Fermilab Today Monday, March 1, 2010
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Have a safe day!

Monday, March 1
2:30 p.m.
Particle Astrophysics Seminar - Curia II
Speaker: Sam Waldman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Title: How Small is Too Small? Measuring Gravitational Waves with Advanced Detectors
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
All Experimenters' Meeting - Curia II
Special Topic: CMS/LHC Report

Tuesday, March 2
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
THERE WILL BE NO ACCELERATOR PHYSICS AND TECHNOLOGY SEMINAR TODAY

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For information about H1N1, visit Fermilab's flu information site.

Weather

WeatherChance of snow
36°/23°

Extended Forecast
Weather at Fermilab

Current Security Status

Secon Level 3

Wilson Hall Cafe

Monday, March 1
- Breakfast: Croissant sandwich
- French Quarter gumbo soup
- French Dip w/ horseradish cream
- Santa Fe pork stew
- Country baked chicken
- Popcorn shrimp wrap
- Assorted sliced pizza
- Sweet and sour chicken w/egg roll

Wilson Hall Cafe Menu

Chez Leon

Wednesday, March 3
Lunch
- Roasted flank steak w/herb rub
- Smashed potatoes
- Baby carrots
- Lemon cheesecake

Thursday, March 4
Dinner
- Spinach & feta strudel
- Herb-crusted lamb rib chops
- Tomato risotto
- Grilled vegetables
- Lemon blueberry parfait

Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.

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Feature

Fermilab celebrates Women's History Month in March

Jane Wilson, wife of Fermilab's founding director Robert Wilson, was a community pioneer. Profiles of women at Fermilab are available on Fermilab's Women's History Web site.

Women at Fermilab have helped to shape the laboratory into what it is today.

Celebrate the contributions that women at Fermilab have made to the laboratory's science, culture, community and education at events throughout the month of March.

Join Fermilab's Diversity Office for a variety of lectures, discussions and interactive features as part of the laboratory's recognition of Women's History Month.

On March 3, 11 and 17, join women pioneers at Fermilab for lunchtime discussions of women throughout the '70s, '80s, '90s and beyond. Lunchtime talks take place from 12-1 p.m. in the One East conference room.

Celebrate International Women's Day on Monday, March 8. Women will staff some experiment control rooms, and Fermilab Director Pier Oddone will discuss the day's significance with CERN Director General Rolf Heuer via a videoconference in the Remote Operations Center.

On March 9, learn more about the barriers and obstacles girls face in learning about science, technology, engineering and math at a 1:30 p.m. lecture in Ramsey Auditorium. In her talk, "Gender, Race and Science Education," Sandra Hanson, a sociology professor from The Catholic Universities of America, will discuss the shortage of women in science. The talk is free and open to the public.

Join artist Virginia Broersma from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the second floor art gallery on Wednesday, March 10, for an artist lecture about her exhibit, "I Live in a Duplex." Broersma's paintings will remain on display in Fermilab's Art Gallery through May 3. Broersma will also be available at an artist reception the same day from 5-7 p.m. in the Art Gallery.

Finally, join artist Rose Moore on Tuesday, March 22, for an art lecture titled "Women as Classics of Art" from 12:15 to 1:15 p.m. in Curia II.

Visit the Women's History Month Web site for more information.

-- Rhianna Wisniewski

Feature

Rick Cavanaugh named new LPC co-coordinator

Ian Shipsey (left) and Rick Cavanaugh are the co-coordinators for the LPC at Fermilab.

The elevators in Fermilab's 16-story Wilson Hall move slowly. According to legend, Robert Wilson, the laboratory's founding director, designed them that way to encourage conversation between their passengers.

Rick Cavanaugh, a physicist with a joint appointment between the University of Illinois-Chicago and Fermilab, remembers meeting Dan Green for the first time in one of those infamous elevator rides in 2002.

Cavanaugh, then at University of Florida, was visiting the lab as a new member of the CMS collaboration. Green was just starting to develop the LHC Physics Center on the 11th floor of Wilson Hall as a place to provide support for CMS collaborators working in the U.S.

"He communicated the value of remote collaboration tools," Cavanaugh said. "He knew it would be essential for his vision of how the LPC should be."

Little did they know that almost eight years later, Cavanaugh would be stepping into Green's shoes as the new co-coordinator of the LPC.

Cavanaugh, a computing specialist who hails from Alaska, has always been a believer in remote operations and couldn't be more thrilled that Green's dreams have become a reality since that elevator conversation.

Today rather than flying across the Atlantic, CMS collaborators in the U.S. can take shifts in the Remote Operations Center at Fermilab, monitoring data quality and the detector subsystems. The LPC has also increasingly become a way for its roughly 70 scientists from Fermilab and international universities to stay connected to their collaborators at CERN and around the globe.

