Have a safe day!

Monday, Oct. 1

THERE WILL BE NO PARTICLE ASTROPHYSICS SEMINAR THIS WEEK

3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over

4 p.m.
All Experimenters’ Meeting - Curia II
Special Topics: Shutdown Work Status and Plans; DES Operation Status

Tuesday, Oct. 2

10:30 a.m.
Research Techniques Seminar - Curia II
Speaker: Stan Majewski, West Virginia University
Title: Particle Physics’ Contribution to Dedicated Innovative Brain PET Imagers

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

Take Five

Extended forecast
Weather at Fermilab

Secon Level 3

Flags at half-staff

Monday, Oct. 1

- Breakfast: apple cinnamon multi-grain pancakes
- Spicy Thai beef noodle soup
- Bayou tuna steak sandwich
- Chipotle-lime glazed pork
- Smart cuisine: sweet and sour apricot chicken
- Asian chicken wrap
- Margherita pizza
- Stir fry sensations

Wednesday, Oct. 3
Lunch
- Roast pork with apple salsa
- Roasted autumn squashes
- Braised red cabbage
- Plum tart with cream Chantilly

Friday, Oct. 5
Dinner
- Vol-au-vents with mushroom duxuelle
- Grilled duck breast with lingonberry sauce
- Wild rice
- Brussels sprouts with bacon and lemon
- Profiteroles with brandied pears and chocolate sauce

Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.

Fermilab Today

Director's Corner

Result of the Week

CMS Result

Physics in a Nutshell

Tip of the Week

User University Profiles

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Employees paint a more colorful Fermilab with gardening tools

Take a look around and you'll likely catch a glimpse of Fermilab beautification efforts. Photo: Ed Dijak, PPD

Many years ago a Fermilab employee planted a baby spruce tree in a garden plot he had rented from the Fermilab Garden Club. When the sapling became too big for the 20-by-40-foot plot, Roads and Grounds helped him replant the tree, which now is a towering 20 feet tall, in the Fermilab Village.

Fermilab's garden plots, which are available to all Fermilab employees for an annual fee, are one of many efforts on laboratory grounds through which employees are exercising their green thumbs. Another effort can be seen right outside PPD technical specialist Ed Dijak's office window at 31a Blackhawk – a site that was recently featured in a Photo of the Day.

After Fermilab's Roads and Grounds granted Dijak and a group of his fellow work colleagues permission to plant, the group grew over a dozen varieties of flowering plants they provided themselves. Now, the once bare ground around 31a Blackhawk is a collage of vibrant yellows, reds, purples and more.

"It's part of beautifying the lab, but it's also an outlet," said Dijak. "After sitting in the office a while, you need to get up, move around and get your mind out of the monitor of your computer. And for our group, we just walk out the front door and we have flowers and birds."

Moreover, the plants on Blackhawk are low-maintenance, so the only real work is breaking up the soil for seeds, which is well worth the effort, said PPD Assistant Head for Technical Support Karen Kephart.

"People feel a sense of ownership for a place they've helped build," she said. "It makes them a group and gives them some pride in things."

Outlets like these are also good for personal morale, Dijak said. Dijak and his group have provided many people with seeds from their garden so that others may brighten their own surroundings, whether at work or home.

Anyone interested in joining or starting their own gardening effort at Fermilab should contact Roads and Grounds first for help in assessing locations.

—Jessica Orwig

Nominations now accepted for director's volunteer award

Last year, Fermilab recognized David Schmitz for his contributions to the laboratory's K-12 education programs. Photo: Reidar Hahn

Each year, more than 200 employees, users and contractors go above and beyond their everyday duties to further outreach and education at the laboratory.

These volunteers are role models and mentors for teachers and students, answer tough questions about Fermilab and its science, maintain Lederman Science Center exhibits, visit area classrooms and more.

Once a year at a reception, the laboratory recognizes the efforts of an especially dedicated volunteer with the Director's Award for exceptional volunteer service, sponsored by Fermilab Friends for Science Education.

Please let the Education Office know when you're impressed by a colleague's contribution. You may nominate a Fermilab staff member, user or contractor candidate. The Education Office will take nominations until Oct. 19. This year's reception will take place on Oct. 25.

