A dozen years after it was first conceived, the $278 million B Factory project at the Stanford Linear Accelerator is up and running, producing explosive collisions between bunches of high-energy electrons and oppositely-charged positrons, which scientists hope will soon provide long-awaited answers about how all matter in the universe came to exist.
"They're like baby pictures," said Berkeley Lab Deputy Director Pier Oddone in an article published in Monday's San Francisco Chronicle, referring to last weekend's first computer-generated images of the collisions. "Within a few days they should show us the first evidence that we're really producing Bs."
Oddone, a member of SLAC's international team of 650 scientists, is the one who in 1986 conceived of the asymmetric design of the B Factory's beams, a radical departure from the traditional collider design, in which beams of equal energies are smashed.
Instead, at SLAC's B Factory electrons and positrons race at energies of 9 billion volts and 3.1 billion volts, respectively. As they collide they produce pairs of B mesons -- prime examples of matter and antimatter -- inside the B Factory's BaBar particle detector. By measuring the lifetimes of B mesons and their antiparticle counterparts, or B-bars, researchers will be able to study the differences between matter and antimatter.
Eventually, scientists hope the information gleaned from the experiment will explain why matter came to dominate over antimatter within a fraction of a second after the Big Bang.
At the time of the explosion, physicists theorize, most of the matter and antimatter must have annihilated itself. Yet one of out of every billion original particles of matter survived to build our universe. Why? The first findings could come within a year.
"It's the beginning of a great adventure," said Nobel laureate Burton Richter, the retiring director of SLAC.
The B Factory experiment is a joint venture between SLAC, Berkeley Lab, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, under the direction of SLAC physicist Jonathan Dorfman. Funding for the project is provided by the U.S. Department of Energy.
B Factory is the popular name given to the upgrade of SLAC's original PEP collider (Positron-Electron Project) into the asymmetric PEP-II.
The experiment is not the only one in the world, however. A Japanese team has built a similar machine known as KEK at Tsukuba near Tokyo, and the two teams are both collaborators and fierce competitors.
"This is a neck-and-neck race," Dorfan told the Chronicle. "We'd love to be the first to report that we've produced Bs, but then we have to do physics with them. And it's not the kind of physics you do in a few weeks."
In addition to shedding light on the birth of the Universe, crucial information from these experiments could also challenge the Standard Model on which our fundamental understanding of particles and forces in nature is based.
Photo: Pier Oddone, deputy director of Berkeley Lab, and Jonathan Dorfan, director designate of SLAC, take a moment to celebrate the completion of the B Factory project. They are shown posing near a radio frequency cavity that powers electrons circulating in the B Factory's asymmetric rings. (pepii_dorfan.jpeg)
Researchers at Berkeley Lab have demonstrated that liquids known as ferrofluids, in response to magnetic fields, can flow in any direction through different types of soil to assume predetermined, uniformly-distributed shapes.
These magnetic fluids have already been used in many ways -- to form airtight seals around rapidly moving parts or to move drugs in the bloodstream and rocket propellants in spacecraft, for example. Now steerable ferrofluids may give rise to new tools for subsurface environmental engineering and laboratory safety.
"This is a way of controlling the movement of fluids underground without direct physical contact," says George Moridis of the Earth Sciences Division, who has investigated ferrofluids with his colleagues Curtis Oldenburg and Sharon Borglin of ESD's Department of Hydrogeology and Reservoir Dynamics.
"In theory, the carrier can be anything -- plain water, chemicals for waste treatment, or liquids that can solidify into impermeable barriers, such as polyurethane."
Moridis notes that "we often use injected fluids in environmental clean-up, but injection is a diffusive process: "You pump it in and hope it goes where you want." Ferrofluid barriers, by contrast, could seal leaking waste tanks, pipes or landfills with maximum confidence and minimum environmental disturbance. Injected ferrofluids could be steered into place beneath contaminated sites by surrounding magnets, forming an evenly distributed seal.
In addition to their hands-off controllability, Oldenburg adds that "ferrofluids have strong magnetic signatures, so they can function as imageable tracers," allowing above-ground sensors to construct images of underground features and fluid flows that are impractical to visualize by other means.
Ferrofluids are colloidal suspensions of nanoscale magnetic particles in a carrier fluid; the particles form magnetic domains separated by coats of dispersant only a molecule thick.
Each particle in a ferrofluid behaves like a tiny permanent magnet with north and south poles; these point randomly until an external magnetic field causes them to line up. A strong field can cause the domains in an open pool of ferrofluid to climb right up the field lines, resembling a bristling liquid hedgehog.
If a field is stronger in one direction than another, the ferrofluid responds as a continuous fluid magnet. The strength of attraction depends on the strength of the magnetic field and on the magnetization of the fluid, which can vary according to the nature of the suspended magnetic material and on how much of it is packed into the carrier. Movement in a porous medium can also be affected by the pore size of the medium, the viscosity of the ferrofluid, and other liquids that may be present.
Borglin, Moridis and Oldenburg demonstrated flow and static holding processes of ferrofluids in sandy porous media. Using permanent magnets, ferrofluids of different magnetic properties were drawn through laboratory apparatus that included horizontal and vertical test beds of different sands under different conditions.
The magnets created predictable pressure gradients in the ferrofluids, causing them to flow; close to the magnets, forces outpulled gravity. Final configurations could be predicted, and they were controlled only by magnetic fields -- not by injection shape, flow path or permeability of the porous medium. Finally, the sand did little to filter out magnetic particles or reduce magnetic attraction.
"The long-term focus of our research is to maneuver subsurface liquids in the field," Moridis says, "but it has immediate utility for environmental researchers and others in laboratory situations, where these techniques can manipulate fluids such as corrosives or toxics without pumping or direct contact."
* * *
Moridis and Oldenburg have applied for a patent on the guidance, containment, treatment, and imaging of below-ground substances using ferrofluids. Recent work by Borglin, Moridis, and Oldenburg will appear in a forthcoming issue of Transport in Porous Media.
"If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music. I get most joy in life out of music."
-- Albert Einstein, 1929
The back wall of the conference room at the Center for Beam Physics is adorned by an old, yellowed isotope chart that once used to hang in Glenn Seaborg's office long before he and other scientists added the last 11 elements to it. To its left stands a device used in the discovery of element 106 (seaborgium). And next to it is an unusual addition to this artifact-rich room: a piano.
The baby grand, however, is not just any piano, the people there will tell you. It's an instrument with a soul. And over the last few months it has brought immeasurable joy and life to the Center for Beam Physics.
"Science is not an isolated thing in our world," says veteran nuclear physicist Al Ghiorso, who in recent years has turned much of Bldg. 71 into an art museum. "Music and art are as important as science. They go together."
From Albert Einstein to former Lab Director and flute-player Andy Sessler, great minds in science have often had an unusual aptitude for music. Experts have long suspected that the connection between the two is more than coincidental. And here at the Lab, and very notably in Bldg. 71, one can sense a keen awareness of the power of music to open minds and hearts.
It all started with the dream of a young physicist, and was made possible by the persistence of a man who has made a habit out of turning dreams into reality.
Palma Catravas, a postdoctoral student at the Center, was once an accomplished pianist who performed solo with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra when she was only 12. Her interest in physics, however, had put piano playing on the back burner. Without a piano, in fact, she had stopped playing altogether.
During a retirement party held for a fellow physicist last fall, she found herself with an opportunity to play and with an audience to appreciate her talent, recalls Olivia Wong, the administrative assistant for the Center. "I heard her play and was transported somewhere else," Wong says.
Perhaps inspired by that event, or simply by the artistic atmosphere in Bldg. 71, Catravas approached Ghiorso and asked him to allow her to put a piano in the conference room so that she and others could play after hours. Ghiorso was thrilled. One little problem still remained: someone had to come up with an awful lot of money to buy it.
Undaunted by the task, Joy Kono, program administrator at the Center, started a candy fund last October hoping to raise at least part of the money that way. People donated, but, Ghiorso says, "After a couple of weeks I saw [the candy selling] was going nowhere fast and I suggested trying to buy a piano out of foundation money."
Funding projects is something Ghiorso knows a lot about. Since the death of Lab physicist Mike Nitschke in 1995, Ghiorso, who was named executor of his estate, has set up the J. Michael Nitschke Fund, administered by the East Bay Community Foundation. Through this fund he has financed a wide range of programs, both scientific and educational.
Among them is the National Historical Chemical Landmark, a project started by Ghiorso and Glenn Seaborg a little over a year ago to commemorate the discovery of 11 transuranium elements on the Hill. Ghiorso picked the lower area of Bldg. 71 for the Landmark and started to rework it as a museum, incorporating scientific artifacts as well as art, most of which he and his wife have personally purchased and donated. Could a piano now fit in with the project as well?
"I called up the Foundation," Ghiorso says, "and two days later the answer came back. They bought the idea."
Ghiorso personally took Catravas to the shop of the person who has taken care of his family's piano for decades. While she sat down to play at an upright piano, Ghiorso eyed another piano next to it -- a baby grand from the 1920s. With its ornate wood carvings and aged look, the piano has rare and obvious character. Catravas wouldn't have dreamt of even trying it, but Ghiorso knows a winner when he sees one. Despite the $5,000 price tag, Ghiorso's mind was made up.
"It was a complete surprise when he bought it," a delighted Catravas says. "Al couldn't have picked a better piano for the Landmark. It conveys a sense of history that goes with the work done here over the years. The piano has seen other times and has a special sound quality. It has a soul."
Picking the piano and getting the foundation to pay for it were only the beginning. A donation of this kind had never been made to the Lab before, and no channels were in place to see it through.
Swapan Chattopadhyay, head of the Center for Beam Physics and a music lover himself who plays Indian instruments, found a way. He turned the donated piano into a science project, with himself as the principal investigator. As a piece of Lab equipment, the instrument was assigned a project number and was donated as a gift to the University of California. The Center for Beam Physics simply has custody of the instrument with Chattopadhyay as its custodian. The problem was finally solved.
"Scientists need to have music," Chattopadhyay says. "They are used to look for patterns, to make sense out of chaos. And music is pattern. Those who have an innate ability for math can play Bach. If you have a kinship with one, you look for symmetry and harmony in the other."
By early this year, the music project Catravas started had attracted a number of musicians who formed a chamber music group. In addition to Catravas, the group includes Jon Arons, chair of the Astronomy Department at UC Berkeley; violinist Richard Laden who directs a consulting firm started by UC Berkeley faculty members; violinist Louise Kaufman and cello player Joan Glassey, both wives of Lab and UC scientists, respectively; and violist Ellen Ruth Rose.
On March 1 the group gave a successful recital in the Bldg. 71 conference room, which included selections from Haydn and Brahms. Catravas and Ghiorso hope this is only the beginning, and that the group will attract many more musicians from the Lab. Further recitals are tentatively planned for this summer.
Since the acquisition of the piano, says Chattopadhyay, he already sees a major difference in the atmosphere of his group. "I notice a calmness that was not here before," he says. "People are more relaxed. Scientists are so focused on what they do and who gets the credit. Art goes beyond all that. It's bigger, universal."
Joy Kono, who along with Olivia Wong has done much of the legwork to see the project through, couldn't agree more. "The recital has been the highlight of the year," Kono says. "We work together as a team, and events such as these help forge a sense of teamwork."
For her part, Catravas is especially thankful to her supervisor, Wim Leemans, without whose support, she says, she would have never dared bring music to the Center -- or piano playing back into her life. "He told me he did not want me to lose that side of me," she says. "I wish the same thing for other people. It makes such a big difference. It gives people an outlet. And it makes you dream a little."
And dreams are a big part of the group in Bldg. 71, particularly for Al Ghiorso. Although formally retired, the 84-year-old continues to do research, organize community projects, write an autobiography, and is actively involved with the Landmark project. Within a year he hopes to move the piano downstairs, where the acoustics will be far better.
Moreover, he has already discussed with Director Charles Shank his plans to also use the Center for lectures, educational events, and the promotion of science in general. "I would like to bring people from other disciplines and educate them about the good sides of science."
As for the music project, he says, "We've had no opposition so far. And if we did, it wouldn't make any difference, because we know that in the end we'd win. Music is the king of everything."
Photo: Palma Catravas plays the piano in Bldg. 71 while physicist Al Ghiorso, who helped acquire the instrument, watches on. Photo by Olivia Wong
Photo: Members of the chamber music group following the March 1 recital. Photo by Monica Friedlander (recital.jpeg)
Photo: Piano. (piano1.jpeg)
Photo: This rotating detector called the Vertical Wheel, or VW, was used to discover element 106 (seaborgium) in 1974. It stands next to the piano and old isotope chart in Bldg. 71. Photo by Monica Friedlander (vw.tif)
Photo: As this poster shows, art, history and science will come together at the Landmark project, started by Glenn Seaborg and Al Ghiorso about one year ago. Photo by Monica Friedlander (Landmark.tif)
Called "Powerful Partnerships: The Federal Role in International Cooperation on Energy Innovation," the report says such international energy research collaborations can help the United States and other nations meet critical energy and environmental needs, and goes on to warn that time is running out to launch the research necessary for critical energy and environmental technologies for the next 100 years.
"The costs and risks are modest in relation to the potential gains," the report said. "Now is the time for the United States to take the sensible and affordable steps outlined here to address the international dimensions of the energy challenges to U.S. interests and values that the 21st Century will present."
According to this report, federal spending on international energy research, development, demonstration, and deployment should increase from $235 million in FY97, the last year cited in the study, to $485 million in FY 2001 and $735 million in FY 2005.
Martha Krebs, director of DOE's Office of Science, told reporters she is pleased with the Senate number for SNS and is confident that House appropriators will approach it. The outlook for the SNS is much better now than it was this past spring, she said, and recruitment of scientists for the project is picking up speed.
Krebs attributed much of the SNS' improved prospects to the department's recent appointment of David Moncton as SNS project director. Moncton is the Argonne National Laboratory manager credited with efficient construction of that facility's Advanced Photon Source.
The SNS, which will be the world's most powerful research facility for neutron-scattering science, is a collaboration between Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where it will be located, Berkeley Lab, and the national labs at Argonne, Brookhaven, and Los Alamos.
-- Lynn Yarris
Photo: Exhibitors chatted with Lab employees during the first Technology Expo held at Berkeley Lab. More than two dozen exhibitors were on hand in Perseverance Hall on May 26 to demonstrate the latest high tech wonders in areas ranging from desktop systems to video teleconferencing.
The event was sponsored by the Federal Business Council and hosted by the Computing Sciences Division. Photo by Diane Tani (XBD9905-01065-09)
The top organizations representing the United States' scientific and engineering communities have rallied behind Energy Secretary Bill Richardson in his attempt to stave off congressional moves to limit the access of foreign researchers to DOE's national laboratories.
In a public statement, the presidents of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine said they were "deeply concerned" about the proposals on Capitol Hill and warned that their implementation would weaken U.S. participation in international science.
The academies also announced plans to conduct "a fast-track study" to examine issues surrounding visits by foreigners to DOE labs and to make recommendations to the government. A workshop on the topic is planned for July.
"We are deeply concerned about the consequences of potentially inappropriate restrictions on the program for foreign visitors at the Department of Energy's national laboratories," said the statement, signed by NAS President Bruce Alberts, NAE President William Wulf and IOM President Kenneth Shine.
"Such restrictions could harm our U.S. national interests by impeding scientific progress, weaken the nation's role as a key player in the international scientific community, and endanger international cooperative activities that bolster our national security and well-being by addressing such issues as nuclear safety and environmental cleanup," the statement said.
Several lawmakers have proposed curbs on visits by foreign scientists and engineers to all national labs following reports of Chinese espionage at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Leaders of a dozen scientific teams participating in the nonprofit Human Genome Project have endorsed an international plan to complete a "working draft" of the human genome by the spring of 2000 and polish it into a "highly accurate" version by 2003. The official motivation for issuing a draft version first is to meet the demands of researchers who need sequencing data as soon as possible. The move could also be viewed as a response to the announced intentions of a commercial rival -- Celera Genomics of Rockville, Maryland -- to sequence the entire human genome by 2001 and patent many of its genes.
Until now, the aim of the nonprofit Human Genome Project has been to produce a genome that is 99.99 percent complete, with most DNA stretches sequenced 10 times over to reduce errors, by 2003. Under the new plan, participating teams will be asked to produce a rough draft that will be at least 90 percent complete with fivefold redundancy. To date, about 10 percent of the human genome has been sequenced in final form and seven percent more in draft.
The five largest human genome centers, calling themselves the G-5, have agreed to use as their source material a clone repository at Washington University that will also serve as a method of allocating the work. Teams were invited to choose the chromosomes they prefer to analyze. Each choice includes performance goals that will be tracked to measure progress.
The Joint Genome Institute, a collaboration between Berkeley Lab, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Los Alamos National Laboratory, under the leadership of LLNL's Elbert Branscomb, has chosen to work with chromosomes 5, 16 and 19.
-- Lynn Yarris
Scientists at Berkeley Lab and at the Quantum Group Inc. (QGI) in San Diego have developed a new lightweight and inexpensive carbon monoxide sensor and monitoring system which is more accurate than the personal CO monitors currently available on the market.
"About 19,000 accidental carbon monoxide poisonings were reported by the American Association of Poison Control Centers in 1995," said Michael Apte, a scientist in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division, "but very little is known about the actual extent and distribution of carbon monoxide exposures in the United States. Five hundred to a thousand accidental deaths a year are attributed to carbon monoxide poisoning, and it's the number one cause of unintentional poisoning in the US."
The total numbers of cases of poisoning are also difficult to estimate, Apte says, because poisoning symptoms, such as headaches and dizziness, are often misdiagnosed as flu symptoms.
There is also limited understanding about carbon monoxide exposure risks, partly because no affordable way exists to accurately measure CO in the field. Some of the current methods of measurement require expensive, heavy equipment or unwieldy air bag samplers. Others are not accurate or sensitive enough to provide credible quantitative results for a large number of sites.
To fill this gap in technology, Berkeley Lab and QGI worked together to develop the new sensor. The device can be clipped onto a person's clothing and used either as an occupational dosimeter, which measures a worker's time-weighted average exposure to CO over an eight-hour period, or as a residential passive sampler, measuring exposure in a home or office over a one-week period.
Carbon monoxide poisonings are most often caused by exposure to excessive indoor levels of the gas. Faulty combustion appliances, such as gas stoves or gas-burning water or space heaters can raise CO levels into the danger zone, as can automobile exhaust in enclosed spaces.
"Although carbon monoxide concentrations are regulated outdoors by national and state ambient air quality standards, most people spend 90 percent or more of their time indoors, which is where elevated CO exposures are likely to occur," Apte says.
The LBNL/QGI Occupational CO Dosimeter (LOCD) consists of a square vial less than two inches long, which contains a carbon monoxide sensor made of palladium and molybdenum, a diffusion tube to control the rate at which CO is sampled, and a cap to seal the system.
"When the user removes the cap, air flows into the diffusion tube at a constant rate over the sampling period, typically an eight-hour work shift," Apte explained. "CO in the air reacts with the sensor at the end of the tube, turning it from yellow to blue in proportion to CO exposure. The device is placed into a standard lab spectrophotometer which, by measuring its color change, instantly indicates how much carbon monoxide the sensor absorbed. A single LOCD can be reused many times."
To prove that the sensor works accurately in the field, Apte and his Berkeley Lab team, in cooperation with Crawford Risk Control Services of Oakland, conducted a study of the CO exposure of workers at San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center.
During the set-up of shows in the Center's 442,000 square feet of exhibition spaces, some 40 propane-powered forklifts are active almost continuously. Diesel trucks also drive up to interior docks from the outside.
Before the study, Moscone Center management had already put a number of safety measures in place to reduce worker and building occupant exposures to CO, including installing catalytic converters on the forklifts and modifying the building's ventilation system to reduce exhaust concentrations.
The Lab team provided 60 workers who volunteered for the study and wore the new occupational sensor clipped to their lapels. The volunteers were also given commercially available diffusion tubes. The Lab team also measured CO levels using traditional methods, including air bag samples analyzed in an EPA-approved lab procedure, and real-time CO personal monitors containing an electrochemical sensor. Exposures were measured over a three-day period.
The tests showed that the new sensor measured average workshift CO exposures accurately to within one part per million, compared to three parts per million for the commercially available diffusion tube.
Exposures were almost all below the strict Cal-OSHA occupational standard of 25 parts per million. One worker who exceeded the standard probably received excessive exposure from operating a forklift in an enclosed semi-truck trailer, Apte said.
QGI is now looking for private-sector partners for distribution and is developing plans to manufacture and market the CO occupational dosimeter.
Photo: CO.gif
Do you have an interesting story or anecdote to tell? Did you or one of your colleagues accomplish something that you think others would like to hear about? Are you working on some interesting research? Do you have a picture you would like published in Currents? If so, please send your suggestions to msfriedlander@ lbl.gov. We cannot publish every item submitted, but we will consider all your suggestions.
"Physics, History, and the Twentieth Century" is the working title of a six-hour television series being produced by Culture Production of Paris and sponsored by La Cinquieme, the French educational channel, which began filming this week at Berkeley Lab.
Jean Druon, writer, producer and director of the series, is a physics graduate who worked in telecommunications before turning to documentary television. Many of his productions concern the history of science. "In this series we are interested in talking about the influence of physics on society as a whole in this century, and how politics has influenced the direction of scientific research," he says.
Ernest Lawrence and his laboratory, the world's first home of Big Science, will figure prominently in the documentary, making this a logical place for Druon and his versatile international crew of three to launch their two-month shooting schedule.
Taping began Tuesday evening with a fascinating conversation between Ed Lofgren of the Accelerator and Fusion Research Division and Bill Wenzel of the Physics Division. Lofgren and Wenzel ad libbed about the days before and after World War II, from the time when Lawrence's cyclotrons would still fit into buildings on the UC Berkeley campus, through the building of the 184-Inch Cyclotron on the Hill, to the years when the Bevatron contributed to many fundamental discoveries in high-energy physics. Lofgren made the point that for many years Lawrence's Radiation Laboratory led the world with either the first or the most powerful accelerator of its kind.
Wednesday morning the crew taped an interview with Neville Smith under the dome of the original 184-inch cyclotron, which saw duty during the war years testing the Calutron principle of the separation of isotopes of uranium, later became the powerful synchrocyclotron, and under David Shirley's stint as Lab director was transformed into the home of the Advanced Light Source, of which Smith is scientific director.
Taping under the big magnet's yoke was a stroke of luck made possible because the ALS is currently shut down for installations. At beamline 7.3.1.2, the crew also filmed Ramon Ymunza of Intel and Glenn Ackerman, ALS associate beamline scientist, to illustrate modern scientific work on the historic site.
Ric Norman of the Nuclear Science Division discussed the evolution of physics research against a backdrop of 16 mm footage taken by Donald Cooksey during the construction of the 184-Inch, plus footage of the construction of the 60-inch cyclotron on campus.
The historical material was located by Sheri Brenner of TEID, and a screening room at the Pacific Film Archive served as the studio where videographer Eytan Kapon and sound engineer Eusebio Serrano performed cinematic legerdemain.
After more taping in the Bay Area (at UC Berkeley and Stanford), production manager Arnaud Beigel will shepherd the crew on to Los Alamos, New Mexico, and to locations in Chicago, Cambridge, Washington, D.C., and New Jersey, including Lucent Technologies (successor to Bell Labs) and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. The team will then head back to Europe for another month of shooting.
Extensive archival footage will be incorporated during editing.
"Physics, History, and the Twentieth Century" is scheduled to be completed in mid-2000. It will be shown in France, Germany, Belgium, and Canada, with negotiations underway for British and U.S. telecasts.
Photo: Earlier this week the French film crew taped interviews under the dome of the original 184-Inch Cyclotron (shown here during its construction) for their film on the history of science in the twentieth century. (188_96602755.tiff)
The taping began with a conversation between Ed Lofgren of AFRD, and Bill Wenzel of the Physics Division. The two veteran physicists reminesced about the early days of cyclotron physics at the Lab.
