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Radiation from Early Bevatron Overestimated, Study Shows
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How much of the universe can you pinch between your thumb and finger? Maybe a lot more than you think. Far reaches of the cosmos may lie less than a millimeter away. Whole other universes may be within your grasp. Even if you cannot see these distant places and other worlds, you may be in communication with them through that most familiar of forces: gravity.
In just two years this seemingly preposterous proposal has become one of the hottest theories in physics. The Los Angeles Times and New Scientist have already written it up for the public, the BBC and Discover magazine have stories in the works, and this summer Scientific American will feature an article by its originators, Nima Arkani-Hamed of Berkeley Lab's Physics Division and UC Berkeley, Savas Dimopoulos of Stanford University, and Gia Dvali of New York University.
Arkani-Hamed and his colleagues came up with the theory (still awaiting a catchy name) to explain why the Standard Model of particle physics can give a common explanation for all the forces of nature -- except gravity. Many other attempts to explain this failure have been made, but the new theory has an enormous advantage over them all: it can easily be tested in giant particle accelerators already under construction and in tabletop experiments already underway.
One facet of the puzzle is the huge disparity between the apparent strength of gravity and that of electromagnetism and the nuclear forces. Although we think of gravity as strong -- we can get hurt if we fall down -- compared to electromagnetism, gravity is astonishingly weak. It takes the whole mass of the Earth to hold a pin on a tabletop; a toy magnet can lift it easily.
This weakness makes it difficult to study gravity's relationship to the other forces. For example, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, scheduled to begin operating in 2005, will probe an energy region where electromagnetism and the nuclear forces show themselves to be aspects of a unified force. To incorporate feeble gravity in this picture would require energies so vast they have not existed since the first moments of the Big Bang.
Yet what if gravity only seems weak? What if, unlike electromagnetism and the nuclear forces, gravity is not confined to our everyday world of three spatial dimensions and one time dimension? If gravity is acting in two or three or several other dimensions in addition to the familiar four, we may be experiencing only part of its effects.
Mathematics has no trouble describing multidimensional spaces, but human brains aren't built to visualize more than three spatial dimensions. So try to imagine that our world is reduced to a single spatial dimension, an arbitrarily thin strand of fiber-optic cable.
Photons, the quantum particles of electromagnetism, easily move back and forth along our fiber, but they are trapped here. There may be other fiber-worlds, some right next to ours, but because our photons can't move sideways and reflect objects outside, they can't bring us the news.
Gravitons, the quantum particles of gravity, have no such limitation. Indeed, in a universe with extra dimensions, we might feel the pull of mass in those other dimensions even though they are invisible to us.
Not long after Isaac Newton saw the apple fall in 1665, he devised the gravitational constant, G, needed to calculate the attractive force between masses at different distances. Scientists have long assumed that G is fundamental and unchanging.
But, asks Arkani-Hamed, "What reason do we have for assuming that G is fundamental? It has only been measured down to about a millimeter. What if gravity is actually as strong as the other forces at distances we haven't measured yet?"
To measure the gravitational attraction between two masses requires that the objects be smaller than the distance between them -- easy to calculate with apples falling toward the Earth, but much more difficult with weights smaller than a millimeter in diameter.
And, says Arkani-Hamed, "as the test masses get smaller, residual electromagnetic effects come into play and swamp gravitation. Nobody knows what the real force of gravity is at short distances."
In a world of three spatial dimensions, gravity obeys an inverse square law: if you halve the distance between masses, the gravitational attraction between them quadruples; cut the distance to a third, and the force increases nine times. In four spatial dimensions, however, gravitational force is proportional to the inverse cube of the distance. With each additional dimension, the power of the inverse law increases.
These extra dimensions would have to be limited in extent, unlike the three endless dimensions we're accustomed to, or else we would have seen their effects already. Consider a performer on a high wire. To her, the wire might as well be a single dimension, along which she can travel only forward or back. But a flea on the wire sees a second dimension, the wire's circumference -- a "rolled-up" dimension that brings a flea traveling along it right back where he started.
 Illustrations by Flavio Robles |
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Objects close enough to lie within them would experience phenomenally greater gravitational attraction. This leads to specific predictions that can soon be put to the test of experiment.
Testing the theory
One class of experiments will take place in accelerators, where high-energy collisions could create ripples in the higher-dimensional space, in the form of gravitons escaping into the extra dimensions. Collisions of this kind would appear to violate the first law of thermodynamics, the conservation of mass and energy.
Even more startling to contemplate, accelerators may be able to create black holes, regions smaller than the radius of the extra dimensions where gravity is so strong that nothing can escape. Small black holes quickly evaporate by Hawking radiation -- consisting of orphaned members of pairs of virtual particles whose partners are swallowed by the hole, and which carry off some of the hole's mass -- and this low-energy radiation from a high-energy collision in an accelerator would be an unmistakable signal that a black hole had been formed.
