June 27,
2003
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June 27,
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Berkeley Lab Scientists
Played Key Role in RHIC Experiments
Berkeley Lab Scientists Played Key Role in RHIC ExperimentsCreation of quark gluon plasma would provide insight into formation of the UniverseBy Lynn Yarris There was a strong Berkeley Lab connection to the announcement last week from Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) that the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) has created the hottest, most dense matter ever observed. Experimental results have given RHIC researchers confidence that they are “on the right path” to discovering a quark-gluon plasma — an elusive form of matter be-lieved to have existed in the first microseconds after the universe was born. Resear-chers with Berkeley Lab’s Nuclear Science Division (NSD) played key roles in both the theoretical and experimental components of these results.
On June 18, a special scientific colloquium was held at BNL to discuss the latest findings at RHIC, the world’s lar-gest facility for research in nuclear physics. RHIC is designed to recreate the hot, dense conditions of the early universe. At this colloquium, it was announced that in the detector system known as STAR (for Solenoidal Tracker At RHIC) head-on collisions between two beams of gold nuclei resulted in a phenomenon called “jet quenching.” By comparison, in collisions between a beam of gold nuclei and a beam of deuterons, this phenomenon was not obser-ved. STAR, along with the three other experiments at RHIC — PHENIX, BRAHMS and PHOBOS — all detected a suppression of “leading particles,” highly energetic individual particles that emerge from nuclear fireballs, in the gold-gold collisions. Jet quenching and leading particle suppression are predicted to be signs of a quark-gluon plasma formation. “The observation of jet quenching represents a giant step forward and brings us to the cusp of discovery of the elusive quark-gluon plasma,” says Xin-Nian Wang, head of NSD’s Nuclear Theory Program. “Much work is still needed to find out the detailed properties of the dense matter, such as its equation of state and whether color deconfinement is achieved, however, taken together with other observed phenomena like collective flow, it should not take too long to conclude that a quark-gluon plasma has indeed been made at RHIC.” Wang, along with Miklos Gyulassy, who is now at Columbia University, developed the theory that links jet quenching to quark-gluon plasma. Jets are energetic beams of ordinary particles produced when a pair of quarks are knocked out of a proton or neutron during a collision between atomic nuclei. The quarks, moving in opposite directions, one going in towards the nucleus, the other away from it, quickly transform into two back-to-back jets that shoot out in opposite directions from the nuclear fireball. It was the contention of Wang and Gyulassy that if a quark-gluon plasma were to be created, the jet moving toward the nucleus would be drained of energy, or “quenched,” so that it could not escape the fireball. “Analyzing how the jets propagate through the fireball and measuring the amount of quenching that occurs should reveal whether or not a quark-gluon plasma was created,” Wang says. Starting in 2001, researchers at RHIC generated thousands of head-on collisions between the nuclei of gold atoms (79 protons and 118 neutrons) at energies of 100 billion electron volts (100 GeV) per nucleon. The temperature of the nuclear matter in these collisions approached one trillion degrees above absolute zero (about 300 million times hotter than the surface of the sun), which is thought to be hot enough to “melt” the gold nuclei into their constituent quarks and gluons and allow these particles to briefly exist free of one another in the soup-like quark-gluon plasma. Quarks are one of the basic constituents of matter. Gluons are carriers of the strong force that binds quarks together into protons or neutrons. In the ordinary matter that makes up the world in which we live, quarks are never free of other quarks or gluons. As different from ordinary matter as water is from ice or steam, the quark-gluon plasma is believed to have been the state of matter that prevailed in the first 10 microseconds after the Big Bang. Though it immediately cooled to the ordinary state of matter, the quark-gluon plasma set the stage for creating the particles that make up our universe today. The ability to produce a quark-gluon plasma at RHIC should yield new insights into how our universe was formed and a better understanding of the behavior of atomic nuclei. To search for the presence of a quark-gluon plasma, the RHIC researchers simultaneously tracked and identified thousands of particles in the debris of their heavy ion collisions. STAR was the only experiment to detect single jets emerging from the collisions between the dual beams of gold nuclei., but in order to draw any conclusions, the researchers needed to compare the gold-gold collision data to collisions in which they would expect to see no jet quenching or suppression of leading particles. From January to March of this year, researchers at RHIC generated head-on collisions between beams of gold nuclei and beams of deuterons, nuclei consisting of one proton and one neutron. These deuteron-gold experiments, along with experiments using two colliding beams of protons, served as a basis for comparison with the collisions between two beams of gold nuclei. This time the researchers observed back-to-back jets and recorded more leading particles coming from the deuteron-gold collisions. Hans Georg Ritter, the physicist who heads NSD’s Relativistic Nuclear Collisions program, says, “It is the consensus that the quark-gluon plasma has not been found yet, but jet quenching is an exciting new phenomenon that is unique to RHIC.” The findings of the STAR experiment were presented at the BNL colloquium by NSD physicist Peter Jacobs. NSD’s David Hardtke developed the method used to analyze the jets in the gold-gold collisions and did the comparison analysis which established that jet quenching was taking place. The analyses were done at the Parallel Distributed Systems Facility at NERSC. The centerpiece of STAR is a Time Projection Chamber, or TPC, which was designed and built by scientists, engineers and technicians in NSD and the Engi-neering Division (ED). Construction of the $15 million TPC for STAR was led by NSD physicist Howard Wieman and ED engineer Russ Wells. Construction of the entire $60 million STAR detection system was overseen by NSD physicist Jay Marx and ED engineer Bill Edwards.
