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Have a safe day!
Wednesday, August 5
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
Fermilab Colloquium - One West
Speaker: David Kaplan, Johns Hopkins University
Title: Exciting (the) Vacuum: Possible Manifestations of the Higgs Particle at the LHC
Thursday, August 6
11 a.m.
Particle Astrophysics Seminar - One North (NOTE DATE, TIME, LOCATION)
Speaker: Pierre Sikivie, University of Florida
Title: Bose-Einstein Condensation of Dark Matter Axions
11:30 a.m.
Medical Health Seminar - One West
Speaker: Virgene Galloway, Provena Mercy Medical Center
Title: Osteoarthritis
2 p.m.
Computing Techniques Seminar - FCC1
Speaker: Prathap Basappa, Norfolk State University
Title: Measurement, Quantification and Analyses of Partial Discharges in Insulation Systems
2:30 p.m.
Theoretical Physics Seminar - Curia II
Speaker: Gabriela Barenboim, Valencia University and IFIC
Title: A Tale of Two Right Handed Neutrinos
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.
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Wednesday, August 5
- Chicken noodle
- Steak sandwich
- *Maple Dijon salmon
- Mongolian beef
- California club
- Assorted sliced pizza
- Chicken pesto pasta
Wilson Hall Cafe Menu |
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Wednesday, August 5
Lunch
- Antipasto salad
- Strawberry mousse w/ butter cookies
Thursday, August 6
Dinner
- Grilled portobello and red pepper salad
- Filet mignon w/horseradish sauce
- Baked potato w/butter & sour cream
- Broccoli
- Cappuccino soufflé
Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.
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Fermilab to receive additional $60.2 million in Recovery Act funding for high-energy physics
Fermilab will receive more than $50 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds for superconducting radio frequency technology. Some of those funds will be used to build a test area for next-generation particle accelerator components, such as the 9-cell 1.3 GHz superconducting radio frequency cavity shown here.
Funds are part of more than $327 million in new Recovery Act funding to be disbursed by Department of Energy's Office of Science
In the latest installment of funding from the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, DOE's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory will receive an additional $60.2 million to support research toward next- generation particle accelerators and preliminary design for a future neutrino experiment.
The new funds are part of more than $327 million announced by Energy Secretary Steven Chu on Tuesday from funding allocated under the Recovery Act to DOE's Office of Science. Of these funds, $220 million will go toward scientific research, instrumentation and laboratory infrastructure projects at DOE national laboratories.
"The new initiatives will help the U.S. maintain its scientific leadership and economic competitiveness while creating new jobs," said Energy Secretary Steven Chu. "The projects provide vital funding and new tools for research aimed at strengthening America's energy security and tackling some of science's toughest challenges."
Taking the stimulus funds announced earlier this year into account, the Recovery Act provides more than $100 million in funding to Fermilab.
Fermilab is investing the funds in critical scientific infrastructure to strengthen the nation's global scientific leadership as well as to provide immediate economic relief to local communities. Out of the additional $60.2 million, the laboratory will devote $52.7 million to research on next-generation accelerators using superconducting radio frequency technology. This technology provides a highly efficient way to accelerate beams of particles with potential applications in medicine, energy and material science. Fermilab will use the remaining $7.5 million for preliminary design for a future neutrino experiment.
Read more
Read DOE's news release
Editor's note: Congressman Bill Foster will speak about the funding allocated to Fermilab at a press conference this afternoon. Fermilab Today will link to the video when it becomes available.
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Illinois legislation may change dependent coverage
The state of Illinois has passed legislation for young-adult dependant coverage. This legislation may have an effect on features of your Fermilab medical and dental plans.
Effective Jan. 1, 2010, you will be able to cover your unmarried dependent children until they turn 26. Your dependents will no longer be required to be full-time students. Dependents who are military veterans can receive coverage under the Fermilab plans until age 30, provided that they are Illinois residents, are unmarried, served in the active or reserve components of the U.S. Armed Forces and received a release or discharge other than a dishonorable discharge.
You will have two opportunities to enroll your dependents in the Fermilab medical and dental plan.
Open enrollment will take place from Oct. 1 through Oct. 23, 2009. If you enroll your dependents during open enrollment, coverage will begin January 1, 2010.
The Benefits Office will also conduct a special dependent enrollment from Jan. 1 through March 31, 2010. Coverage will not be denied during either enrollment period due to age, health status or student status.
This change to your coverage mandated by Illinois law does not change the rules for reimbursement under the Flexible Spending Account. Your dependent also must meet the requirements for being a qualifying relative as defined by the Internal Revenue Service. If he or she does not, expenses for your dependent are not eligible for reimbursement under your healthcare FSA.
