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Have a safe day!
Tuesday, Oct. 16
8 a.m.
Presentations to the Physics Advisory Committee - Curia II
10:30 a.m.
Research Techniques Seminar (NOTE LOCATION) - One West
Speaker: Mykhaylo Filipenko, University of Erlangen
Title: Tracking and Barium Tagging: The Chance to Achieve a Background-Free Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay Experiment?
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
THERE WILL BE NO ACCELERATOR PHYSICS AND TECHNOLOGY SEMINAR TODAY
Wednesday, Oct. 17
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
Fermilab Colloquium - One West
Speaker: Andreas Suter, Paul Scherrer Institut
Title: Muon Spin Rotation Spectroscopy - Utilizing Muons in Solid State Physics
Click here for NALCAL,
a weekly calendar with links to additional information.
Ongoing and upcoming conferences at Fermilab
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Tuesday, Oct. 16
- Breakfast: All-American breakfast
- Tomato basil bisque
- Classic reuben sandwich
- Barbecue pork ribs
- Smart cuisine: Caribbean chicken skewers
- Grilled-chicken Caesar wrap
- Assorted pizza
- Shrimp and crab Caesar salad
Wilson Hall Cafe Menu
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Wednesday, Oct. 17
Lunch
- Cheese ravioli with tomato basil sauce
- Caesar salad
- Peach Melba
Friday, Oct. 19
Dinner
Closed
Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.
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Green thumbs wanted for Fermilab's prairie harvest on Nov. 3
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Fermilab's prairie seed harvest takes place on Saturday, Nov. 3. Volunteers are welcome to join in the fun and help diversify Fermilab's 1,000 acres of prairie land. Photo: Reidar Hahn
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Calling all nature lovers. How would you like the chance to help diversify one of the oldest prairie restorations in Illinois?
The Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is looking for volunteers to help with its annual prairie seed harvest on Saturday, Nov. 3. Fermilab's site hosts 1,000 acres of restored native prairie land, and each year community members pitch in to help collect seeds from those native plants.
Less than one-tenth of one percent of native prairies in Illinois remains intact. Fermilab's restored grassland is one of the largest prairies in the state. The deep-rooted natural grasses of the prairie help prevent erosion and preserve the area's aquifers.
The main collection area spans about 100 acres, and within it, volunteers will gather seeds from about 25 different types of native plants. Some of those seeds will be used to replenish the Fermilab prairies, filling in gaps where some species are more dominant than others.
"Our objective is to collect seeds from dozens of species," said Ryan Campbell, an ecologist at Fermilab. "We have more than 1,000 acres of restored grassland, and it's not all of the same quality. We want to spread diversity throughout the whole site."
Once the seeds have been collected, the Fermilab Roads and Grounds staff will store them in a greenhouse and process them for springtime planting once controlled burns of the prairie have been conducted. The laboratory has also donated some of the seeds to area schools for use in their own prairies and as educational tools.
Fermilab has been hosting the prairie harvest every year since 1974, and the event typically draws more than 200 volunteers. The event will last from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., with lunch provided. Volunteers will be trained on different types of plants and how to harvest seeds. If you have them, bring gloves, a pair of hand clippers and paper grocery bags.
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AD Mechanical Support Department picnic
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The AD Mechanical Support Department gathered for a picnic at Kuhn Barn on Friday. Photo: Mike McGee, AD
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Enrollment for 2013 benefits - Oct. 22 to Nov. 6
Information packets about 2013 benefits will be sent to all employees via interoffice mail this week.
Please note that this year all employees will need to re-enroll for benefits during the annual enrollment period, from Oct. 22 to Nov. 6.
This means that even if you intend to continue with the same plans and coverage that you have this year, you must re-enroll. If you do not re-enroll, your coverage will be suspended on Dec. 31, 2012.
Fermilab provides employees with a comprehensive and affordable benefits program, which includes medical, prescription drug and dental insurance, life insurance, income protection and retirement benefits. Annual enrollment is your opportunity to make changes to your coverage for the upcoming year.
If you are unsure about your current benefit plan selections, you can check them by signing into the Employee Self Service application on the Fermilab at Work website. Your login ID is your Fermilab ID number. You can create a password if you are a first-time user, or reset your password if needed.
