Monday, March 12, 2012
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Have a safe day!

Monday, March 12
2:30 p.m.
Particle Astrophysics Seminar - One West
Speaker: Craig Booth, University of Chicago
Title: Feedback and Galaxy Formation from Small Scales to Large; Insights from Extremely Large Cosmological Simulations
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
All Experimenters' Meeting - Curia II
Special Topic: Modeling of the Booster Cavity with an Eye to Improving Reliability; EDIT School Experience; T-979: Fast Quartz Cherenkov-Counter Timing; T-979: SiPM Time Resolution with DRS4 Readout

Tuesday, March 13
1:30 p.m.
Research Techniques Seminar - Curia II
Speaker: Francois Vasey, CERN
Title: Prospects for Future High Speed Interconnects and Applications in High Energy Physics
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
Accelerator Physics and Technology Seminar -
One West
Speaker: Igor Meshkov, JINR
Title: Progress and Status of the NICA Project at JINR

Click here for NALCAL,
a weekly calendar with links to additional information.

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Weather
Weather Thunderstorms
68°/44°

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Current Security Status

Secon Level 3

Wilson Hall Cafe

Monday, March 12

- Breakfast: Croissant sandwich
- Smart cuisine: Potato leek soup*
- Monte Cristo
- BBQ chicken breast w/ stuffing
- Alfredo tortellini
- Chicken ranch wrapper
- Assorted sliced pizza
- Szechuan style pork lo mein

*Carb-restricted alternative
Wilson Hall Cafe Menu

Chez Leon

Wednesday, March 14
Lunch
- Cornish game hens w/ mushroom sauce
- Wild rice
- Caramelized carrots

Friday, March 16
Closed

Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.

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Special Announcement

HEPAP meeting will not be available via webcast

The winter meeting of the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel will take place today and tomorrow in Washington, D.C. Contrary to initial plans, the meeting will not be available for viewing online.

HEPAP advises the Federal Government on the national program in experimental and theoretical high-energy physics research.

From symmetry breaking

Scientists continue to see puzzling behavior in top quarks, reaffirm strength of Tevatron experiments

The Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF).

The Tevatron may be shut down for good, but – as evidenced by the catalogue of results presented at this week's Rencontres de Moriond conference – the collider's experiments still have plenty to say.

In some areas, the Fermilab experiments still hold the advantage over those at the higher-powered Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

Fermilab's CDF experiment announced today that physicists continue to see possible signs of new physics in their ongoing study of the heaviest type of quarks, top quarks. Last year, scientists at CDF and its sister experiment, DZero, detected a difference between the ways top quarks and their antiparticles behaved when springing from collisions at the Tevatron. Top quarks preferred to propel in the forward direction, and anti-top quarks preferred the opposite. The level of asymmetry they found went against current predictions from the Standard Model of particle physics.

"It forces people to rethink this kind of physics and the way these predictions are made," said Giovanni Punzi, co-spokesperson of the CDF experiment.

After about doubling the dataset they were using, CDF scientists repeated the study. The results held fast. The asymmetry in question measured at 0.296 ± 0.067 percent, when theory predicted it should fall at 0.100.

Read more

—Kathryn Grim

In the News

Strange effects: The mystifying history of neutrino experiments

From Wired Science, March 9, 2012

Late last year, scientists with the OPERA collaboration in Gran Sasso, Italy reported an incredible finding: neutrinos that appeared to be moving faster than the speed of light.

The news spread at a barely slower pace, fascinating the public. One thing everyone knows is that a very famous physicist named Albert Einstein once said that nothing should travel faster than light speed.

In February, the OPERA researchers found a couple small problems with their experimental set-up, calling into question the original faster-than-light neutrino result. The event highlighted the difficulty of science at the edge of the unknown -- and neutrinos are especially tricky.

More often than not, neutrino experiments throughout history have turned up perplexing results.

Read more

In the News

Scientists getting clearer picture of 'God particle'

From CNN.com, March 7, 2012

This could be the year of the Higgs boson, the most sought-after particle in all of physics. More clues about it are emerging at a U.S.-based collider whose budgetary woes shut it down last year.

The Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) has just announced that it has found hints of the ever-so-important particle, which are consistent with observations from the Large Hadron Collider.

Finding the Higgs boson would help explain the origin of mass, one of the open questions in physicists' current understanding of the way the universe works. The particle has been so difficult to pin down (metaphorically speaking) that physicist Leon Lederman reportedly wanted to call his book "The Goddamn Particle." But he truncated that epithet to "The God Particle," which may have helped elevate the particle's allure in popular culture.

Read more

ES&H Tip of the Week:
Computer Security

Spring into cyber safety

Computer security breaches can be prevented with proper vigilence.

Spring is just around the corner. It brings warm weather, with Fermilab employees shedding their winter wear after months of cold. While you recover from the chill, there's a fresh batch of things to think about, from seasonal allergies to sunscreen. Even though the season changes, you still need to protect yourself and those around. This should extend to your computer, as well.

Your computer probably has old software no longer needed or sorely out of date and in need of freshening up. Leaving software installed that is no longer needed, or not keeping it updated to the latest versions, clutters up your hard drive. It also makes it extremely easy for attackers to compromise your computer. A simple email containing a malicious attachment can take advantage of old software to control your computer. Every day, your email is bombarded with fake emails with attachments posing as pictures, documents or movies, all of which are carefully designed attempts to exploit holes in your software.

We are constantly under attack. In the last week alone, we have received six new alerts from DOE about new security vulnerabilities and ongoing attempts to exploit these vulnerabilities. Also in the last week, another DOE laboratory suffered penetration of its cyber infrastructure by malicious outsiders. Our chain of defense is only as strong as the weakest link, which can be any single user on site running vulnerable software. One such example is Fermi Scientific Linux version 4, for which the vendor no longer distributes security patches.

To aid the defense, take care when opening emails and attachments. Keep your antivirus software running and updated. Be sure to routinely apply patches to your computer by enabling automatic updates or by visiting your operating system and software vendors' websites. Be particularly careful of third party software (Flash and other Adobe products, for example), which are often not automatically updated.

A lot of software has a menu option to check for updates, which makes the process easier. If you are unsure if you are running latest software versions, ask you system administrator to check. You can find out who that is by going to the Computing Sector website and clicking "Verify your node registration."

Irwin Gaines

Photo of the Day

Early to rise, early to bed

The moon sets behind Wilson Hall during the morning twilight. Photo: Marty Murphy, AD
Accelerator Update

March 7-9

- Booster personnel ungraded BRF2
- Operations and External Beamline personnel reported that they had sent beam to the SeaQuest target
- FTBF experiment T-1008 continued to take beam

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

Announcements

Access 2010: Intro. - March 14

Fermilab Garden Club spring meeting - March 14

Take the Take Five Winter Challenge - March 19

Service Desk website changing - March 19

Fermilab Lecture Series presents "The Intensity Frontier" - March 23

School's Day Out - March 26-30

FRA scholarship applications due April 1

Python Programming class - April 16-18

Abri Credit Union is now selling books of stamps

Fermilab Management Practices courses are now available for registration

"5 Treasures" Qigong for stress relief

Indoor soccer

Atrium construction updates

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