Benefits Office staff will provide additional information during the enrollment periods. Keep in mind that since this change does not take effect until Jan. 1, you must respond to any inquiries regarding the student status of your dependents between the ages of 19-23. Your dependents must be full-time students to receive coverage under your Fermilab medical and dental plans.
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Lederman Science Center closed Friday
The Lederman Science Center will be closed on Friday, August 7, due to a shutdown-related power outage. The outage is scheduled to last from 8:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. and will also affect MINOS and MiniBooNE. The Science Center will reopen at 9 a.m. on Saturday.
Visit the Lederman Science Center Web page.
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Slow start for a big bang
From Cosmic Log an MSNBC blog,
August 4, 2009
Europe's Large Hadron Collider was built to re-create the energies present in the universe just after the big bang, but now it looks as if the bangs at the $10 billion machine won't get as big as quickly as physicists had hoped.
That's a sore point for some of the researchers who have been waiting more than a decade to delve into a host of cosmic questions: Why do some subatomic particles have mass while others don't? What is mysterious dark matter made of? Are there exotic particles and dimensions we can't see? How did the universe work at its birth?
For example, Nima Arkani-Hamed, a theoretical physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., expects experiments at the Large Hadron Collider to help solve puzzles that involve hidden dimensions and the nature of gravity.
"I've waited 15 years," he told The New York Times in a report about the LHC's problems published today. "I want it to get up running. We can't tolerate another disaster. It has to run smoothly from now."
James Gillies, chief spokesman for Europe's CERN particle-physics center, sympathized with Arkani-Hamed's angst. "Everybody's disappointed that we didn't get it running," he told me today. "But the mood here is pretty optimistic."
Read more
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Working toward stronger, safer IT
Vicky White, Fermilab's Chief Information Officer and head of Fermilab's Computing Division, wrote this week's column.
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| Vicky White |
The Tune IT Up campaign has gotten off to a good start with employees starting to fill out assessments and set up their services account passwords. But several steps remain on the road to better cyber security.
Starting today, for example, we will better protect the Fermilab network by automatically blocking computers that set off critical antivirus alerts. See the Tune IT Up announcement in this issue of Fermilab Today for further information.
We have many tasks ahead of us in the coming months. We need to make sure the passwords that employees use are sufficiently complex to thwart hackers. We need to increase security by asking supervisors to approve employee requests for administrative privileges.
Please do your part to help Tune IT Up by filling out your IT assessment. You can do this when it is your organization's turn to do so or beforehand. To complete the assessment, you will need a services account password. For more information, see the Tune IT Up site.
We are also working hard to improve our new, consolidated Service Desk. We have faced several challenges. But we hope to have everything running more smoothly and effectively in the next few weeks. Please be patient, and keep submitting those service tickets at http://servicedesk.fnal.gov.
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New antivirus policy
Starting today, Computing Division will automatically block computers from the Fermilab network if they set off certain critical antivirus alerts.
This will help protect other computers at the laboratory if one is compromised by a serious attack, such as the installation of hacker tools onto a machine.
If your computer is blocked, you will no longer be able to access the Internet from Fermilab or any folders on the shared network. This applies to all Windows systems that participate in the central Symantec antivirus service.
If your computer is blocked from the network, your system administrator should contact you. If not, you can call x2345 to contact a Service Desk representative, who will help resolve the problem.
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Memorial dedication on Thursday for Bob Ducar
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| Bob Ducar |
Friends and colleagues of Bob Ducar, a former senior engineer with AD's external beams department, will host a brief and informal memorial dedication in Ducar's honor at 11 a.m. on Thursday, August 6. The gathering will take place in the horse shoe parking lot just northeast of the Main Control Room in the Linac.
Anyone can join in celebrating the life of "Duke" and share memories of his 40-year career at Fermilab.
In case of rain, the memorial dedication will take place on Friday, August 7.
Please contact Rupert Crouch at x8181 for more information.
Read more about Bob Ducar's life and work.
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Giant particle collider struggles
From New York Times, August 4, 2009
The biggest, most expensive physics machine in the world is riddled with thousands of bad electrical connections.
Many of the magnets meant to whiz high-energy subatomic particles around a 17-mile underground racetrack have mysteriously lost their ability to operate at high energies.
Some physicists are deserting the European project, at least temporarily, to work at a smaller, rival machine across the ocean.
After 15 years and $9 billion, and a showy "switch-on" ceremony last September, the Large Hadron Collider, the giant particle accelerator outside Geneva, has to yet collide any particles at all.
But soon?
This week, scientists and engineers at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, are to announce how and when their machine will start running this winter.
Read more
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ES&H weekly report
August 4, 2009
This week's safety report, compiled by the Fermilab ES&H section, includes one recordable case. One was a DART case involving a back strain. We have now worked six days without a recordable injury.
Find the full report here.
Safety report archive
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