And the Oscar for Best Performace in a Non-Credit Role Goes to Berkeley LabBy Ron Kolb Perhaps in the context of 138 minutes and $150 million, Berkeley Lab’s
time on the screen is minimal. But without it, the Hulk doesn’t
become incredible, Bruce Banner and Betty Ross don’t have a place
to work, and nutty David Banner doesn’t get his genes jumbled in
the first place.
Pay attention during the first (long) hour, because that’s where the Lab — not the Hulk, unfortunately for monster fans — will appear. Eric Bana (the young scientist Banner) and Jennifer Connelly (the young scientist Ross) work at someplace called the Berkeley Nuclear Biotechnology Institute, a low-paying genetics lab in the East Bay Hills overlooking San Francisco, looking very much like … the Advanced Light Source. There’s Bana, in Army-green jacket with shoulder pack and speed helmet, bicycling onto the ALS patio and parking his bike at a now-non-existent rack. That scene, and several others, were shot here during a long weekend in April 2002. But when Bana gets off his bike and walks into the ALS — er, BNBI — he is greeted by original Hulk creator Stan Lee and original TV Hulk Lou Ferrigno, here doing cameos with a Bana stand-in. That part of the scene was shot on a Monday this past April. Connelly and film heavy Josh Lucas next appear in a brief encounter at the ALS lobby elevator — a scene that probably lasts about 10 seconds but which director Lee took close to two hours and 20 takes to film. A brief time later, Bana is filmed coasting down Lawrence Road at dusk, the sparkling SF skyline in the distance. Impressive, though only seconds in length. Throughout this interpersonal activity, the intrigue of the Gamma-sphere looms. Universal built a three-quarter-sized model in the studio based upon the Berkeley-made original, now detecting gamma rays at Argonne. The architecture is stunning on film, and even the dialogue nonsense about “nanomeds” can’t distract from its scientific sheen. Bana endures radiation from an accident there, clutching the detectors of the globe-shaped instrument (never mind that the real thing measures gamma rays and does not emit them).
The inevitable chain of events is set, and in a few moments, the movie’s key scene — and the Laboratory’s piece de résistance — is served up. The now-Hulked-up Banner triggers alarms, and that brings the police to the site (screeching to a stop behind Building 10). Occupants flee (screaming extras emerging from the ALS front door and running across the patio). The Hulk throws the gammasphere skyward, and it smashes through the ALS outer wall, its number “6” unmistakable amid the chaos. The flying orb lands on top of the police car and its occupants dive out of the away (onto a mattress landing, as the explosively rigged stunt car implodes). When he last visited in April, Lee had just seen the final cuts of that scene at Industrial Light and Magic in Marin County, where the Hulk and other computerized scenes were created. He described it has “the most difficult and complicated digital scene ever filmed.” It is impressive. The ALS was also used for an indoor flashback scene at a secret military research facility somewhere in the desert. A young David Banner, played by shaggy-haired actor Paul Kersey, is seen frantically flipping and punching switches and buttons before rushing up some stairs to escape the inevitable disaster behind him. The whole sequence was shot at the floor-level controls inside the storage ring at the ALS.
