Fermilab Today

	Monday, Oct. 20, 2014

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Calendar

Have a safe day!

Monday, Oct. 20

2 p.m.
Particle Astrophysics Seminar - Curia II
Speaker: Nickolay Gnedin, Fermilab
Title: Cosmic Reionization on Computers

3:30 p.m.
Director's Coffee Break - WH2XO

4 p.m.
All Experimenters' Meeting - Curia II

Tuesday, Oct. 21

9:30 a.m.-4 p.m.
NuSTEC Training in Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering Physics - One West

3:30 p.m.
Theoretical Physics Seminar (NOTE DATE, TIME, LOCATION) - WH3NE
Speaker: Junko Shigemitsu, Ohio State University
Title: Precision Flavor Physics and Lattice QCD

3:30 p.m.
Director's Coffee Break - 2nd Flr X-Over

THERE WILL BE NO ACCELERATOR PHYSICS AND TECHNOLOGY SEMINAR THIS WEEK

Visit the labwide calendar to view Fermilab events

Weather

Mostly cloudy
61°/41°

Extended forecast
Weather at Fermilab

Current Flag Status

Flags at full staff

Wilson Hall Cafe

Monday, Oct. 20

- Breakfast: oatmeal raisin pancakes
- Breakfast: sausage, egg and cheese croissant
- Grilled reuben sandwich
- Roasted pork loin with orange mustard glaze
- Barbecue chicken
- Classic club sandwich
- Mandarin orange pecan chicken salad
- Cuban black bean soup
- Texas-style chili
- Assorted pizza by the slice

Wilson Hall Cafe menu

Chez Leon

Wednesday, Oct. 22
Lunch
Vegetarian special
- Sweet potato and chickpea cakes with avocado salsa
- Sauteed lemony broccolini
- Rustic fruit tart

Friday, Oct. 24
Dinner
- Potato, bacon and gruyere souffle
- Medallions of beef with wild mushroom sauce
- Parsnip puree
- Sauteed Brussels sprouts
- Pear tart

Chez Leon menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.

New high-speed transatlantic network to benefit science collaborations across the U.S.

ESnet will build high-speed extensions for faster data exchange between United States and Europe Image: ESnet

Scientists across the United States will soon have access to new, ultra-high-speed network links spanning the Atlantic Ocean thanks to a project currently under way to extend ESnet (the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Sciences Network) to Amsterdam, Geneva and London. Although the project is designed to benefit data-intensive science throughout the U.S. national laboratory complex, heaviest users of the new links will be particle physicists conducting research at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's largest and most powerful particle collider. The high capacity of this new connection will provide U.S. scientists with enhanced access to data at the LHC and other European-based experiments by accelerating the exchange of data sets between institutions in the United States and computing facilities in Europe.

DOE's Brookhaven National Laboratory and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory — the primary computing centers for U.S. collaborators on the LHC's ATLAS and CMS experiments, respectively — will make immediate use of the new network infrastructure once it is rigorously tested and commissioned. Because ESnet, based at DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, interconnects all national laboratories and a number of university-based projects in the United States, tens of thousands of researchers from all disciplines will benefit as well.

Video of the Day

Got a minute? Are there extra dimensions?

Scientists don't understand why gravity is so much weaker than the other forces. One possibility is that there might be extra dimensions beyond the familiar three. In this hypothesis, gravity can escape into the extra dimensions. Fermilab scientist Tia Miceli tells us more. View the video. Video: U.S. CMS

In Brief

Accepting LDRD proposals through Oct. 31

Laboratory Directed Research and Development proposals are now being accepted. Preliminary proposals are due Oct 31.

Please visit the LDRD website for more information, or attend one of the two upcoming noontime information sessions: Oct. 22 in WH3E or Oct. 28 in WH2NW. You may also contact LDRD Coordinator William Wester with questions.