A spinning black hole at a galaxy's center

From Science, Sept. 27, 2012

Like all invisible things that are only partly understood, black holes evoke a sense of mystery. Astronomers know that the tremendous gravitational pull of a black hole sucks matter in. They also know that the material falling in causes powerful jets of particles to shoot out of the black hole at nearly the speed of light. But how exactly this phenomenon occurs remains a matter of conjecture, because astronomers have never quite managed to observe the details.

Well, now they have. Sheperd Doeleman, an astrophysicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Haystack Observatory in Westford, and his colleagues have taken the closest look to date at the region where matter swirls around a black hole. By measuring the size of the base of a jet shooting out of the supermassive black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy, the researchers conclude that the black hole must be spinning and that the material orbiting must also be swirling in the same direction. Some of the material from this orbiting "accretion disk" is also falling into the black hole, like water swirling down a drain. The finding appears online today in Science.

Read more

Lessons learned

In 1948, the Chicago Daily Tribune famously announced the wrong result of the U.S. presidential election. So that we can all avoid repeating mistakes that have already been made, Fermilab’s Office of Quality and Best Practices manages a database of lessons learned at the laboratory. Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Winston Churchill once said, “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Fortunately, at Fermilab we have a Lessons Learned Program that makes it easy for employees to learn from others’ experiences, thus helping them avoid repeating problems others may have encountered.  Administered by the Office of Quality and Best Practices, this program gathers lessons learned throughout Fermilab, other DOE laboratories and industry into a searchable, centralized database.

The Fermilab Lessons Learned Database is hosted on the ES&H website and is available to all Fermilab employees, users and contractors.  A simple interface allows you to easily search the database for aspects of the lessons learned such as severity, risk and subject area.  The lessons learned are currently divided into the following categories, with a lessons learned coordinator (LLC) assigned to each:

• Cybersecurity - Ron Cudzewicz
• ES&H - Rafael Coll
• Physical Security - Bill Flaherty
• Project Management - Dean Hoffer
• Quality - Jed Heyes

In addition to viewing lessons learned listed in the database, you may also submit them. The new lessons are intended to identify and document opportunities for improvement. As such, the lessons may identify either best practices to be emulated or problems to be avoided. Simply send an e-mail with a description of the lesson to the appropriate LLC. The LLC will review the lesson and determine if it is applicable at Fermilab and at other DOE laboratories. They will then add the lesson to the Fermilab database. It may also be submitted to the DOE lessons learned program if appropriate. For further information and assistance with the Lessons Learned Program, contact your division/section/center quality assurance representative or a quality assurance engineer.

—John F. Martzel

Computing Division annual picnic at Kuhn Barn

Members of Fermilab's Computing Division eat, drink and are merry outside Kuhn Barn. Photo: Jessica Orwig

Five out of six employees agree: The table is the place to be. Photo: Jessica Orwig

An ILC Higgs factory – is it enough?

The ILC can be turned into a Higgs factory - but what are the pros and cons?

The announcement of the discovery at the LHC in July of "that new boson" at approximately 125 GeV has everybody excited (and I'm sure more than a few quite relieved). As a humble accelerator builder I stood in wonder as I observed the world media event that followed. Following my particle physics colleagues to Cracow for the recent European Strategy Preparation Group open symposium, I was also caught up in the excitement of this process; compared to its predecessor five years ago in Orsay, this meeting was focused, positive and lively: the LHC was here! And that new boson does look awfully like the H thing.

Read more

—Nick Walker

Main site ICW flushing - Oct. 1-5

Abri Credit Union's Shred, Recycle & Donate Event in Romeoville - Oct. 6

Heartland Blood Drive - Oct. 8-9

The Eerie Silence: E.T., Where Are You? - Oct. 12

In the Footsteps of Django - Oct. 27

Accelerate to a Healthy Lifestyle update

Applications being accepted for Wilson Fellowship

Mac users: upcoming changes to VPN client software

Discussion of the views of Sam Harris on religion

Professional development courses

Atrium work updates