|
Have a safe day!
Monday, Aug. 15
PARTICLE ASTROPHYSICS SEMINARS WILL RESUME IN THE FALL
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
All Experimenters' Meeting - Curia II
Special Topics: Pelletron Battle - Field Report; Tevatron End of Run Studies Plan
Tuesday, Aug. 16
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.
Upcoming conferences
|
|
Monday, Aug. 15
- Breakfast: Croissant sandwich
- Spicy beef & rice soup
- Corned beef reuben
- Smart cuisine: Roast pork loin
- Smart cuisine: Lasagna
- Chicken oriental wrap pineapple
- Assorted sliced pizza
- Smart cuisine: Pacific rim rice bowl
Wilson Hall Cafe Menu
|
|
Wednesday, Aug. 17
Lunch
- Spicy sausage & cheese stuffed portobello mushrooms
- Spinach salad
- Strawberry mousse w/ cookies
Friday, Aug. 19
Dinner
Guest Chef: Gustavo Cancelo
Argentinian Night
- Empanadas
- Locro
- Matambre relleno al horno w/ vegetables
- Flan
Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.
|
|
Employees Advisory Group update: Framing and feedback
The website for Fermilab’s Employee Advisory Group was recently updated. Visitors to this site can now see additional meeting summaries, upcoming meeting topics and the document that the group is using to guide its management conversations. That framing document provides an initial assessment of management culture at Fermilab and explains the steps that the group is taking to advise the directorate on this issue.
A key part of moving forward with that process is information gathering. The Employee Advisory Group’s survey on management effectiveness will help to inform an ongoing discussion on this topic. Please note that information given in the survey will not be reported back to an individual’s supervisor. EAG members will discuss results from the survey at the next meeting, which takes place on Aug. 25. If you have not yet taken the survey, please plan to do so before it closes on Friday, Aug. 19
Take the survey.
If you have questions or concerns about the survey or wish to discuss an issue on the agenda for the upcoming or future meeting, please contact an EAG member or submit a question or suggestion anonymously .
— Rhianna Wisniewski, employee advisory group steering committee member
|
Philip V. Livdahl - Aug. 8
 |
|
Philip V. Livdahl |
Editor's note:
Philip V. Livdahl's nephew, William M. Grigg, wrote this "In Memoriam."
Former acting director of Fermilab Philip V. Livdahl, 88, died on Monday, Aug. 8, following complications from a hip replacement surgery.
Livdahl was an advisor to Robert Wilson during the conception and execution of Fermilab. Eventually, Livdahl became acting director after Wilson's departure.
During his 20 years at the laboratory, Livdahl was part of the team that created the Tevatron ring. He also led the team that investigated the use of super-conducting magnets as a way of increasing the energy of the accelerator systems to 1,000 billion electron volts. This improvement doubled the accelerator's speed.
In 1985, Livdahl revived the idea of proton therapy for destroying deep tumors. He wrote a detailed proposal and hosted a week-long workshop with about 100 physicians, physicists and engineers to discuss such a facility.
Livdahl’s efforts led Dr. James M. Slater of the Loma Linda University Medical Center to petition the DOE to build an accelerator capable of proton therapy cancer treatment.
In 1989, Livdahl left Fermilab to oversee the installation and use of the medically dedicated synchrotron. It was around this time that he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Livdahl was the first patient to have all of his radiation treatment at the new facility. It worked, and the cancer never came back.
Livdahl is survived by his wife, Phyllis, three children, Jennifer Livdahl Schum, Judith Wulff and Todd Livdahl and five grandchildren. A memorial service took place on Aug. 13 in Dallas, Texas.
|
New employees - June 27
 |
|
Row 1: Josh Lindoo, Ivan Orlov, Arvind Haran, Isvari Mohan, Holly Hernandez and Vidya Anjur. Row 2: Alexey Moroz, Casey Gravelle, Alexey Kochemirovskiy, Aliaksei Halavanau, Emily Adlam, Ben Brady and Mary-Ellen McCollum. Row 3: Rishi Sriram, Sartaj Aujla, Konrad Genser, Tena Chhe and Danny Zhuang. Photo: Cindy Arnold |
|
Particle physicists chasing ghosts
From Science News, Aug. 12, 2011
Wispy neutrinos could explain why matter dominates the universe
Two experiments on different continents have found hints that particles called neutrinos can shape-shift in an unexpected way.
