Shuttle Bus: Brown-Bag Lunch With Chu on Proposed Enhancements
Lab Director Steve Chu, Chief Operations Officer Jim Krupnick, and Facilities Division Director Jennifer Ridgeway are holding a brown-bag gathering to discuss proposed enhancements to the shuttle bus service. Attendees are invited to participate in an active discussion on a proposed new plan. The event takes place on Monday, from noon to 1 p.m. in the Building 50 Auditorium.
Research Update: The Toughness of Bone
Robert Ritchie, Joel Ager, and Kurt Koester of the Materials Sciences Division have discovered the mechanisms that make human bones easier to break crossways than to split. In the process, the researchers found that bone is five times tougher in the transverse direction than scientists previously believed. More>
People: CFO Administrator Off to French Fencing Championships
Linda Newell, an administrator in the Chief Financial Officer’s Sponsored Projects Office, has a point. And she wields that point very proficiently as a highly skilled fencer. In fact, she was recently named to the U.S. Team of the World Veteran Fencing Championships to be held in France in October. Click the image for a larger version. More>
Research Update: Count Down to LHC Start-Up Begins
While the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is not scheduled to send its first proton beam zooming around its 27-kilometer-long ring until Sept. 10, this weekend the world’s most powerful particle accelerator will go for a test drive. Scientists will make the first attempt to send protons into the LHC, steering them around approximately one-eighth of the LHC ring before safely disposing of the low-intensity beam. When fully engaged, the LHC will accelerate beam particles from a standstill to energies of seven trillion electron volts. More>
Special Event: Lab Represented at Green Economy Town Hall
Berkeley Lab’s Acting Head of Public Affairs Don Medley and EETD's Head of Communications Allan Chen represented Berkeley Lab at Congresswoman Barbara Lee's Green Economy Town Hall at Berkeley City College last week. The event, attended by over 200 people, included elected officials from throughout the East Bay. Berkeley Lab hosted a table at a green-jobs fair for area students. The picture at right shows Rep. Lee's District Representative Maha Ibrahim talking with Medley about the Lab's energy research efforts.
In The News: Experts Debate Viability of Biofuels, Alternative Energy
Pre-eminent scholars recently gathered at an event hosted by UC Berkeley's College of Natural Resources to discuss whether biofuels will help solve the energy crisis. At the meeting, Berkeley Lab physical bioscientist Chris Somerville stressed that the Energy Biosciences Institute he heads isn't focusing on turning corn into ethanol or soybeans into biodiesel. Instead, it is looking at "cellulosic biofuels," which break down cell fibers so any plant material can be made into biofuel. EETD’s Anastasios Melis also participated in the discussion. More>