Dial-a-technician: Fermilab lends BNL design expertise

Fermilab technician Bert Gonzalez handles silicon detector components at SiDet.

For the first time, Fermilab technicians have completed design work for a 4,000-ton particle detector over the phone.

"The benefit of our past experience allowed us to design through conference calls," said Bert Gonzales, Fermilab technical supervisor on the design project. "This is a new endeavor. We've never assembled a project in this fashion. Usually we've had everything in-house."

Scientists in the PHENIX collaboration at Brookhaven National Laboratory have enlisted the expertise of a group of technicians at Fermilab's SiDet facility to upgrade their particle detector, originally constructed in 2000.

Originally Brookhaven planned to build new parts at academic institutions, said Dave Winter, Columbia University physicist. He coordinates between Brookhaven and Fermilab in a portion of the design and production effort. But Brookhaven was impressed by the extensive related experience technicians had at SiDet.

"Once we saw what was already at Fermilab, it was a no-brainer," Winter said. "We'd be crazy to do it ourselves."

The Pioneering High Energy Nuclear Interaction Experiment, or PHENIX, detector combs through the subatomic chaos produced by collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, or RHIC. Scientists at RHIC crash protons, gold nuclei and the nuclei of a hydrogen isotope called deuterium together in an effort to recreate the conditions of the early universe.

Brookhaven scientists have collected evidence that RHIC has created quark-gluon plasma, a state of matter in which quarks float unbound from one another. Scientists theorize that quarks behaved this way in the split second after the Big Bang.

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-- Kathryn Grim

URA accepting submissions for annual Thesis Award

Fermilab and the Universities Research Association invite submissions for the 13th annual URA Thesis Award competition. The award recognizes the most outstanding thesis related to work conducted at Fermilab or in collaboration with Fermilab scientists. The thesis submitted must be completed in the 2009 calendar year to qualify.

Nominations must be submitted to sbrice@fnal.gov by March 1, and should include at least two letters supporting the merits of the thesis. At least one letter should be from a member of the thesis committee of the Ph.D.-granting institution.

The thesis awards committee will select the winners. The committee members will judge each thesis on clarity of presentation, originality and physics content. To qualify, the thesis must have been submitted as partial fulfillment of the Ph.D. requirements in the 2009 calendar year, be written in English and it must have been submitted in electronic form to the Fermilab Publications Office in accordance with Fermilab policy.

For further details, consult the URA Thesis Award Web site.

Lecture on evolution in the 21st century -- Friday at 8 p.m.

Darwin spent a lot of time looking at finches. James Shapiro of the University of Chicago spends his time looking at bacteria. Although his subjects may not be as cuddly as Darwin's, Shapiro can still study their DNA. Genome sequencing and other technological advances are giving bacterial geneticists like Shapiro the ability to actually see inside the genetic workings of an organism--to essentially observe evolution in action.

That is leading to new discoveries about how evolution really works. For almost two decades now, Shapiro has been developing his own theories about what he calls "natural genetic engineering." To an unpracticed ear, it sounds a bit like nature is busy developing its own super-species, without any help from us. Find out more at the lecture on Friday.

Tickets are $7. For further information or telephone reservations, call 630/840-ARTS (2787) Monday, Wednesday and Friday between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. More information

Business profile: Extrutech Plastics, Inc.

Manitowoc plastics manufacturer lands federal contract to aid physics research

Name of business: Extrutech Plastics, Inc.

Ownership: Chief Executive Officer Hilmar O. Skagfield owns Extrutech Plastics in Manitowoc and Skandia Window Fashions based in Tallahassee, Fla., with additional plants in San Diego and Thomasville, Ga.

Origins of business: Greg and Debbie Sheehy founded Extrutech Plastics in 1992.

"We began with one used extrusion line in a rented building in Manitowoc," President Greg Sheehy said. "The business was acquired by the Skandia corporation in 2004 as a subsidiary."

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