If you are among the 2,200 Lab employees who have upgraded their e-mail system to Netscape Communicator 4.51, you have probably noticed that the new version is markedly faster. But the new and improved IMAP4 mail system also offers a host of new features -- some of which need to be activated by the user. Here are two examples:
To find out more, look up Netscape/IMAP4 messaging.
--Jon Bashor
The Laboratory welcomed the following new employees during the month of May:
Lawrence Cheung, Engineering
Lawrence R. Doolittle, Engineering
Michael Dwinell, Technical Services
Stacy L. Greene, ASD
Elizabeth Grassetti, CFO
Malcolm A. Hawkins, Facilities
Paul A. Harris, ASD
Charles Lilley, Facilities
Emanuele Mandelli, Engineering
Kevin McPherson, Facilities
Larry Reyes, Facilities
Diana M. Sexton, ASD
Penelope Siig, ASD
The Science Exploration Camp, which provides recreational and science-oriented activities for children of Lab employees, is accepting registration for the Summer `99 session. Enrollment is offered on a weekly basis for the last six weeks of the summer (July 26-Sept. 3).
The program will accommodate approximately 30 children entering second through sixth grade. The exact number will depend on registration.
The program hours are 7:45 a.m. to 5:15 p.m., with a morning science component and afternoon recreational activities. The science component is based on weekly themes and will be held at Berkeley Lab, the Lawrence Hall of Science and the UC Botanical Gardens. Recreational activities will be organized in local parks, the Strawberry Canyon and others.
Counselor positions for the camp are currently open. If interested in spending part of the summer helping children discover science, visit the camp's website at http://eande.lbl.gov/EAP/SEC/secindex.htm or send e-mail to sciencecamp@ lbl.gov.
A class in infant and child cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) will be offered on Thursday, July 15, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in Bldg. 48-109. Enrollment is limited to 10 people, with admission on a first-come, first-served basis. Members of the Lab's Fire Department will conduct the class. Tuition is $10.
Participants must have already taken the one-rescuer adult CPR class and are encouraged to bring their Heartsaver CPR manual to class. To enroll, contact EH&S Training at X7366.
EH&S has scheduled the following additional classes for the month of June. Preenrollment is required for the first two.
Those who attend EH&S 10 and pass the quiz will receive credit for EHS 10, EHS 392 (Hazard Communication for Employees) and EHS 405 (General Employee Radiation Training).
For more information call EH&S Training at X7366 or look up its website at http://www-ehs.lbl.gov/schedule/.
All Lab employees are invited to attend a brownbag forum at noon on Tuesday, June 22, in the Bldg. 50 auditorium.
The session will provide an overview of Lab efforts to ensure that the Laboratory's computer-based systems are Y2K compliant -- that is, they will continue operating after midnight on Jan. 1, 2000. Topics covered in the forum will range from Lab administrative systems (including payroll) and Lab facilities to the Lab's work with other agencies, including the City of Berkeley.
Ballots for the June 1999 UCRS Board Election have been mailed to active members of the University of California Retirement Plan. The UCRS Board advises the President of the University on the administration of the University's retirement system.
For more information and to review candidates' statements, visit the UC Bencom website at http://www.ucop.edu/bencom/news/ucrselection99.html.
A Fidelity Investments representative will be onsite on June 15 (8 a.m. to 3 p.m) and June 16 (8 a.m. to 4 p.m) to meet with Lab employees for individual half-hour consultations. Employees who want to discuss enrolling in Fidelity or have questions about retirement plans are encouraged to sign up by calling (800) 642-7131 between 5 a.m. and 5 p.m. Sessions will be held in the Bldg. 65A conference room.
The New Employee Orientation and Safety Training (EH&S10), originally scheduled for Tuesday, June 8, in the Bldg. 50 auditorium, has been rescheduled for Tuesday, June 15, in the Bldg. 66 auditorium.
Introduction to EH&S begins at 9 a.m. and is followed by New Employee Orientation at 10, a bus tour of the Laboratory, and lunch at the cafeteria. No pre-enrollment is necessary.
The Facilities Department is providing the Lab with rush courier service, with pick-up and delivery both on- and off-site. Transportation can deliver up to 2,000 pounds anywhere in the Bay Area or in central or northern California. Onsite materials will be delivered within one hour. For offsite service, a driver is available during normal business hours for same-day pick up and delivery. To request a pick-up, call Peggy Patterson at X5404.
Courier service (two-hour, four-hour, same day, and rush service) is also available from IDS Courier, which operates 24 hours a day and provides pick-up and delivery anywhere in the Bay Area and in portions of northern and central California. For information call Linda Wright at 548-3263.
The full text as well as color photographs of each edition of Currents are published online at http://www.lbl.gov/Publications/Currents/. The site also allows you to do searches of past articles.
The Berkeley Lab Calendar is published biweekly here on the World Wide Web and in Currents by the Public Information Department. Employees can list a meeting, class, or event in the Calendar by using this submission form. The deadline for submissions is 5 p.m. on Monday in the week that Currents is published.In addition to the events listed below, Berkeley Lab's Washington, D.C. Projects office is hosting a Science and Technology Seminars series.
Scientific Conferences
New Employee Orientation
Starts at 9:00, Bldg. 50 auditorium
Items for the calendars may be sent via e-mail to currents_calendar@ lbl.gov, faxed to X6641 or mailed to Bldg. 65B. The deadline for the June 18 issue is 5 p.m. Monday, June 14.
Life Sciences Division
"Dissection of GP-130 & RXRa Pathways in
Cardiac Development and Disease via CRE-LOX Engineered Mice" will be presented
by Kenneth R. Chien of the University of California, San Diego.
4 p.m.,
Bldg. 84-318b
AIM, a Walnut Creek-based computer software training firm, provides onsite PC computer courses to Lab employees.
Classes are held in Bldg. 51L. For more information on AIM training, class description and registration procedure, look up the class website at http://www.lbl.gov/Workplace/EDT/computers/PC_Classes.html .
Note: All in-house courses at this time are taught on PCs with Windows 95reg.. The 7.0 series programs are used by the newest version of Microsoft Office for Windows 95reg.. Series 6.x programs for the Mac are nearly identical to the Windows 95reg. versions. For users of a Mac 6.x series or an older Mac or PC version, the material covered in these courses will be applicable.
Results from the May 22 tournament held at Oakmont Golf Course:
Flight 1
1. Nobuo Kobayashi
2. Mark Campagna
3. Ralph Sallee
4. Del Mitchell
Flight 2
1. John Bowers
2. Ron Gervasoni
3. Don Weber
4. Nick Palaio
5. Nancy Sallee
Flight 3
1. Robert Patton
2. Ed Miller
3. Gary Palmer
4. Mark Cushey
5. Vickie Weber
For more information about the LBNL Golf Club or to join, contact Dennis Parra at X4598
`87 ISUZU I-Mark, 4 dr, auto, ac, am/fm/cass, 99K mi, great mileage, $1,100/b.o., Tim, X7810
`87 HONDA Civic DX, 130K mi, brand new clutch, 2nd owner, 2nd eng, runs exc, good shape, $1,860, Ulli, X5347, 601-6541
`88 TOYOTA Tercel, 2 dr sedan, 5 spd, 82K mi, orig owner, $2,000, Keary, X6525, 528-7814
`89 CHRYSLER Maserati TC, both tops, tan leather, orig yellow paint, one owner, $8,500 or trade up on wood wagon, Shelley, X6123, (925) 820-3172
`89 FORD Aerostar Van, 3.0 V6, 159K mi, 5 spd, pwr str, pwr brakes, ac, tow, am/fm/cass w/ premium sound, new clutch, tires, battery, exc cond, $2,900/ b.o., Ulf, X6308
`92 FORD Taurus Wagon, 110K mi, new tires, $3,900, Wen Jauh, X2901, 526-0184
`92 TOYOTA Corolla Stn Wagon, at, 89K mi, exc cond, blue, non-smokers, new front tires, snow chains incl, $5,200/b.o., Johan-nes, X4335, 540-1963
`95 FORD Escort, LX Wagon, exc cond, roof rack, red, 40K mi, ac, am/fm stereo, $6,850, Tennessee, 623-1344
BERKELEY HILLS apt, beautiful, 1 bdrm, 1 bth, marble bath, fully furn, recently remodeled, spacious, near transp and shopping, separate entrance, private patio, incl water and garbage pickup, avail 7/25, 1-yr lease, quiet, non-smoker only, $1,195/mo, Helga, 524-8308
BERKELEY, NORTH, garden studio, carpet and Spanish tile, private entrance, $550/mo plus security and cleaning deposit, Barbara, 524-7610
DANVILLE, house for rent, 3 bdrm, 2 bth, 2-car garage, approx 1,500 sq ft, $1,900, avail 7/1, large lot, W and D hookups, pet may be accepted w/ added deposit, walking distance to school, built in `60s, has been upgraded, drive by and take a look, 278 Via Cima Court, Jim, (925) 831-9958
KENSINGTON, 3 bdrm, furn house, 7/15-8/8, $400/wk incl all util, 2 cats, Ruth, 526-2007
BABY/KID STUFF: 3-ft square playpen, $25; wooden convenience crib, $40; Little Tykes mini-van w/ phone, $28; toddler bike-seat carrier, $10; Evenflo Joyride infant car seat, $10; Aprica stroller, $25; bike w/ training wheels, $15; heavy duty plastic table w/ 2 chairs, $40; safety gate, $15; Playskool 4-wheeler, $6; misc toys and clothes (18 mo), Don or Monica, 339-2697
BIKE, Schwinn, blue, men's, 10 gears (5x2), very good cond, new back tire, $100/b.o., Amedeo, X5237
BIKES, girl's mtn, 5 spd, 15'' frame, $50/b.o; Huffy, 13'' child's bike, free, John, 642-3069, 527-0684
CD PLAYER, Rotel RCC935, carousel, 1 yr old, under warranty, $150; Cardioglide, $120; Sunbeam toaster, $30; `92 specialized Rockhopper, 18" frame, $200, Dave, X4506
