Fermilab Today Tuesday, June 16, 2009
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Have a safe day!

Tuesday, June 16
10 a.m.
Computing Techniques Seminar - FCC 2A/2B(NOTE DATE, TIME, LOCATION)
Speaker: Walter Brown, Fermilab
Title: C++: New and Improved
12 p.m.
Summer Lecture Series - Curia II
Speaker: Arden Warner, Fermilab
Title: Accelerators
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
THERE WILL BE NO ACCELERATOR PHYSICS AND TECHNOLOGY SEMINAR TODAY

Wednesday, June 17
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4:00 p.m.
Fermilab Colloquium - Auditorium (NOTE LOCATION)
Speaker: Arthur Benjamin, Harvey Mudd College
Title: Mathemagics! (or "Secrets of Mental Math")

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a weekly calendar with links to additional information.

Weather

WeatherThunderstorms
73°/59°

Extended Forecast
Weather at Fermilab

Current Security Status

Secon Level 3

Wilson Hall Cafe

Tuesday, June 16
- Chicken & rice soup
- Italian sausage w/peppers & onions
- Beef stroganoff
- Chicken lemon
- Peppered beef
- Assorted sliced pizza
- Chicken tostadas

Wilson Hall Cafe Menu

Chez Leon

Wednesday, June 17
Lunch
- Five-cheese mac & cheese
- Grilled chicken breast
- Lemon Neapolitan

Thursday, June 18
Dinner
- Crab cakes w/spicy red pepper sauce
- Bleu cheese crusted filet mignon
- Potato croquettes
- Sautéed zucchini
- Chocolate hazelnut soufflé

Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.

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www.fnal.gov/today/

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Special Announcement

All-hands meeting Friday

An all-hands meeting will take place at 11 a.m. on Friday, June 19 in Ramsey Auditorium. Director Pier Oddone will discuss the focus group reports and how the laboratory plans to address the findings.

Employees can prepare for the meeting by reading and discussing the focus group reports.

Feature

H1N1 flu alert level rises, but no need to panic

The World Health Organization has raised the H1N1 alert level to 6, the highest designation, while still considering the virus "moderate."

The upgrade to level 6 came in response to the worldwide sustained spread of the illness to more than one region. As of June 12, H1N1 has been reported in 76 countries. The level 6 designation does not mean the virus has gotten stronger or the percentage of deaths has risen. WHO considers the virus's severity overall to be "moderate" at the moment, meaning, in part, that most of the people who catch the virus recover without needing hospitalization.

You should continue precautions against catching the flu, including keeping yourself healthy by getting adequate rest, eating a nutritious diet and exercising. Doing this is the best way to prepare yourself for the next U.S. flu season in November when the H1N1 strain may make its second visit.

The WHO's designation of level 6, which some groups equate with a pandemic level, was made to accelerate vaccine development and to facilitate the movement of supplies to less developed countries. So far the WHO has noted 27,737 cases with 141 deaths worldwide. Not surprisingly, the bulk of the new cases have occurred in the Southern Hemisphere, which is entering its peak seasonal flu season.The WHO's concern focuses on the fact that this novel virus travels from person to person relatively easily and may cause more severe illness as it changes.

As of June 10, the Illinois Department of Health reported the virus in 22 counties, with 1, 929 confirmed or probable cases and five deaths. You can view a county-by-county break down here.

Vaccine manufacturers received their "target" virus samples last month and began vaccine development. They plan to begin producing for a H1N1 vaccine right after seasonal flu vaccine manufacture ends in July.

Although a raise in alert level sounds ominous, this action was not unexpected, and does not prompt any additional action at the laboratory. There are no travel bans in place. When ill with flu-like symptoms, please avoid air travel or coming to work.

Good hand washing and attention to cough containment remain our best defense. Your personal physician and the Fermilab Medical Department can help if you have questions about H1N1. For links to local and national health sites tracking the virus see the ES&H Web page.

View a daily update of H1N1's status at Science Insider, a Science/AAAS blog.

-- Brian Svazas, MD

Photo of the Day

New employees

Front row from left: Zhihao Yuan, TD; Joshua Heidorn, FESS; Rebecca Bemrose-Fetter, PPD; Whitney Treadman, ES&H; Danielle Coppola, PPD; Kristin Ewald, TD; Jiangang Hao, Center for Particle Astrophysics; Paolo Giromini, PPD. Back row from left: Glenn Vallone, BSS; Andrew Densch-Giese, AD/ES&H; David Seigle, DI; Tom Gibbs, ES&H; Mike Beard, AD; Will Alvarez, FESS; Steve Gaugel; BSS.

In the News

FY 2010 House Appropriations Bill: National Science Foundation

From AIP FYI, June 15, 2009

The report accompanying the House Appropriations Committee version of the FY 2010 Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations Bill has just been posted. This report stresses the importance of science and technology to the nation, stating in regard to the National Science Foundation:

"The value of the NSF to the future growth of the United States economy was clearly acknowledged in the National Academy of Sciences report Rising Above the Gathering Storm and in the America Competes Act (Public Law 110-69). NSF's budget is on course to double by fiscal year 2016, and the funding recommended in this bill is consistent with this goal."

House Report 111-149 has extensive language regarding the NSF, and may be viewed here. The following are selections from this committee report.

Read more

In the News

The physics of nothing

From New York Times, June 12, 2009

A dispatch from my colleague Dennis Overbye:

As fans of the late, great "Seinfeld," know, there is a lot to say about nothing.

At the World Science Festival Thursday night, four physicists spent nearly two hours under the jocular and irreverent grilling radio broadcaster John Hockenberry, cohost of "The Takeaway," and barely scratched the surface of the void that is the background or perhaps the platform of all our experience. They did in the end offer an answer to the question that has plagued philosophers and scientists: Why is there something rather than nothing at all?

"Nothing is unstable," Frank Wilczek, a physicist and Nobel laureate from MIT, finally said to a general murmur of agreement of his colleagues on stage, John Barrow of Cambridge University in England, Paul Davies of Arizona State and George Ellis of the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

Given a chance, nature will make nothingness boil with activity.

Read more

Director's Corner

Neutrinos

Pier Oddone

Neutrinos play a central role in the future Fermilab program. Last week Young-Kee Kim, Boris Kayser, Stephen Parke and I had the opportunity to brief the leadership of the Office of Science, including the next director of the Office of Science, Bill Brinkman, on the physics of neutrinos and on the long-term plans for the study of neutrinos in the world and at Fermilab. While we have great expectations for the discovery of physics beyond the Standard Model at the LHC, every bit of physics we expect to discover beyond the Standard Model is speculative at this time. The discovery of neutrino mass, on the other hand, has already given us evidence for physics beyond the Standard Model and a window into the study of that physics.

Steve Weinberg has called the discovery of neutrino mass the most important discovery in particle physics in the last quarter century. There are a billion times more neutrinos in the universe than there are fermions. As light as they are, perhaps a million times lighter than electrons, neutrinos' total mass adds up to the mass of all the stars. They have affected the evolution of the universe, permeating all space, yet of all the particles we have discovered in nature, they are the least understood.

Neutrino masses and mixing drive neutrino oscillations, the phenomenon in which the electron, muon and tau neutrinos oscillate into each other. These neutrino oscillations give us a powerful tool for studying the physics of neutrinos, including the origins of neutrino mass, the spectrum of their masses, and neutrinos' violation of matter-antimatter symmetry. Together these studies open a window on Grand Unified Theories that try to bring together the weak, electromagnetic and strong forces.

The Fermilab program on neutrinos starts with the current program of operating MINOS and MiniBooNE. Starting early in the decade, NOvA and MicroBooNE will take over, providing a further reach into the physics of neutrinos. The ultimate experiment using intense beams would be the proposed long-baseline experiments exploiting a uniquely intense beam provided by Project X and massive detectors at Homestake.

While providing the most powerful study of neutrinos late next decade, both Project X and the large detectors at Homestake would also give us an extensive program beyond neutrinos at the intensity frontier and in proton decay. But neutrinos will remain a key feature, and perhaps, as in the past, a source of future major surprises.

Director's Corner

Q&A with Rolf Heuer now online

In the first of a series of exchanges, CERN Director General Rolf Heuer wrote the Director's Corner for the June 2 issue of Fermilab Today. Readers were encouraged to ask him questions. The lone question and its answer is now online. Read it here.

Correction

Correction

In Monday's issue of Fermilab Today, the shutdown time span was incorrectly listed as 11-15 weeks. The shutdown will be 11 weeks long. Fermilab Today staff members regret the error.

Accelerator Update

June 12-15
- Two stores provided ~32.75 hours of luminosity
- Machine personnel conduct last minutes studies
- Pbar lithium lens trip
- ES&H and Operations personnel prepare areas for access
- Shutdown begins

*The integrated luminosity for the period from 6/8/09 to 6/15/09 was 50.64 inverse pico barns.

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

Announcements

Latest Announcements

Free upper body 30-minute workout - June 17 and 25

Fermi Kyuki-Do Martial Arts session begins on June 22

Time to complete accomplishment reports

Bike to Work Week June 13-19

Pool memberships are available in the Recreation Department

Argentine Tango Classes through June 24

International folk dancing resumes in Auditorium June 11

Toastmasters meeting June 18

NALWO "A Summer Evening Potluck Picnic"

English Country Dancing, June 21

Donors needed for Fermilab Blood Drive June 23 & 24. Give a pint - Get a quart of Oberweis Ice Cream

ACU car buying tips demo June 24

Environmental Safety and Health Fair - June 29

Discounted rates at Grand Geneva Resort, Lake Geneva, WI

Interaction management and performance review courses scheduled for summer 2009

SciTech Summer Camp discount- July 6

Intermediate/Advanced Python Programming July 22-24

Process piping (ASME B31.3) class offered in October

Python Training June 17-19

 
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