And late in the picture, a wistful Betty Ross peers through the blinds of a window, gazing anxiously through trees at the dramatic night skyline of the city. The window was actually a prop on a forklift in the ALS parking lot, the leaves swaying from the effects of a huge electric fan. Speaking of fans, the Hulk attracted enough of them last weekend to set an income record for a summer release opening — $62.6 million. For the realistic look and feel of a science laboratory, they can thank Berkeley Lab, even if Universal Studios chose not to.
Lab Outlines Plans for New Building, Parking LotBy Ron KolbA new building designed to ease the overcrowding of office space at Berkeley Lab has been proposed for construction on site next year. A 120-car parking lot, planned to be built with the excavated soil, will also alleviate parking problems at the Lab.
An environmental impact report (EIR) will be prepared for the project, and a public “scoping” meeting has been scheduled for next Monday, June 30, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Cen-ter, 1901 Hearst Ave. The meeting is designed to help establish the content of relevant environmental information to be studied. The six-story, 65,000-square-foot structure would be erected just above the Blackberry Gate and just below the Building 50 complex, on the southeast side of Cyclotron Road. Since the purpose of Building 49, as it is now called, will be to relocate up to 240 current emp-loyees, no net increase of staff or automobile traffic is anticipated. Although the programs to be accommodated in the building have not yet been identified, there will be no research lab space included. One unique aspect of the project is its funding structure. For the first time here, an outside developer will hold the ground lease and will own, finance, design, build and manage the new office building. The Univ-ersity of California will lease the building on a year-to-year basis for Berkeley Lab’s use. A “notice of preparation” of the EIR has been issued. The
review period for comments on the preparation of the EIR for the project
is 32 days, from June 16 to July 18. A copy of the notice, which includes
a summary project description and the proposed scope of the EIR, can be
downloaded from the Laboratory website at http:// www.lbl.gov/Community/
env-rev-docs.html. The current schedule calls for issuing the EIR for public comment around Aug. 15, holding a public meeting on the EIR about Sept. 15, and submitting a final EIR to the UC Regents for approval next January. Construction could begin next spring, and the building and parking lot should be completed by fall of 2005. The federal General Services Administration recommends that facilities like Berkeley Lab have 135 net square feet of primary office space per person. The Lab’s current sitewide space allocation is about 100 net square feet per person, hence the urgency of the project. The proposed reuse of the soil as a parking lot will be a productive, cost-effective and environmentally preferred alternative to hauling excavated soil off site, a process that would involve an estimated 4,300 one-way truck trips through city streets. The new lot, designated as “G-4,” would be located east of building 70A. Comments on the plan may be sent to Jeff Philliber, the Lab’s environmental planning coordinator, at MS90K. He will also answer questions at X5257.
Not Just Another Pretty Face
This hungry, smiling goat is but one of 350 now-familiar summer visitors on the Hill, here to do a job, not just make silly faces. The goats — part of a mixed herd, most of them angora — act as Mother Nature’s best fire control system. Three hundred of these voracious eaters can clear one acre of vegetation per day, or 40 to 50 acres at the Lab each season. Herded by Oscar Iturra from Chile, they are managed by Goats R Us of Orinda and guarded here by Winnie the dog. Goats R Us runs a ranch with 3,000 goats in Orinda and one in Calaveras County, where the old goats go to retire. When last seen, the goats were munching their way through Blackberry
Canyon.
Help Document ALS History for 10th AnniversaryThe Advanced Light Source will be 10 years old in October, and you are invited to share your memories of this eventful decade with organizers who are planning the festivities. Do you have stories about the early years of the ALS, or historical insights (and hindsights) about its construction? Were you there when the first light shone through a beamline? Do you have a story to tell or a photo to show? If so, contact the planners of the ALS 10-year anniversary at als10years@lbl.gov. Organizers would also like to hear from anyone who would like to participate in planning the celebration or who have suggestions or information to share.
Mathematicians Win Prestigious New PrizeBy John BashorJohn B. Bell and Phillip Colella of the Computational Research Division are corecipients of the SIAM/ACM Prize in Computational Science and Engineering, awarded by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathem-atics (SIAM) and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).
The prize, awarded for the first time this year, honors outstanding contributions to the development and use of mathematical and computational tools and methods for the solution of science and engineering problems. Algorithms developed by Bell and Colella and their research groups at Berkeley Lab are used to study complex problems arising in fluid mecha-nics and computational physics. The methodology they have developed has been applied in such diverse areas as shock physics, turbulence, astrophysics, flow in porous media and combustion. Much of their research is funded through DOE’s Office of Science and its Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) and Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) programs. Ray Orbach, director of the Office of Science, praised Bell and Colella for “devoting their talents to tackling problems of global significance.”
One of the current projects in the Center for Computational Sciences and Engineering, led by Bell, focuses on three-dimensional simulations of turbulent methane combustion. The goal of these simulations is to model turbulence-chemistry interactions to predict not only the basic energetics of the flame but also to quantify the detailed chemical behavior within the flame. The results, to be presented at an international conference this summer, are the first fully resolved simulations of methane combustion with comprehensive chemistry for a laboratory-scale flame, and provide an unprecedented view of the detailed processes occurring in methane combustion. The principal focus of Colella’s current work is the development of new simulation software tools for multiscale problems in science and engineering. Applications include non-ideal magnetohydrodynamics problems arising in magnetic fusion; beam dynamics in accelerator design problems; simulation of gas jets in laser-driven plasma-wakefield accelerators; multiphase flow in microgravity environments; geophysical and environmental fluid mechanics; and detailed spatial modeling of microbes. Colella also leads a NASA Earth and Space Sciences Computational Technologies project to develop algorithms and software for the simulation of multiphase flow and star formation. Bell and Colella will be presented with the prize on June 17 at the 2003 SIAM Annual Meeting, to be held jointly with the Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society’s annual meeting in Montreal, Canada.
Berkeley Lab CurrentsPublished twice a month by the Communications Department for the employees and retirees of Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Ron Kolb, Communications Department head. EDITOR: Monica Friedlander, (510) 495-2248, msfriedlander@lbl.gov STAFF WRITERS: Lisa Gonzales, 486-4698; Dan Krotz, 486-4109, Paul Preuss, 486-6249; Lynn Yarris, 486-5375 CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Jon Bashor, X5849; Allan Chen, X4210 FLEA MARKET / CALENDAR: 486-5771 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley Lab is managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy.
Lab Physicist Challenges Speed of Gravity ClaimBy Lynn YarrisAlbert Einstein may have been right that gravity travels at the same speed as light but, contrary to a claim made earlier this year, the theory has not yet been proven. A physicist at Berkeley Lab says the announcement by two scientists about the speed of gravity, widely reported this past January, was wrong.
Stuart Samuel, a participating scientist with the Theory Group of Berkeley Lab’s Physics Division, in a paper published in Physical Review Letters, has demonstrated that an “ill-advised” assumption made in the earlier claim led to an unwarranted conclusion. “Einstein may be correct about the speed of gravity, but the experiment in question neither confirms nor refutes this,” says Samuel. “In effect, the experiment was measuring effects associated with the propagation of light, not the speed of gravity.” According to Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, light and gravity travel at the same speed, about 186,000 miles (300,000 kilometers) per second. Most scientists believe this is true, but the assumption was that it could only be proven through the detection of gravity waves. Sergei Kopeikin, a University of Missouri physicist, and Edward Fomalont, an astronomer at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), believed there was an alternative. On Sept. 8, 2002, the planet Jupiter passed almost directly in front of the radio waves coming from a quasar, a star-like object in the center of a galaxy billions of light-years away. When this happened, Jupiter’s gravity bent the quasar’s radio waves, causing a slight delay in their arrival on Earth. Kopeikin believed the length of time that the radio waves would be delayed would depend upon the speed at which gravity propagates from Jupiter. To measure the delay, Fomalont set up an interferometry system using
the NRAO’s Very Long Baseline Array, a group of ten 25-meter radio
telescopes distributed across the continental United States, Hawaii, and
the Virgin Islands, plus the 100-meter Effelsberg radio telescope in Germany.
Samuel argues that Kopeikin erred when he based his calculations on Jupiter’s position at the time the quasar’s radio waves reached Earth, rather than the position of Jupiter when the radio waves passed by that planet. “The original idea behind the experiment was to use the effects of Jupiter’s motion on quasar-signal time-delays to measure the propagation of gravity,” he says. “If gravity acts instantly, then the gravitational force would be determined by the position of Jupiter at the time when the quasar’s signal passed by the planet. “If, on the other hand, the speed of gravity were finite, then the strength of gravity would be determined by the position of Jupiter at a slightly earlier time, so as to allow for the propagation of gravitational effects.” Samuel was able to simplify the calculations of the velocity-dependent effects by shifting from a reference frame in which Jupiter is moving, as was used by Kopeikin, to a reference frame in which Jupiter is stationary and Earth is moving. When he did this, Samuel found a formula that differed from the one used by Kopeikin to analyze the data. Under this new formula, the velocity-dependent effects were considerably smaller. Even though Fomalont was able to measure a time delay of about 5 trillionths of a second, this was not nearly sensitive enough to measure the actual gravitational influence of Jupiter. “With the correct formula, the effects of the motion of Jupiter on the quasar-signal time-delay are at least 100 times and perhaps even a thousand times smaller than could have been measured by the array of radio telescopes that Fomalont used,” Samuel says. “There’s a reasonable chance that such measurements might one day be used to define the speed of gravity, but they just aren’t doable with our current technology.”
Imaging the Smallest, Lightest Metal AtomsFirst Look at Lithium AtomsBy Paul Preuss Only atoms of hydrogen and helium are smaller than those of lithium, a soft, white metal. While it’s possible to image even hydrogen on a surface, trying to look at lithium inside a crystal is a challenge of an altogether different sort.
For the first time, in a quest driven by scientific curiosity, technical virtuosity, and practical demands as well, MIT and Berkeley Lab resear-chers have used the One Angstrom Microscope (OÅM) at the National Center for Electron Microscopy (NCEM) to make transmission electron microscope images of lithium atoms. Because they store more energy for their weight, operate at a higher voltage, and hold a charge much longer than other rechargeable batteries, lithium ion batteries sales in the U.S. approach $2 billion annually. Laptop computers, cell phones, digital cameras, and many other devices use them today; tomorrow, cars may too. In 2001, Yang Shao-Horn, now an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, was investigating lithium ion batteries with colleagues at the University of Bordeaux I. These batteries operate by reversibly inserting and removing lithium ions from positive and negative electrodes; 3-D studies of their vagrant ions is a key to better performance. X-ray diffraction and neutron powder diffraction have been used to examine
the structure of the most common electrode material, lithium cobalt oxide.
But lithium ions have never been seen by these techniques, nor had they
been seen in previous attempts with electron microscopy. Resolution at the limitAn electron beam traveling through a thin sample of material scatters from atomic nuclei and surrounding clouds of electrons. Unique arrangements of atoms signally affect the phase of the beam (the relative spacing between its waves), and upon exiting the surface of the sample it can be focused by an electromagnetic lens to project an image of columns of atoms. Atoms with diminutive dimensions and tiny mass barely affect the electron beam and are hard to resolve — a problem that gets worse when heavier atoms lurk nearby. In lithium cobalt oxide, layers of lithium atoms lie between slabs of cobalt and oxygen. Heavy cobalt, with atomic number 27 and atomic mass approaching 60, is relatively easy to image. Light oxygen, with atomic number 8 and atomic mass about 16, scatters electrons weakly, and lithium is smaller still, its atomic number only 3, its atomic mass only 7. While a TEM’s ability to image these wispy particles depends mostly on its specifications, it’s possible to go beyond the microscope’s so-called native resolution to its “information limit” — the maximum amount of information that can be extracted from the scattered electron wave, in phase or out. One method, called focal-series reconstruction, uses a computer to combine successive images, each made at a slightly different focus. But there’s a catch. In-phase images of atoms in one image will be out of phase in another. How can the computer tell where bright spots, dim spots, or no spots at all belong in the composite image? The right number of blobsOne way is to create a computer simulation of what the microscope ideally ought to see — “the right number of blobs for the right number of atoms,” as O’Keefe puts it. O’Keefe, who pioneered image simulation programs in the late 1970s, used a recent version to assess the chances of imaging lithium cobalt oxide. His initial skepticism began to wane when the simulation showed that under the right conditions, all three kinds of atoms should be clearly visible at a resolution of 0.8 angstrom — just within the OÅM’s reach.