This behavior may be the key to understanding why these particles are so weird, says neutrino physicist Jennifer Raaf of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., the nation’s largest particle physics lab. Raaf presented an overview of recent neutrino findings August 9 at a meeting of the American Physical Society’s Division of Particles and Fields.
The new results also bode well for future experiments with neutrinos that may one day help scientists understand why the universe contains vastly more matter than antimatter. These experiments are part of the changing landscape of particle physics in the United States. With Fermilab’s Tevatron, once the most powerful particle collider in the world, shutting down soon, the government laboratory is reconfiguring itself to focus on projects that require particularly intense beams and look for extremely rare events.
“Neutrinos will play a big role moving forward,” says Young-Kee Kim, deputy director at Fermilab.
In the bestiary of particle physics, neutrinos are the neutral counterparts to the three charged leptons: the familiar electron and the heavier and more exotic muon and tau. Neutrinos are loners by nature, rarely interacting with the rest of the universe. But they do occasionally change form. That process, called oscillation, may offer clues about why the universe contains so little antimatter.
In June the T2K experiment in Japan reported evidence that muon neutrinos occasionally oscillate into electron neutrinos. Six electron neutrinos appeared in a nearly pure beam of muon neutrinos traveling from an accelerator at the J-PARC facility to an underground detector 295 kilometers away.
Read more
|
|
The Invaders are coming!
 |
|
Ryan Campbell is nearly obscured by a healthy growth of common reed, a very aggressive invader that is one of the weed crew’s targeted plants. Photo: Steve Whiteaker, FESS Roads and Grounds |
Community and restoration ecologists agree that one of the most serious threats to balanced, functional ecosystems is the introduction of non-native species – either plants or animals. Now, more than ever, the array of invasive non-native species is a challenge, as more and more aggressive species are introduced.
In theory, the many species that interact in natural ecosystems have co-evolved in such a way that available resources such as sunlight, nutrients, energy and space are optimally used. Interlopers that have not been subject to this co-evolutionary process can sometimes upset the entire system, just as Japanese beetles did in the U.S. to many types of crops and trees. In some of these cases, the invasive species wiped out whole sectors of the native communities, causing massive ecological disruption.
Invasive species can also damage equipment not created to take them into consideration. For example, zebra mussels, unintentionally imported from Eastern Europe, caused serious damage to industrial infrastructure in the northeast and clogged up drainage systems at Fermilab.
The restoration of natural ecosystems at Fermilab has been underway since 1975. We continually deal with plant species not native to tall-grass prairie or other Midwestern ecosystems. Many of these species are aggressive, and easily out-compete native species more desirable from a restoration perspective. Culprits at Fermilab include: crown vetch, garlic mustard, white sweet clover, reed canary grass, common reed and purple loosestrife.
The weed crew, led by FESS natural resource specialist Ryan Campbell, recently augmented the efforts of the Fermilab grounds crew. Campbell’s team, composed of summer students Shirley Xiao and Kevin Sheehan, uses a combination of mechanical clearing and carefully controlled chemical applications to battle the invaders. Fermilab Natural Areas support Xiao and Sheehan through a grant from the Boeing Community Fund.
Fermilab employees can assist in this monumental task by volunteering for ecology work days during the summer months. Check the FNA blog for information about upcoming work days.
—Rod Walton, Fermilab ecologist
|
Speed limit reduced to 25 mph
 |
|
The reduced speed area is marked in pink. |
Please be aware that the speed limit near CDF and the Industrial Center Building was reduced last week from 40 to 25 mph. It will remain like this through the winter as construction continues in order to upgrade the industrial area and make infrastructure improvements.
|
|
Sunny
ES&H Tip of the Week:
