Fermilab Today Monday, Aug. 2, 2010
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Have a safe day!

Monday, Aug. 2
THERE WILL BE NO PARTICLE ASTROPHYSICS SEMINAR THIS WEEK
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
THERE WILL BE NO ALL EXPERIMENTERS' MEETING THIS WEEK

Tuesday, Aug. 3
12 p.m.
Summer Lecture Series - One West
Speaker: Tom Kroc, Fermilab
Title: Neutrons Against Cancer
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
THERE WILL BE NO ACCELERATOR PHYSICS AND TECHNOLOGY SEMINAR THIS WEEK

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a weekly calendar with links to additional information.

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H1N1 Flu

For information about H1N1, visit Fermilab's flu information site.

Weather

WeatherSunny
88°/70°

Extended Forecast
Weather at Fermilab

Current Security Status

Secon Level 3

Wilson Hall Cafe

Monday, Aug. 2
- Breakfast: Croissant sandwich
- Spicy beef & rice soup
- Corned beef reuben
- Roast pork loin
- Lasagna
- Chicken oriental wrap pineapple
- Assorted sliced pizza
- Pacific Rim rice bowl

Wilson Hall Cafe Menu

Chez Leon

Wednesday, Aug. 4
Lunch
- Spinach salad w/grilled shrimp
- Lemon-buttermilk panna cotta w/blueberry sauce

Thursday, Aug. 5
Dinner
- Caesar salad
- Lobster tail w/lemon butter
- Grilled asparagus
- New potatoes
- Strawberry shortcake

Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.

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www.fnal.gov/today/

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Feature

Labwide database to capture lessons learned

The Lessons Learned Program is part of the Integrated Quality Assurance effort

Learning from past events and projects is a good thing, both at home and at work. The sharing of lessons learned can increase safety, improve quality and reduce cost of products and processes.

Many divisions and sections at Fermilab already keep records of lessons learned. But what is the best way of collecting and sharing them at a laboratory with about 2,000 employees? How can one make sure that all employees learn about the information that is relevant to them?

The Fermilab Office of Quality and Best Practices now is capturing the existing lessons learned information in a labwide Lessons Learned Program that covers many topics, including ES&H. The office has developed guidelines on what information should be collected and the Computing Division has set up a lab-wide, searchable database. In addition, the office has begun to train coordinators who will help capture the wealth of information that can help coworkers to make better decisions.

"We are just at the beginning of this process," explained Ed Vokoun, who helped set up the program on behalf of the Office of Quality and Best Practices. "People should contact the Lessons Learned Coordinators if they have questions or suggestions for lessons learned to convey. We are now beginning to populate the Lessons Learned database."

The initial list of Lesson Learned Coordinators includes Rafael Coll, ES&H; Jed Heyes, Quality Assurance; as well as Senior Safety Officers and Quality Assurance Representatives in each division, section and center. Bill Flaherty, Security; Ron Cudzewicz, Cybersecurity; and Dean Hoffer, Project Management; will join as additional coordinators.

If you have questions, please contact one of the coordinators or e-mail Vokoun at evokoun@fnal.gov. This fall, Fermilab Today will announce when the database is accessible for search by people on the Fermilab site.

-- Kurt Riesselmann

Special Announcement

Shutdown-related power outage Tuesday morning

An outage to the master substation will take place from 7-7:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 3. The nearly sitewide outage will affect all buildings except for the Village buildings and the Main Injector. Please power down all personal electronics and computers before leaving work today. To learn more about Fermilab's four-week shutdown, view the article in the July 16 issue of Fermilab Today.

In the News

Spinning black holes could expose exotic particles

From New Scientist, July 29, 2010

Black holes do not have a reputation for giving up their secrets, but they could prove instrumental in uncovering exotic particles that are difficult to detect on Earth.

If conditions are right, a particle scattering from a spinning black hole will trigger the formation of a new particle. This also causes the black hole to lose a little angular momentum, an effect known as "superradiance".

Asimina Arvanitaki of the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues say this loss of angular momentum could be exploited in the hunt for hypothetical particles called axions, which could constitute the invisible cold dark matter that appears to hold galaxies together.

According to the team's calculations, a single axion emitted by a spinning black hole could trigger the emission of more axions to form a cloud orbiting the black hole. The creation of each axion would draw rotational energy away from the hole. The cloud eventually gets so dense that some of it will collapse and fall into the hole while the rest is flung outwards and may escape the black hole's gravitational field altogether.

Read more

ES&H Tips of the Week -
Environment
ecology

Join the fight for nature

Fermilab is effectively controlling teasel, a common invasive species in our area, but to keep it under control will require years of effort, including volunteers' help.

The invaders are coming! No, not creatures from outer space, but non-native plants that can exploit a natural ecosystem with devastating results.

These seemingly innocuous plants can render the land nearly useless to native plants and animals, ruining areas for human uses such as hunting, birdwatching and food gathering. Biodiversity can be destroyed as well.

At Fermilab, the Roads and Grounds crew has been fighting the battle against invasive plants for many years. Now, with the help of a $6,000 grant from Boeing Corp. to Fermilab Natural Areas, Roads and Grounds will get reinforcements from restoration ecologist Ryan Campbell and his crew of two summer employees.

Purple loosestrife, a wetland invasive prevalent throughout our region, has been largely controlled at Fermilab. But, the fight never ends, and new invasive species appear regularly. The majority of invasive plants are brought here by human activity, accidentally or on purpose. As new invasives, such as spotted knapweed, appear in our area, our early detection and rapid response strategy works well. However, firmly established species will take years of effort to control.

A wetland measuring only 50 square meters in area can support 50 to 80 species of native wetland plants. Without prevention efforts, the wetlands can easily convert into a monoculture if an invasive species is introduced.

You can help by learning more about invasive plants, recogizing them and reporting them to local land managers. Information is available at:
Illinois Invasive Species
Midwest Invasive Plant Network
Illinois Department of Natural Resources
The Nature Conservancy: Invasive Species

-- Rod Walton, ecologist

Safety Tip of the Week Archive

Announcements

User's Office closed today

Aug. 20 deadline for The University of Chicago Tuition Remission Program

Applications for URA Visiting Scholars Awards due Aug. 20

Martial arts classes begin Aug. 9

Regal movie theater discount tickets available

NIM and Physics Reports now completely online at Fermilab

Toastmasters - Aug. 5

Grounding and Shielding of Electronic Systems course - Aug. 12 and 13

Free piano concert featuring Sandor Feher, Ramsey Auditorium at noon on Aug. 12

What's New with NI and the latest version of LabVIEW (NI Week highlights)? - Aug. 19

Gizmo Guys - Fermilab Arts Series - Sept. 25


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