Another class of experiments will take place on the tabletop, where increasingly sophisticated systems of moving masses are directly measuring the force of gravity at ever closer distances. With one such experiment, Jens Gundlach of the University of Washington recently measured G more accurately than ever before at distances under a millimeter. So far, Gundlach has seen no sudden wild increases in gravitational attraction, but there's still a big gap to close.
Although the theory of gravity in extra dimensions is not string theory, which characterizes fundamental particles as bits of "string" vibrating in numerous, incredibly compact extra dimensions, Arkani-Hamed and his colleagues have shown that their theory is in fact compatible with string theory.
Imagine, rather than a single-dimensional optic fiber or a high wire, that the photons and other bosons that carry electromagnetism and the nuclear forces are confined to a two-dimensional "wall" in a multidimensional "bulk." Only gravitons are free to move off the wall. In string theory, such walls are called "D-branes."
Dark matter explained?
The picture suggests possible solutions to many outstanding questions in physics and astrophysics. If there are other `branes in the bulk -- real worlds less than a millimeter from our own, stacked up like sheets of paper -- invisible masses confined to these parallel worlds could be the universe's mysterious dark matter, whose gravitation we feel even though its source is invisible.
"Or instead of invoking parallel universes, we might live on a folded universe," Arkani-Hamed suggests. "In this view, `dark matter' might be just ordinary matter, because the light from a star on a fold only one millimeter away might have to travel billions of light years along the wall to reach us. Although we feel its gravity, we haven't seen it yet."
Arkani-Hamed says that "all the old mysteries of the Standard Model can be addressed in this theory," and that, indeed, "the most extraordinary thing about the theory is that it didn't die an immediate death. It explains a lot and raises a lot of possibilities, yet it contradicts no experimental results." He adds, "If we do the experiments, we have a good chance of seeing evidence for or against these ideas in the next 10 years."
For more about gravity in extra dimensions, visit the ParticleAdventure website at www.ParticleAdventure.org and click on Extra Dimensions.
By Paul Preuss
A recent report by Ralph Thomas, Alan Smith and Gary Zeman of the Environment, Health and Safety Division looks at measurements of Bevatron radiation at the Lab's perimeter made in the 1950s and 60s and finds that equivalent dosages derived from them were much higher than a modern computation would yield.
"The measurements were right on target," says Thomas, "but today we would interpret them differently. Estimated potential dosages would be reduced by a factor of two at least."
The Bevatron proton accelerator began operating in 1954 and produced a diffuse field of neutrons in the surrounding area. The highest field measurements, then calculated as more than 800 millirems per year, were made in 1959 near the Olympus Gate at the northeast corner of the Lab site. Today these measurements would yield potential dose equivalents only a fourth to a half as great.
Thomas, a former Occupational Health Division Director who joined Berkeley Lab in 1963, explains that when the Bevatron was built the overall allowable maximum dose equivalent, 1500 millirems per year, was based on effects of x-rays and gamma rays. Internationally accepted protection standards for neutrons were still being developed, although Ernest Lawrence had initiated standards as early as the mid-1930s, when the Laboratory was located on the UC Berkeley campus.
"Also, in the 1950s they simulated the human body with a slab of water 30 centimeters thick, set in place, and calculated potential dose equivalents only for the front-to-back geometry, knowing that this was an overestimate -- in fact, real people change position and move around," says Thomas. "But the Lab felt it was their responsibility to report the most conservative estimates of possible dose equivalents."
The Bevatron monitoring results, Gary Zeman emphasizes, "were openly published and made widely available to the public." With improvements to the Bevatron the high estimates of 1959 dropped rapidly, reaching about 300 millirems per year by 1962, less than today's estimated average background radiation.
After design modifications and increased shielding in 1962, the potential dose equivalent fell to less than a tenth of the 1959 estimates, while the Bevatron's proton intensity increased tenfold. From the time the Bevatron was converted to heavy-ion operation in the mid-1970s until it was decommissioned in 1992, annual potential dose equivalents were less than a few percent of average natural background radiation.
The report on "A Reappraisal of the Reported Dose Equivalents at the Boundary of the University of California Radiation Laboratory During the Early Days of Bevatron Operation," by Thomas, Smith and Zeman, was issued by Berkeley Lab in March 2000, and has been submitted to the journal Radiation Protection Dosimetry.
Concludes the report: "Analysis of the methods of converting measured neutron data to dose equivalent, based on neutron energy spectra and the most recently recommended conversion coefficients, suggests that the dose equivalents reported in the late fifties and early sixties were conservative by factors between two and four."
By Ron Kolb
A University-wide task force has developed a draft set of core principles that the University of California will use to guide its future relations with employees, in particular those represented by labor unions.
The suggested principles articulate the University's labor-management philosophy. After a period of input and discussion within the campus and laboratory communities, UC plans to adopt and communicate the principles as a basis for action.
The proposed principles include:
The Task Force was appointed by UC President Richard Atkinson in December 1998 to focus on ways to enhance the University's status as an employer and to improve relations with the unions who represent employees eligible for collective bargaining.
Headed by senior vice president V. Wayne Kennedy, the task force included Berkeley Lab Deputy Director Klaus Berkner, vice chancellor Richard Attiyeh (UC San Diego), vice chancellor Stephen Barclay (UC San Francisco), director Cynthia Crock (UC Santa Barbara), associate director Heidi Crooks (UCLA), chancellor M.R.C. Greenwood (UC Santa Cruz), provost Robert Grey (UC Davis), manager Debra Harrington (UC Berkeley), manager Gloria Kwei (Lawrence Livermore), director Mark Laret (UCSF Medical Center), dean Jean-Pierre Mileur (UC Riverside), and acting deputy director Warren Miller (Los Alamos).
Representatives from the UC President's Office included vice president Bruce Darling, Academic Council chair Lawrence Coleman, provost C. Judson King, director Debora Obley, University counsel James Nellis Odell, associate vice president Judith Boyette, and director Gayle Cieszkiewicz.
Atkinson has asked the campus and laboratories to solicit comments on the draft principles. Berkeley Lab employees may send their input by e-mail to Larry Hanson, manager of labor relations in Human Resources, LWHanson@lbl.gov, by July 1.
One day was all it took a team of researchers at the Joint Genome Institute (JGI) in Walnut Creek to unravel the entire genome of the "superbug" Enterococcus faecium -- a harmful, antibiotic-resistant bacterium that is the leading cause of hospital-acquired infections.
"I believe this kind of fast response capability could prove to be very useful to researchers in medical, national security and agricultural contexts," said JGI Director Elbert Branscomb.
The accomplishment represents the first phase of genome sequencing (the shotgun sequencing phase), sufficient to permit essentially all of the organism's genes to be identified. Future work will complete the assembly of the genome and provide a more complete analysis of its genetic structure.
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The project is a collaboration between the JGI and Baylor College. The work is funded by the Department of Energy and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Said Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, "This is an excellent demonstration of the technological prowess of the Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute. This new capability to rapidly decode the DNA of microbes can be used to provide the scientific community with a huge amount of fundamental data about life and the microbial world."
The rate of infection by bacteria such as E. faecium and other enterococci surged during the past 20 years. Most alarming has been their escalating resistance to antibiotics, including vancomycin, usually considered the treatment of last resort.
The bacterium can spread throughout the body and cause serious infections in the blood, heart, urinary tract, central nervous system, and in wounds. Only a few new antibiotics have been identified in test tube studies that show promise in combating it.
"As a result, the study of fundamental properties of this organism is likely to play an important role in discovering new means to treat, prevent or modulate enterococcal infections," Weinstock said.
The Joint Genome Institute was established in January 1997, merging pre-existing genome programs at Berkeley Lab, Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories. More information is available on JGI's website at www.jgi.doe.gov.--Monica Friedlander
Mildred S. Dresselhaus, President Clinton's nominee for director of DOE's Office of Science, was praised by members of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources at recent hearings. Chairman Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska) said he would work to bring her nomination to the Senate floor quickly.
Dresselhaus, 69, an Institute Professor at MIT, concentrates on solid-state physics and has gained significant experience managing science in academic and industrial settings. She is a recipient of the National Medal of Science and past president of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
The Spallation Neutron Source, advanced computing, and nanoscale science and technology initiatives were among the research goals she named for the Office of Science. She said her personal goals were to increase the quality of DOE-sponsored scientific research, including its management, to improve morale, and to "stimulate collaborations and promote better science in every way possible."
In response to concerns raised by Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Dresselhaus, who served for 10 years as a consultant to Livermore Lab, pledged to do everything she could to maintain the relationship between weapons lab scientists and other DOE scientists.
He promised to hold everyone accountable by "replacing chronic poor performers and rewarding those who are doing well," and said, "we must do better than we are today."
The initiative will include contracts that allow replacement of contractors' management personnel, linkage of bonuses to performance, and a "watch list" of contractors who are marginal performers.
By Christine Celata
Lloyd Smith was an accelerator theorist who made major contributions to the design of many of the nation's and the world's great accelerators from the 1940s to the 1970s. He died on May 1 at his home in Berkeley.
Born in Chicago in 1922, Smith received his B.A. from the University of Illinois and his Ph.D. from Ohio State University. While working at the Illinois cyclotron, Smith' eyes were damaged as a consequence of checking the accelerator operation by sighting along the beam. In 1949 he became the first subject of successful surgery for neutron-induced cataracts, a procedure later used to help victims of the atomic bombing of Japan.
 Lloyd Smith (far left) examines a model of the Bevatron along with Ed McMillan, Ernest Lawrence, Ed Lofgren, and Bill Brobeck in this early 1950s picture. |
In 1952 he returned to the Rad Lab, which became his home base -- with frequent leaves to work on accelerators at Brookhaven, CERN and Fermilab -- until his retirement in 1994.
"Dad was the hired gun of accelerator theory," says his son, physicist David Smith. "The years of those leaves of absence coincide with the years the machines that made those labs famous were built, by golly!"
Smith was a leading theorist for virtually all the accelerator projects undertaken at Berkeley Lab during the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, including the 88-Inch Cyclotron and the HILAC. He worked on the Positron Electron Project at SLAC, on machines at Livermore and Fermilab, and on major European accelerators, including HERA. He made major contributions to the theory of proton linacs and spiral-ridged cyclotrons.
He was an early theorist of "magnetic bottles," including mirror machines, to confine plasmas in controlled fusion reactors. From 1976 until his retirement, Smith was the head of the Heavy-Ion Fusion theory group at Berkeley Lab, where he contributed fundamentally to studies of beam stability.
His study of the nonlinear effects of undulators on beam dynamics in storage rings (1986) is the most complete and rigorous work on the subject to date, still a widely-used reference in undulator and light-source design.
A man with an incisive wit, Smith was as retiring as he was brilliant. He is survived by four children and seven grandchildren.
Melvin P. Klein, 78, a biophysicist who joined Berkeley Lab in 1952, died suddenly on Sunday, May 28, at his home in Berkeley. A senior staff scientist since 1963 in the Physical Biosciences Division and its predecessors, Klein made fundamental contributions to techniques and applications of nuclear magnetic resonance, x-ray absorption spectroscopy using synchrotron radiation, and electron paramagnetic resonance in several fields of biology. He was noted for his work on the production of oxygen in the photosynthetic process. Temporarily retired in 1991, Klein returned to work at the Lab after he was named senior physicist, emeritus in January, 1992. Recently he and his colleagues built a new experimental endstation at the Advanced Light Source, for x ray studies of biological samples under extreme conditions.
"To say he will be terribly missed is an insufficient expression of our loss," said Physical Biosciences Division director Graham Fleming.
A memorial service will be held in the Great Hall of the UC Berkeley Faculty Club at 4 p.m., Friday, June 9.
A more complete remembrance of Mel Klein will appear in a later issue of Currents.
By Jon Bashor
David Quarrie, leader of the High Energy and Nuclear Physics Software Group in NERSC, has accepted a two-year assignment as chief architect for the ATLAS high-energy physics experiment. ATLAS is an international research program to be carried out at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Switzerland, beginning in 2005.
Quarrie will divide his time between this new position and his continuing work on software initiatives related to the BaBar project at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.
The job of the chief architect is to establish a coherent vision for the software, Quarrie said. On a practical level, the task is to produce and implement the framework in which scientists will write the physics algorithms for the ATLAS experiment. The architect is responsible for all the off-line software for reconstruction, simulation, physics analysis, and the final real-time filter for online data generation and collection.
The position requires that a series of milestones be met regularly over the next several years. Quarrie's team, which includes Chris Day from his group and members of NERSC's HENP Systems Group, has already met the first one: producing a prototype of the framework, which will be revised and enhanced in the months ahead.
Quarrie accepted the position after serving as a member of the ATLAS Architecture Task Force. The challenges, he said, are more sociological than technical, given the large, complex nature of the collaborative experiment. ATLAS involves about 1,800 researchers from dozens of countries. "It's difficult to get consensus on technical issues," Quarrie says.
ATLAS is a next generation, data intensive computing project in high-energy physics, similar to the experiments at Brookhaven, Fermilab and SLAC -- but on a larger scale.
The five-story high, 7,000 ton experiment is designed primarily to find the Higgs boson (or family of bosons) -- the carrier of the Higgs field, which is thought to impart mass to all particles with mass, including the predicted massive "sparticles" of supersymmetry theory.
A physicist by training, Quarrie has been involved in high-energy physics computing since 1970, and has worked at Berkeley Lab since 1993. He expects to spend about two out of every six weeks at CERN, the place where he earned his Ph.D. back in 1974.
"It takes me back to my youth," he laughed.
Using computer simulations, scientists in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division have completed two studies of how walls, windows, roofs, lighting, equipment and people impact the energy consumption of heating, ventilating, and air conditioning equipment in residential and commercial buildings.
The residential study, coauthored by Joe Huang, James Hanford and Fuqiang Yang of the Building Technologies Department, examined 112 building prototypes and found that the largest contributor to cooling and heating loads, respectively, are sunlight coming through the windows and cold air seeping through windows and walls. In commercial buildings, the major contributors to cooling loads were lighting and solar gains. Joe Huang and Ellen Franconi coauthored the study.
The full reports may be downloaded from www.eren.doe.gov/buildings/documents/.
The United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has released the draft of a new report in which it concludes, "There has been a discernible human influence on global climate."
For the past several years, IPCC scientists have been testing alternatives to the idea that human activities are affecting global climate. Alternate factors examined included natural variability in climate, changes in solar radiation, and volcanic eruptions. None of those factors fit the past century's observed warming, nor the hypothesis that it is the result of an increase in greenhouse gases generated by human activity.
"Something definitely seems to have happened to the climate," said climate researcher Tim P. Barnett of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, who reviewed part of an earlier draft. "Three of the last five years have been the warmest in the instrumental record, which goes back 140 years." Furthermore, Barnett said, three different records of temperature preserved in tree rings and elsewhere have now revealed the large, abrupt 20th century warming to be unique in the past thousand years.
While the report offers broad support for anthropogenic climate effects, it says nothing new about how much temperatures might rise yet, and cites the same possible warming from a doubling of carbon dioxide as did earlier reports in 1990 and 1995.
By Jon Bashor
After earning his undergraduate degree in physics from Boston University, Dan Horner decided to study chemistry at UC Berkeley, which has the top-ranked graduate program in the country. Not only was he accepted at Cal, but Horner was also awarded a DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellowship (CSGF). The program pays for his tuition and fees, a monthly stipend, and contributes funds toward research activities and a new computer.
After talking with several Berkeley professors, Horner chose Bill McCurdy as his advisor. An adjunct professor of chemistry at Cal, McCurdy is the associate laboratory director for Computing Sciences here at the Lab. As McCurdy's student, Horner has access to NERSC's supercomputers.
"If I could design a research program for myself, it would be almost the program I have here," he said. "I'm doing science on fast, powerful computers."
 Dan Forner, a recipient of the Computational Science Graduate Fellowship, is working with advisor Bill McCurdy, head of Computing Sciences at Berkeley Lab. Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt |
"There's really a dual objective -- to introduce these young scientists to the national labs and to make the labs aware of these very capable students," she said. "It's a nice fit."
Since it was established eight years ago, the fellowship has supported more than 120 students at 50 different universities. "Our primary goal is to help train people for careers in science -- hopefully at one of the national labs," Olsan said. "To do that, the fellowship helps fund the education of some of the best and brightest upcoming scientists."
Each fellow's work is reviewed annually, and the fellowship can be renewed for up to four years. To provide hands-on research opportunities, the program includes a three-month practicum at one of the national labs.
Horner will spend the summer of 2001 working at a DOE lab, although he has not yet decided which one or what area to focus on. Meanwhile he will work on a project in electron scattering as part of McCurdy's research group, which also includes physicist Tom Rescigno.
The group's research in the use of supercomputers to obtain a complete solution of the ionization of a hydrogen atom by collision with an electron made the cover of the Dec. 24, 1999 issue of Science magazine. The team is now working to extend the approach to targets with more electrons.
This summer Berkeley Lab is co-hosting the annual CSGF conference, which will be held on July 27-29. Fellows will give presentations on their work and receive feedback from their peers.
Since 1993 Berkeley Lab has hosted nine fellows from this program, including three in Computing Sciences. Horst Simon, division director for NERSC, is the Berkeley Lab coordinator for the program.
The CSGF is looking for Lab scientists interested in working with students as part of this program. More information is available on the web at www.krellinst.org/CSGF/.
By Allan Chen
Last fall, children from elementary schools in Berkeley met with architect Bob Leathers for an unusual collaboration: to translate their wildest ideas into an architectural drawing of a playground for West Berkeley's Aquatic Park lagoon. Now they need your help to make this dream playground a reality.
Leathers is an Ithaca, N.Y. architect who has designed whimsical, wooden play structures for communities across the country. Visiting several classrooms at Washington Elementary, Leathers listened to children describe their ideas for a playground and looked at drawings they had made. A colleague and community volunteers did the same at Berkeley Arts Magnet, Black Pine Circle and Walden schools.
 Volunteers hard at work at the new playground now under construction at Aquatic Park in Berkeley |
Among those volunteers are a number of Lab employees, including Ted Gartner of the Environmental Energy Technologies Division, who also serves as board member for BPFP.
"LBNLers will gain a sense of satisfaction when they help build this playground because they will help construct a valuable asset to Berkeley's parks," says Gartner. "Aquatic Park is one of the largest parks in Berkeley, but is under-utilized. People in west and south Berkeley need a place where their children can play, and the lake-like setting of Aquatic Park with its open spaces make it a great location."
The playground, a huge, all-wood structure, will be built in a meadow overlooking the lagoon on the east side of Aquatic Park, located between the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks and Interstate 80.
Volunteers will be working at the site for five more days, starting Wednesday, May 31 through Sunday, June 4, from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Shifts are 8 a.m. to noon, 12:30 to 5 p.m., and 5:30 to 9 p.m. Volunteers need not commit to a full day -- even a few hours will be of great help. Work is available for both skilled and unskilled volunteers. If possible, bring a hat, work-gloves, hammer, tape measure, drill, a circular saw, index cards and pencils. All loaned tools will be engraved with the volunteer's name and returned. Refreshments will be available throughout the day.
To volunteer, contact Ted Gartner at X4203, TDGartner@lbl.gov, or Zasa Swanson of Berkeley Partners for Parks at 649-9874, ZasaSwanson@EminentSoftware.com.
More information is available on the project website at http://www.bpfp.org/.
The recent rash of Internet e-mail virus attacks has resulted in the shutdown of the e-mail systems at other DOE labs, but so far, protective measures here have been effective at minimizing any damage.
On May 4, what experts say was the most serious virus attack in the history of the Internet was unleashed when the "love bug" virus spread from the Philippines to desktops throughout the world. Preparedness and quick action by the Lab's computer security team, along with a savvy response by employees, allowed the Lab to conduct business as usual.
When news of the "I Love You" virus arrived early that morning, the computer security team immediately started working to update the virus wall on the Lab's central e-mail server, and a warning was sent to all Lab e-mail addresses urging employees not to open the "love letter."
Before the virus block was in place, however, about 650 copies of the virus were received at 250 Lab e-mail addresses. Only four employees opened the infected e-mail attachment. And because the virus propagates itself using Microsoft Outlook e-mail software, not Netscape Messenger, which is the Lab standard, only three copies of the virus were sent out from Lab computers.
After the central system that screens all e-mail messages for viruses was updated, 300 more incoming copies of the "love letter" were intercepted and delivery prevented.
Computer Protection Program manager Jim Rothfuss warns that there are several new variants of the "I Love You" virus in circulation. As new viruses are identified, the Lab immediately updates its security system so that it will intercept and destroy infected e-mail files.
Nevertheless, says Rothfuss, always use caution opening any attachments if the e-mail or attachments have unexpected text or titles. And keep the Norton antivirus software on your own computer updated using the "live update" feature.
Commuter Solutions to Gas Crunch and Traffic Nightmares
Concerned about the rising costs of commuting? Don't let the skyrocketing gas prices and clogged freeways stress you out, says Sue Bowen of the Site Access Office. In an effort to encourage employees to consider alternatives to driving, the Lab offers a number of incentives to entice commuters to use either public transit or car and vanpools. By taking advantage of these alternatives, Bowen says, employees can lower transportation bills, ease the parking crunch, and enjoy an easier commute.
Public Transit Incentives
The Lab's pre-tax program, implemented last year, allows employees to deduct up to $65 per month of their transportation costs from their pre-tax paycheck if they use public transit to commute to the Lab. The program is applicable to all employees except for those in the clerical (CX) bargaining unit, pending current negotiations.
In partnership with Berkeley Trip commute store, the Lab also offers four public transit packages for BART and AC Transit tickets. Payment is made through payroll deduction, and employees may pick up their tickets from the TRIP Store or the Tripmobile (onsite the first Thursday of every month).
To take advantage of the program employees must sign up for a minimum of three months. Complete information is available on the commuter website at www.lbl.gov/Workplace/site-access/commuter/program.html.
Make friends while riding to work
Car and vanpool programs offer a variety of incentives to commuters, incuding onsite parking benefits, tax incentives, and a partnership with Enterprise Vanpool.
All it takes is two or more eligible employees to form a carpool, which gives drivers the right to park in Blue Triangle zones. The program also matches up drivers with carpool partners and offers a Guaranteed Ride Home program through partnership with RIDES for Bay Area Commuters.
The vanpool program offers tax benefits similar to those for public transit users. Dozens of Lab employees from locations such as Vacaville, Antioch and Pittsburg have signed up for the two existing vanpools, which are seeking more riders to join them.
To qualify, employees must commute a minimum of 20 miles each way. Enterprise Vanpool offers full insurance, maintenance, roadside assistance, and more.
For information on the Vacaville vanpool contact Kevin Trigales at X7719, KPTrigales@lbl.gov; for Antioch contact Ron Silva at RLSilva@ lbl.gov. Site Access will match interested employees, and Enterprise Vanpool can provide a cost analysis.
In addition to the vanpool pre-tax program, participants may also quality for county-run vanpool subsidies. Check with the Site Access office or your county to find out more about the program in your area.
For more information, contact Sue Bowen at SSBowen@lbl.gov or look up the Site Access website at www.lbl.gov/Workplace/site-access/commuter/program.html.
 Davida Flattery (foreground), a student from UC San Diego, works with Carmen Hagios of Life Sciences as part of the DOE Energy Research Undergraduate Laboratory Fellowship (ERULF), Berkeley Lab's primary program for undergraduate college students.
ERULF is open to students enrolled in a scientific or engineering study program, and is intended to help them develop technical skills and scientific knowledge through exposure to a stimulating scientific environment. Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt |
Director's Open House Reception
Berkeley Lab Director Charles Shank is inviting all volunteers and employees who worked at the May 6 Open House and Science Festival to join him for an appreciation reception on Monday, June 26, from 3 to 4 p.m. in the Lab cafeteria.
In addition to refreshments, the reception will feature a short videotape showing of Open House highlights, a review of survey comments from Open House visitors, and an opportunity to share experiences and observations which might be helpful for planning the next Open House.
Oakland A's Family Fun Day Tomorrow
Everyone attending the Oakland A's v. the San Francisco Giants game on Sunday is invited to the pre-game food and fun gathering. Bring your favorite dishes, potato salad, hamburgers, chicken, soda or anything else you may want to share. Some tailgate passes are still available. If you're planning to BBQ, bring one BBQ for each group of five to ten people. For more information contact Lisa Cordova at X5521. The event is sponsored by the Employees' Activities Association.
CalPERS Offers Long-Term Care
The Benefits Office would like to remind employees of the CalPERS Long-Term Care Plans, now accepting enrollment until the June 30 deadline.
Medicare or your disability plan does not cover all major medical expenses that may be incurred in the event of a severe accident or long-term illness. CalPERS Long-Term Care offers employees the option of obtaining the long-term care coverage they may need to handle these medical costs.
To find out more about the program call the Benefits Office at X6403 or visit the CalPERS website at http://www.calpers.ca.gov. To enroll, you will need to receive an application packet from the Benefits Office.
MoveSMART
Six MoveSMART training sessions are scheduled for next week, June 5-7. The three-hour program develops skills for safer and better lifting and handling of materials, improved balance and more. Pre-enrollment required. You may register online at www-ehs.lbl.gov/ ehstraining/registration/. For more information contact Don Van Acker at X2976.
Experiment Gallery Full of Wonders at Lawrence Hall of Science
How can one hand cast three shadows in eight different colors? And can you create a time warp by tinkering with a pendulum? These are some of the mysteries and fun questions to explore at Lawrence Hall of Science's new Experiment Gallery, which opened on May 27.
The exhibit is a giant laboratory filled with unusual equipment that entices visitors to explore sound and waves, light and optics, mechanics, electricity, and weather. It was created by the renowned Science Museum of Minnesota as a traveling collection of the best hands-on science exhibits. Highlights of the Experiment Gallery include a special "curving" water fountain that demonstrates how the Earth's rotation influences storms, wind, ocean currents, weather, and space craft launches; an electricity lab where visitors can power different light bulbs, lamps, fans, and motors and build circuits; and a special "science kitchen" featuring live demonstrations and experiments you have to see to believe.
The LHS is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and features planetarium shows, biology and computer labs, a variety of exhibits and learning projects, summer camps and special programs. For more information visit the LHS website at www.lhs.berkeley.edu.
June 2000
INFANT CPR CLASS
Offered by the Fire Department 5:30 - 7:30 p.m., Bldg. 49-109
PHYSICS DIVISION RESEARCH PROGRESS MEETING
"Measurement of Semi-Leptonic Decay of Neutral B Meson into D* at
CLEO" will be presented by Bruce Berger of Cornell University.
2 p.m., Bldg. 50A-5132
Refreshments at 3:40 p.m.
Saturday, June 3
3 - 7 p.m.
Admission fee: $35
With its collection of more than 13,000 different kinds of plants, the UC Botanical Garden prides itself with one of the most comprehensive plant collections in North America. And tomorrow a special benefit event will be held from 3 to 7 p.m. to celebrate the garden's 110th anniversary. Featured will be wine from local vintners, food from local restaurants, music, talks and expert advice on growing roses, and special tours. Artist Yan Nascimbene will sign copies of his commemorative poster.
Established on the campus in 1890, the Botanical Garden was relocated in the 1920s to its present location in Strawberry Canyon (on Centennial Drive between Memorial Stadium and the Lawrence Hall of Science).
Tickets are $35. For more information call 510/643-2755 or visit the Garden's web site at http://www.mip.berkeley.edu/garden/.
Sunday, June 11 -- Wednesday, June 14
4 p.m. (4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, June 13)
Bldg. 84, Room 318
Sunday, June 11
Werner Syndrome and Other Models for the DNA Damage Theory of Aging
Junko Oshima, University of Washington, Seattle
Monday, June 12
Regulation of Aging by an Endocrine Signaling System in C.
Elegans
Cynthia Kenyon, UC San Francisco
Tuesday, June 13
Micronutrients Prevent Cancer and Aging
Bruce Ames, UC Berkeley
Wednesday, June 14
Engineering Life Span in Transgenic Drosophila
John Tower, University of Southern California, Los Angeles
The lectures are open to the research community. Light refreshments will be served.