Mark your calendars for upcoming informational meetings on 2013 benefits:
- Monday, Oct. 22, 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., in Wilson Hall One West
- Monday, Oct. 22, 2:30 p.m., CDF Building 327, conference room
- Tuesday, Oct. 23, 9 a.m. and 11 a.m., in Wilson Hall One West
- Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2 p.m., in the Users' Center Music Room
- Monday, Oct. 29, 9 a.m. and 11 a.m., in Wilson Hall One West
- Friday, Nov. 2, 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., in Wilson Hall Curia II
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New threat to American competiveness discussed at Senate hearing
From FYI: The AIP Bulletin of Science Policy News, Oct. 12, 2012
"Success takes time," Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) said at the outset of a Sept. 19 hearing entitled "Five Years of the America COMPETES Act: Progress, Challenges, and Next Steps." The two-hour hearing heard from five witnesses, one of whom raised a troubling new development posing a threat to America's future competitiveness.
One of these witnesses was Norman Augustine, retired chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin Corporation, who was instrumental in the "Rising Above the Gathering Storm" report released by the National Academies in November 2005. The report received immediate acclaim and attention and has remained a much-cited prescription for what the United States should do to remain technologically competitive. The report was the foundation on which many of the provisions of the original America COMPETES Act were based and which was signed into law by President Bush in August 2007. President Obama signed a new version of the COMPETES legislation into law in January 2011. Among the act's 68-pages of provisions were authorization levels for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the National Science Foundation, and Department of Energy basic research programs for fiscal years 2011, 2012, and 2013.
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45 years young
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Fermilab Director
Pier Oddone |
This year marks the 45th anniversary of Fermilab, established by the Atomic Energy Commission in November 1967. In the four-and-a-half decades since its founding, Fermilab has been on a remarkable trajectory of major discoveries and technological advances. From the very beginning and throughout its history, Fermilab devoted itself to scientific discovery in an atmosphere of equality and opportunity for our staff and users while being a responsible steward of our extraordinary natural environment. The sense of the frontier has permeated not only our expanding science program, through which we constantly open new territory, but also our surroundings, with the magnificent restored prairie and our American bison herd. In recent years the bison have come to symbolize for me not only the frontier, but also how tough we are as a laboratory. Just watching the hardy beasts in the middle of some inclement storm gives you a great sense of strength, patience and continuity: They seem to say, We will tough this out whatever comes and will stand here until spring arrives.
This year also marks the 35th anniversary of our funding agency, the Department of Energy, established in 1977. It would appear from this date that the egg, us, preceded the chicken, DOE, but it is not quite so simple. DOE has a much longer lineage going back to the founding of the Atomic Energy Commission in 1946 when nuclear weapons were transferred from military to civilian control. In 1974, the AEC was broken up into its stewardship role for nuclear energy, nuclear weapons and energy research, the Energy Research and Development Administration, and its regulatory function, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Three years later, President Carter's administration created the Department of Energy as a cabinet-level department through the consolidation of ERDA with the Federal Power Commission and the Federal Energy Administration. Fermilab came to DOE through ERDA, as did all the other national laboratories. Today the DOE operates a formidable system of institutions that encompasses 17 national laboratories.
Several of our sister laboratories started essentially as particle and nuclear physics laboratories during the AEC times. They have now evolved into multi-program laboratories with a diversified set of skills in material science, chemistry, biology, energy, environment and computation. As other laboratories evolved and the facilities for particle physics grew in scale, the major accelerators for particle physics were consolidated at Fermilab. While future accelerators for particle physics will be built here, we continue to partner with our sister laboratories because they bring not only expertise in particle physics to our programs, but also a vast array of capabilities and technologies stemming from their other fields of research. These partnerships were evident and very much appreciated in the presentations that these laboratories made at last week's Community Planning Meeting in Ramsey Auditorium.
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First two NOvA far-detector blocks now in position
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Workers at the NOvA far-detector building in Ash River, Minn., pivot NOvA block 1 into position. Block 0 can be seen in the background. Photo: William Miller, NOvA installation manager
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Workers at the NOvA far-detector site in Ash River, Minn., recently installed the second NOvA far-detector block. The first two blocks, called block 0 and block 1, will be joined by a third on Oct. 25.
Watch a live webcast of the installation of the NOvA detector blocks.
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NOvA far-detector blocks 0 and 1 are in position. This view shows the tops of the two blocks. Photo: William Miller, NOvA installation manager
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Angry Birds the particle physics board game: Rovio and CERN collaborate on making learning quantum physics fun
From TechCrunch, Oct. 12, 2012
Angry Birds-maker Rovio and CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, are to collaborate on developing "fun learning experiences" aimed at getting kids engaged with science. The collaboration is part of a new initiative by Rovio to use the power of the Angry Birds brand as a learning aid. The Finnish company has kicked off a learning programme — under a new brand, called Angry Birds Playground (not to be confused with Angry Birds activity parks) – for 3- to 8-year-olds based on the Finnish National Curriculum for kindergarten.
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Slight chance of thunderstorms
