make-up of dark matter: so-called axions and WIMPs (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles). Tens of teams are on the hunt for the heavyweight WIMPs, such as the GLAST team, which hopes to detect the gamma rays produced when, hypothetically, WIMPs and their antimatter selves annihilate each other.

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