`95 FORD Taurus GL, 92K mi, white, pwr dr/wind/seat, cruise, ABS, new tires, $6,000/bo, Cheng, X2093
`93 FORD Explorer Sport, rack, tow pkg, new tires, Edlebrock shocks, Flowmaster muffler, rebuilt head w/ all new valves, 4L V6, 137K mi, ext clean, $7,500/ bo, Randy, X6517
`93 MERCURY Sable GS sedan, 4 dr, auto, 81K mi, silver, exc cond, super clean, V6 3.8L, ac, pwr steer/win/door/seat, stereo/ cass, cruise, dual airbag, new alarm, maint records, free accessories, $5,600/bo, Yang X2412, 558-0579 (after 8 pm)
`90 TOYOTA Corolla DL sedan, 4 dr, auto, ac, great cond, runs great, 213K mi, $2,300, Young Ho Kim, 527-4064
`89 BMW 325i, 107K, 5 spd, fully loaded, sunroof, exc cond, new tires and clutch, $6,400, X6941
`69 VW BEETLE, Porsche (?) engine, auto trans, exc cond, body pan rust, 93K mi, $1,200/bo, Guy, X703, 482-1777
BERKELEY, furn, pleasant, quiet lge 2 bdrm apt close to Lab & transp, avail to UC/LBNL visitors by week or month, 848-1830
BERKELEY, nice room on Walnut Ave, furn, kitchen privil, bicycle available, $40/night, $750/month, avail June 1, Helen, 527-3252
BERKELEY, summer sublet, furn room in 2 bdrm apt avail July/ mid-Aug, 5 blocks south of campus, Parker & Telegraph, $400/ month, Henri, hbachacou@lbl. gov, 849-9037
BERKELEY HILLS studio, Campus Dr, 7 min walk to LBNL, cute room, 10'x13' w/ 3/4 bth, entrance through deck, hill view, trees, birds, deer, next to bus #8, kitchenette, hot plate, microwave, fridge, pantry, white carpet, futon (6 mo old) avail, $800/mo, 25% of house utilities, $1,600 refundable sec deposit, 1 yr or 14 mo lease, refs required, pianist in bldg, Tennessee, 845-4624, tennygock@hotmail.com
BERKELEY HILLS, summer lease, fully furn redwood home, 2 bdrm, 2 baths, incl master suite w/ sitting area/study, 2 blocks from LHS, 1/4 mi to Lab, 1 mi to campus, separate dining rm/sun porch, each rm has French doors to deck/ garden, Golden Gate view, avail 6/15-9/1, non-smok, no pets, $1,800/mo incl utilities, Phila, 848-9156
NORTH BERKELEY, furn room, 15 min walk to Lab shuttle, 1 person, kitchen privil, TV, bicycle, avail June 1, $40/night or $750/month, Helen, 527-3252
VISITING SWISS RESEARCHER, wife & child seek 1 yr rental of furn apt w/ at least 2 bdrms start in Aug, Robert, X4407, Susan, 841-6803
VISITING SCIENTIST w/ wife and 2 sons seeks 2 bdrm house or apt starting July 20 for 1 mo in Berkeley, Oakland or Albany, X2370, FJRubio@lbl.gov
SUMMER SUBLET needed for visiting postdoc from Russia, starting anytime in June until Aug 19, pref close to campus or shuttle, quiet, responsible, exc English, non-smoker, Petra, X2934, 652-3911
BOB DYLAN and Phil Lesh concert tickets (2), June 23, Concord Pavillion, seats/not lawn, $40 ea, Fred, X4352
BICYCLE, male mntn bike, runs, breaks, gears would appreciate adjustment, $50, Victor, X2455
CAR COVER, fits a 1987 Mazda RX-7, like new/used twice, was $125 new, sell for $20 firm, Dick, (925) 284-5236
CLOSET CABINET/BOOKCASE tall & narrow, white, lots of adjustable shelves, 72"x12"x12", new, assembled, best offer (was $75 new), 601-5757
EXERCISE BIKE w/ reading rack, $25, Nance, 524-1259
JEWELRY, l4K, l8K, fashion, ext reasonable prices, Diana, X6444.
NEIGHBORHOOD GARAGE SALE, Sat. 5/20, 9 - 4, Oakland, near Greek Festival, Carmel off Lincoln Ave, below Mormon Temple, Ken, X7739
SECURITY CHEST, Sentry Fire-Safe, model 1950, 14"x1"x8", $20, Mike, X8667
STEREO, console type, RCA Alegro, oak finish, 8-track/record player/am/fm, kept in storage, good cond, best offer, Al, X6022, (925) 377-1096
TABLETOP, off-white marble, natural grain, 48" diam, 1" thick, curved beveled edge, $150; credenza, med brown w/ golden hue wood, 2 smoked glass pieces in top, 4 drs at front w/ shelves, 69"w, 27"h, 20"d, $250; tables, 3, nested, dark oak, quality, all 3 for $220, Tina, X6769
WEIDER HOME GYM, model 8530, $150, buyer to dismantle and move, Tristi, (925), 335-9871 (after 4:30)
WOMEN DRESS SHOES, like new, made in Italy, Ferragamo, 5B, black or burgundy, 2-1/2" heel, $15; Sesto Meucci, 5-1/2 M, red, 2" heel, $10, Anne, X7671, 525-1917
WOODEN BLINDS, 2", white, Graber, 65-3/4x58-3/8"x25 1/2", $50/bo for all 3 (orig $415), Sara/Harvard, 526-5347
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, spacious chalet in Tyrol area, close to Heavenly, fully furn, sleeps 8+, sunny deck, pool and spa in Club House, close to casinos and other attractions, $125/night, Angela, X7712, Pat/Maria, 724-9450
TAHOE KEYS at S. Lake Tahoe, 3 bdrm house, 2-1/2 bth, fenced yard, quiet, sunny, close to attractions, private dock, great view, $150/night, 2 night min, Bob, (925) 376-2211
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The deadline for the June 16 issue is Thursday, June 8.