COMPUTER, Mac LC 475, 15-inch multiscan monitor; Stylewrite II, extra cartridge, software, $125, Edward, 525-0531
GENERATOR suitable for an RV, about 4K capability, needed to run air cond, will consider a portable or permanent model, Jack, X6750
MOVING SALE, Sat, June 12, 9 am-2 pm, Berkeley's Elmwood District, books, LPs, CDs, furniture, rugs, antiques, collectibles, art, clothing, household, jewelry, pottery, toys, more, corner of Russell/Hillegass, Susan X7366
NORDICFLEX gold strength system, complete w/ all extra attachments, training & owners manual and video, exc cond, $1,100 new, asking $500, Roger, 223-2517
PYTHON, approx 1-yr-old, extremely gentle, a no-worry pet, will not bite unless you are a mouse, cage and supplies incl, $25 ($75 dollar value), Andy, X4526
SAILBOAT, `93 Sunfish, white and aqua, w/ trailer and some accessories, exc cond, never sailed in salt water, $1,800/b.o., John, 531-1739 (eve)
S.F. OPERA TICKETS, Ring Des Niebelungen, Cycle 2, 6/15, 6/19, 6/22, and 6/24, balc circle, first row, $380, Paul, X5508, 526-3519
SOFA, black leather sectional, $2,000; washer and dryer set, $500; more, everything almost new, Liu, X5625, 234-2317
TURF SHOES, men's (11), $25; baseball glove, $50; tennis racket, $25; judo ghee, $60, all in exc cond, Steve, X6966
BIKE, women's or men's bike for woman, good cond, Bill, X2417
CAR, small commuter car, must be in good cond, no older than 1990, less than 70K mi, Christa, X7770, 653 5863
CAMERA, manual, for photography class, used but in good cond, Tennessee, X5013
HOUSING, housesitting or summer sublet for two visiting profs, 7/4 to 8/15, Sandy, sstan@ uidaho.edu or Mary, X4930, mgbodvarsson@lbl.gov.
HOUSING for visiting prof, 1 or 2 bdrm furn apt or house 8/1 to 9/30, Mike, X6453, 549-9077, m.osullivan@auckland.ac.nz
HOUSING for visiting researcher, seeks rm or sublet, 6/20 to 8/14, will housesit for pets, garden, etc, Eileen, X5719
HOUSING for couple, small house or cottage, long-term rental in East Bay, June, July or Aug, plus one very well behaved small dog that graduated from obedience school, non-barker, personal ref and credit checks avail, extra deposit for the dog, David, X5026, David or Helene, 528-4268
HOUSING, No Berkeley, Kensington, Albany, or El Cerrito area for visiting scholar and family (wife and 3 children) from approx 7/6 to 9/1, John, X6329, JMByrd@lbl.gov
HOUSING for visiting postdoc, 2 bdrm apt or house for at least 1 yr starting 10/1, Alina, e-mail cheral@math.tau.ac.il, or Valerie, X5369
HOUSING for visiting prof (family of four), 7/17 to 8/7/99, 2 or 3 bdrm furn apt or house in Berkeley or Albany preferred, Bruce, turk@math.umass.edu
HOUSING, studio or 1 bdrm apt, for postdoc, 7/1 to 9/30, Rick, X7846, EBNORMAN@LBL.GOV
HOUSING, short-term, for visiting prof, 2 or 3 bdrm furn apt or house, 7/1 to 10/15, Raz razk@ math.huji.ac.il, or Valerie, X5369, heatlie@math.lbl.gov
HOUSING, Canadian researcher seeks furn accomodation for one person, July through Oct, single male, non-smoker, Adam X5483, aph@mcmaster.ca
HOUSING for visiting scientist, 3 mo sublet, furn 2 bdrms, in Albany, July - Sept, msteier@yahoo.com., Malak, X4514
TRUCK, old, in running cond, not real picky, will pay up to $1,000, Zach, X7765
Please note also:
Published once a month by the Communications Department for the employees and retirees of Berkeley Lab.
Reid Edwards, Public Affairs Department head
Ron Kolb, Communications Department headEDITOR
Pamela Patterson, 486-4045, pjpatterson@lbl.gov
Associate editor
Lyn Hunter, 486-4698, lhunter@lbl.govSTAFF WRITERS
Dan Krotz, 486-4019
Paul Preuss, 486-6249
Lynn Yarris, 486-5375CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Ucilia Wang, 495-2402
Allan Chen, 486-4210
David Gilbert, (925) 296-5643DESIGN
Caitlin Youngquist, 486-4020
Creative Services OfficeBerkeley Lab
Communications Department
MS 65, One Cyclotron Road, Berkeley CA 94720
(510) 486-5771
Fax: (510) 486-6641Berkeley Lab is managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy.
Flea Market is now online at www.lbl.gov/fleamarket