Photo of the Day

Consider the crayfish

A crayfish takes a walk across w pedestrian trail. Photo: Adam Bracero, TD

In the News

UN and CERN to celebrate science for peace and development

From CERN, Oct. 17, 2014

Editor's note: The United Nations event described below will take place today at 9 a.m. and will be webcast live on UN Web TV. Learn more at the United Nations ECOSOC website.

[On Oct. 20] the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) will gather eminent politicians and scientists to celebrate science for peace and development highlighting the values of science and its ability to build bridges between nations.

Using CERN as an example, the event will highlight the role that science has played in peaceful collaboration, innovation and development, and to consider how this legacy can be used to address present and future global issues. The event will be the last in a series of celebrations to mark CERN's 60th anniversary.

Keynote speakers:

Kofi Annan, chair and founder of the Kofi Annan Foundation and Nobel Peace Prize winner
Carlo Rubbia, Nobel Physics Prize winner and former CERN director-general
Hitoshi Murayama, director of the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, University of Tokyo, and professor at the University of California, Berkeley
Naledi Pandor, minister for science and technology, Republic of South Africa

Tip of the Week: Sustainability

Call-n-Ride for cleaner air

Batavia Pace Call-n-Ride offers a direct shuttle between Fermilab and the Geneva Metra train station five times a day. Photo: Reidar Hahn

Have you always wanted to live closer to Chicago but not suffer the headache of taking the Eisenhower every morning on your way to the lab? Or maybe you aren't sure how to get from a train station to Fermilab. Now you can take the train to Geneva and catch the new Batavia Pace Call-n-Ride shuttle, which has a direct route to Fermilab twice each morning and three times in the afternoon.

For years, employees, users and students have asked for a service like Call-n-Ride to connect to a local train station. It permits more flexibility when choosing where to live and allows for alternative ways to get to work. This consideration of work-life balance is an important piece of the new program. But there is another benefit to the lab and to you.

Using public transportation helps reduce your carbon footprint. According to the American Public Transportation Association, by taking existing public transportation instead of driving a car for a 20-mile round trip, a single person saves 4,800 pounds of carbon dioxide per year. The personal vehicle is the biggest contributor to a household's carbon footprint.

At the end of each fiscal year, Fermilab submits a Site Sustainability Plan to DOE that includes reporting of greenhouse gas emissions related to site operations as well as to employee commuting. Executive Order 13514 and DOE's Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan require Fermilab to reduce greenhouse gas emissions related to employee commuting and business travel 13 percent by 2020, using 2008 as the baseline year. Last year, Fermilab reported 5,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emission equivalent due to commuting. That's almost three tons per employee!

Fermilab's Sustainability Committee has been working hard to lower Fermilab's carbon footprint by making it easier for staff to take alternative transportation to Fermilab. So far, the committee has encouraged carpooling by teaming up with Argonne's GreenRide Connect website, featured in Fermilab Today in August 2013. Also, three dedicated car pool parking spots have become a permanent fixture in Wilson Hall's west parking lot. The latest program, connecting the train station to Fermilab, will also help decrease our contribution to carbon emissions.

The Call-n-Ride program has been in place for only a week, but I have already received many notes of thanks. Gary VanZandbergen emailed, "I think I am going to try it for a while. If it works in my life schedule, I may become a permanent user. I live in Elmhurst, and on a day like yesterday (rain, accidents on the toll way) it took me a stressful 1.5 hours to get home in my car."

If you have questions about the new Call-n-Ride, please email me. Together we can help clear the air.

—Katie Kosirog

In Brief

Open enrollment for Fermilab employees through Oct. 30

Open enrollment for benefits takes place through Oct. 30. This is your opportunity to make changes to your medical, dental and flexible spending account elections for 2015. Changes made during open enrollment will be effective Jan. 1, 2015.

For more information, refer to the all-hands email that was sent on Thursday. The Benefits Office and your HR partner are available to answer your questions about open enrollment. Please email benefitsoffice@fnal.gov or call x3395 to make an appointment. You may also contact your division or section's assigned HR partner.

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