In 2002, Shao-Horn, working with NCEM’s Chris Nelson to master the microscope’s operation, obtained many focal series of crystals from a powder sample prepared in collaboration with her French colleagues. She and O’Keefe worked backwards from these experimental images to produce representations of the electron wave leaving the exit surface of the specimen. One image among their results matched the simulation. “The atomic resolution of lithium atoms is a novel and significant achievement, with implications for better understanding not only of lithium ion battery materials but of many other electroceramic materials as well,” says Shao-Horn. Says O’Keefe, “We have shown that the range of the OÅM, and mid-voltage microscopes like it, can be extended all the way from heavy atoms down through oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon to the lightest metal — in fact, except for helium and hydrogen, the lightest atoms of all.” “Atomic resolution of lithium ions in LiCoO2,” by Yang Shao-Horn, Laurence Croguennec, Claude Delmas, E. Chris Nelson, and Michael O’Keefe, will appear in the July 2003 issue of Nature Materials.
Engineering Task Force Grapples with ChangeBy Paul PreussDelivering a challenge for challenging times, Berkeley Lab’s deputy director for Operations, Sally Benson, opened an all-day plenary session of the newly established Engineering Task Force on June 16 in the Building 50 auditorium. “As the Lab’s scientific programs change, it’s the Engineering Division that could play the role of taking discovery to application,” she said. “I want us to take that next step.” Led by Laboratory project management officer Kem Robinson and coleaders Peter Denes of the Engineering Division and Roderich Keller of the Accelerator and Fusion Research Division (AFRD), the task force began work May 9, charged to recommend ways to maintain a stable environment for staff engineers while providing state-of-the-art technical expertise — all this in the face of large fluctuations in funding. Benson emphasized that it is a “dynamic and opportune time” to weigh the division’s mission, capabilities, needs, organization, and management; to look for fresh ideas from Lab employees and the best practices of outside organizations; and, as part of an overall review of Berkeley Lab strategies, to produce a “set of well-informed recommendations” by Sept. 1. Benson added that, while it’s helpful to know how we got where we are now, “the value is in looking forward.” Jim Triplett, the division’s director, was the first of many speakers
to address both sides of that equation in a no-punches-pulled talk: to
understand both the present situation and what’s needed to get where
we want to go — and moreover, Triplett said wryly, “to do
all this without money.” Triplett outlined a classic dilemma for successful organizations in
a changing environment. On the one hand, adaptation requires investment
— in up-to-date machinery and computer hardware and software —
and recruitment of people comfortable at the cutting edge, often right
out of school. Increasingly the choice looks to be between, in Triplett’s words, a large group of “low-cost, generic engineers working with obsolete equipment” or a few “high-cost, highly trained people working with specialized, state of the art equipment” — neither choice acceptable for Berkeley Lab. Triplett outlined a number of initial steps, including facilities like the flexible new Design Works; better communication among the far-flung members of the division, many of whom are matrixed to other divisions like the Advanced Light Source (ALS); closer cooperation with UC Berkeley; and collaborations with other labs. Throughout the day at the plenary session, Engineering Task Force members
heard from the heads of the Engineering Division’s departments of
mechanical, electronics, and software engineering, design and fabrication,
engineering science, and industrial and energy partnerships, as well as
from representatives of the Earth Sciences Division, ALS, AFRD, Physics,
and other partners. The Engineering Task Force seeks the widest possible input from the Lab community. E-mail sent to etf@lbl.gov will go directly to leaders Robinson, Keller and Denes and no further. All input will be treated as strictly confidential. Task Force members include Alan Biocca, Alessandro Ratti, Daryl Oshatz,
Henrik Von Der Lippe, Jian Jin, Ross Schlueter, all from Engineering;
Damir Sudar of Life Sciences, Helmuth Spieler of Physics, Howard Padmore
of the ALS, John Corlett of AFRD, Robert Shoenlein of Materials Sciences,
and Jane Baynes of the Deputy Director’s Office. Genomics, Earth
Sciences, and the Environ- mental Energy Technologies Divisions will be
represent as well. For more information see the Task Force website at
http://www.lbl.gov/~etf/.
Summer Lectures to Showcase Energy Efficient TechnologiesAs temperatures soar and the summer lecture series gets into full swing, come see how Berkeley Lab scientists are working to save energy.