Read more

-- Elizabeth Clements

Special Announcement

Immigration law information session at noon today

Learn more about immigration law during an information session from 12-1:30 p.m. today in One West. Two local attorneys specializing in immigration law will discuss a range of immigration issues, including:

  • Preliminary background information
  • Description of agencies, immigration processes and potential delays
  • Extraordinary ability visa
  • National interest waiver
  • Options for H1-B Visa holders at all points during their status

A question and answer session will take place following the presentation. Attendees may bring lunch. The Users' Executive Committee is hosting this event.

From symmetry breaking

Physics is a hoot when it's a tweet

Kids today.

Such may have been the disapproving sigh of an observer watching a busload of teenagers tour Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory last week. The 11th and 12th graders from Appleton, Wisconsin, spent an awful lot of time typing away on their cell phones. But be not dismayed, O horrified observer. They were just doing their homework.

"I was looking for a way for them to journal, but in a more realistic way. I think that's what texting is and definitely what Twitter is-a way to journal," says Dale Basler, instigator of all that cell-phone gazing and a physics teacher at Appleton East High School.

Read more

ES&H Tips of the Week - Environment environment

Looking out for wildlife

The American robin is one of many bird species that most recently has stayed in northern Illinois through the winter, perhaps due to a warmer average climate. Photo by Harry Cheung, Particle Physics Division

Sorting out all the direct and indirect effects of global warming can be a challenge. Nowhere is this more evident than the area of biodiversity. The reason for this is pretty clear - throw a couple of thousand species of plants, insects, mammals and birds together in an ecosystem regulated by natural laws and, voila, too many variables.

But one thing that is clear is the need for wildlife to have protected natural areas such as Fermilab that offer safe places to nest year round or to rest during migration periods.

Peter Kasper, Fermilab physicist and birdwatcher, has compiled statistics to show that several birds, such as the Great Blue Heron, that migrated south for the winter 20 years ago now stay throughout the year. Typically these species expand their range to the north. Other species have reduced their stays at the laboratory. Kasper's data suggests that species, such as the rough-legged hawks, that used to reside at Fermilab in the winter can now withstand winters in their home range to the north.

Climate changes can have severe impacts on plant and animal communities, through changes in the timing of natural events, availability of suitable habitat, and the way species reactions affect one another. Research published in Nature has shown that ranges of European non-migratory butterflies have shifted significantly northward by up to 150 miles during the last century. According to a recent paper published by Chicago Wilderness, "as many as 44 species of birds that currently breed in Illinois may no longer breed in the state by the end of the century." A recent article in the journal Bioscience predicts that subtle changes in the prairie "pothole region" of the upper Midwest may doom many species of ducks, simply because wetlands may not contain water long enough for the young to mature.

Because current land management strategies evolved during relatively stable climate regimes, they may not adequately deal with changing climates. While we can't repair the climate in the short term, adapting policies to help mitigate climate changes, such as maximizing the ability of wildlife to migrate from place to place, can help.

-- Rod Walton, ecologist

Safety Tip of the Week Archive

Special Announcement

After-hours phone service outage 1-2 a.m. on March 4

The laboratory will briefly experience a dialing outage from 1-2 a.m. on Thursday, March 4. AT&T maintenance activity will affect the ability to dial and connect to off-site numbers, as well as to receive calls from off-site numbers, including cell phones. These services will be unavailable for up to 30 minutes between the hours of 1 and 2 a.m. Thursday. This activity will have no impact, however, on our internal campus (extension-to-extension) dialing -- you may continue to dial other 4-digit extensions, including the laboratory's emergency number, x3131.

Accelerator Update

Feb. 24-26
- Three stores provides ~39.5 hours of luminosity
- Linac continues to work on LRF5
- MI had to back out of using new LLRF code
- Booster losses BRF1 and 14

Read the Current Accelerator Update
Read the Early Bird Report
View the Tevatron Luminosity Charts

Announcements

Latest Announcements

On-site housing for summer 2010 - March 8 deadline

Employee Discount Offered at Batavia Rosati's

Harlem Globetrotters Special Ticket Price - April 15

Qi Gong, Mindfulness and Tai Chi Easy for Stress Reduction

International Folk Dancing, Thursday evenings at Kuhn Barn

Fermi Martial Arts classes

Immigration law information session - March 1

Muscle Toning Class Begins March 2

Hiring Summer Students for 2010

March 5 deadline for The University of Chicago Tuition Remission Program - March 5

English country dancing - March 7

New Bible discussion starting March 9

DreamWeaver CS3: Intro offered March 9 or March 16

Interpersonal Communication Skills offered March 16

Word 2007 Advanced class offered March 16

Facilitating Meetings That Work course offered March 17

Adaptive Leadership: Coaching for Individual Differences class offered March 9

Art Gallery Talk - Virginia Broersma - March 10

Excel Power User / Macros class offered Mar. 11

Influence and Motivation: The Empowering Leader course offered March 24

PowerPoint 2007 Advanced course offered March 25

Excel Programming with VBA class offered March 30 and April 1

FRA Scholarship 2010

Conflict Management and Negotiation Skills offered March 3 and 10

Adobe Acrobat Professional 9.0 Level 1 class offered March 4

Introduction to Argentine Tango Series of Classes - FREE

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