On July 2, Steve Visco of the Materials Sciences Division will discuss the development of a solid oxide fuel cell that promises to generate electricity as cheaply as the most efficient gas turbine. His innovation, which paves the way for pollution-free power generators that serve neighborhoods and industrial sites, lies in replacing ceramic electrodes with stainless-steel-supported electrodes that are stronger, easier to manufacture, and, most importantly, cheaper. This latter advantage marks a turning point in the push to develop commercially viable fuel cells. In addition, the electrode means fuel cells are closer to breaking the cost barrier than ever before. That barrier is $400 per kilowatt, a stringent bar set by the Department of Energy’s Solid State Energy Conver-sion Alliance, a government, industry, and scientific group tasked with developing affordable fuel cell-based power generators. The $400 target — nearly one-tenth the cost of today’s fuel cells — is equivalent to the most efficient gas turbines and diesel generators, and is based on the premise that a fuel cell’s success hinges on its competitiveness. On July 9, Michael Siminovitch, a scientist in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division, will showcase the Berkeley Lamp, a fluorescent table lamp that can reduce lighting costs by up to 50 percent. At full power, the two-lamp fluorescent system exceeds the combined luminous output of a 300-watt halogen lamp and a 150-watt incandescent lamp while using a quarter of the energy. The Berkeley Lamp also emits light uniformly, meaning no glaring, eye-fatiguing hotspots. And it looks good. Its sleek design and easy controls ensure that any desk can accommodate it and anyone can use it, allowing people to create their own lighting, instead of coping with whatever was installed in their office years ago. It also sports two high-performance, compact fluorescent lamps, each fully dimmable and independently controlled. Separated by a reflector bowl, one lamp projects light downward to illuminate the desk, the other projects light upward to provide indirect, ambient lighting. — Dan Krotz
Bette Muhammad Thanks Lab Colleagues For Support During Daughter’s OrdealBy Monica Friedlander Missing children cases seldom have a happy ending. Berkeley Lab employee Bette Muhammad considers herself among the lucky few to have lived through one. In spite of having endured one of the most harrowing ordeals a mother can ever go through, Muhammad is counting her blessings that her 22-year-old daughter, abducted last month, is alive and safe at home.
What sustained Muhammad through a two-and-a-half-day nightmare, she says, was the outpouring of love and support from her friends and colleagues, including many here at the Lab, where she has worked for the past 30 years. To all of them, she would like to extend a big thank you and let them know Hana is back home. “Hundreds of people send cards, e-mails, flowers,” Muhammad says. “I just want to let them know Hana is safe and to thank everyone for their prayers and support.” Her daughter, a recent graduate of Dominican College in San Rafael,
disappeared on May 28 during her lunch break outside her job at a skin
care center on Townsend Street in San Francisco. On May 31 Hana was found before 6 a.m., wandering barefoot through a McDonald’s parking lot in Union City, after being released by her abductors. She was shaken and bruised, her mother says, but she was not sexually assaulted and is now recovering. “The police told us the outcome is never like this, that they usually have to call parents to tell them their child is gone. So it’s a blessing for us.” Muhammad is still shaken by the experience. She would rather talk about the generosity and friendship of her colleagues than about the ordeal. “Something like this really makes you see the human side of people,” she says. “It brings out the best in everyone. The outpouring of love and affection was just overwhelming.” Muhammad is especially thankful to Ron Woods, who offered her vacation time, and Ilham AlMahamid, who took her home, cooked dinner, and in every other way comforted her at the most critical time. “She rescued me,” Muhammad says. Muhammad, a radiation technician in EH&S, has two other children: a 18-year-old daughter at home and an 20-year-old son in college in Arizona.
FBI Video at Computer Protection Brown Bag“Solar Sunrise: Dawn of a New Threat” will be shown at the next Computer Protection Brown Bag, to be held on Tuesday, July 8 at noon in Building 70A-3377. This video, produced in cooperation with the FBI and the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC), portrays an FBI/NIPC computer hacker investigation involving attacks on U.S. computer systems.
Windows Desktop Systems Security CourseUsers of Windows 95, 98, Me, Windows NT Workstation, Win-dows 2000 Professional, or Win-dows XP who have not taken Berkeley Lab’s short course on securing desktop systems are en-couraged to attend the next Win-dows Desktop Security Course, to be held Wednesday, July 9 from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. in the Building 50 auditorium. Presented by the Computer Protection program, the course will highlight the importance of joining a domain, running and updating antivirus software, protecting share access, running only necessary services, and other safe computing practices. To enroll, see https://hris.lbl.gov.
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A classic car show and barbecue greeted the first day of summer last
Friday at Berkeley Lab. The cafeteria parking lot hosted historic rods
while the Rhythm and Blues Band provided equally hot musical entertainment.
Photos by Roy Kaltschmidt
