The Department of Energy has announced that Berkeley Lab will receive $40.3 million in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to support research in biofuels, fusion energy and the nation's power grid, and to ensure scientists have state-of-the-art equipment for their investigations. It will fund equipment upgrades at the Joint Genome Institute and Advanced Light Source, fusion energy research, new instrumentation at the Joint BioEnergy Institute (pictured), and Smart Grid technology. This new funding is in addition to the $115.8 million allocated to Berkeley Lab in March by the DOE Office of Science, which received a total of $1.6 billion in ARRA funding from Congress. More>
Research: First Real-Time Recording of Nanocrystal Growth in Solution Berkeley Lab experts in nanocrystal growth and electron microscopy combined their skills to record the first-ever direct observations in real time of the growth of single nanocrystals in solution. Led by Paul Alivisatos and Uli Dahmen, the team, which included chemist Haimei Zheng (pictured), showed that there are two distinct trajectories by which nanocrystals can grow but in the end the crystals come out roughly the same size and shape. More>
Last week, in conjunction with the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue meetings in Washington D.C., the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations made a number of statements regarding U.S.-China collaborative efforts on climate change and energy efficiency, highlighting the work of Berkeley Lab's China Energy Group. Senator John Kerry discussed the challenge of climate change during a speech at the National Press Club on July 29, noting that "nothing less than a complete and collaborative transformation of the global energy economy will be enough to tackle this crisis." More>
Effectively immediately, most waste nitric acid waste solutions cannot be stored in a SAA (Satellite Accumulation Area). The waste nitric acid solutions subject to this new policy must be treated immediately after being used. The new policy is in PUB-3000. Waste nitric acid solutions may not be treated until this authorization is in place through Waste Management. There have been several recent explosions associated with nitric acid wastes in the DOE complex, including two here at Berkeley Lab that could have injured or killed workers. Contact your Waste Generator Assistant for guidance. More>
[New York Times] Two years ago, an international scientific panel [which included Berkeley Lab researchers] seized worldwide attention by reporting that human activity was warming the planet in ways that could greatly disrupt human affairs and nature. The work of the group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore (pictured). After two decades of delivering climate reports to the world without fanfare, it suddenly had a wide following. But as the panel gears up for its next climate review, many specialists in climate science and policy, both inside and out of the network, are warning that it could quickly lose relevance unless it adjusts its methods and focus. More>
World of Science: Waiting for the LHC[New York Times] This week, CERN will announce how and when the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), still undergoing repairs after last September's abrupt shutdown, will start running again this winter. But skeptics say it could be years before the LHC runs at full strength, which could delay goals that include finding the Higgs boson and identifying dark matter. Theoretician Nima Arkani-Hamed, formerly of Berkeley Lab and now with the Institute for Advanced Study, is particularly interested in the search for extra dimensions. "I've waited 15 years," he says. "I want it to get up and running." More>
With the 32nd Runaround, the Lab's annual fun race, just a couple months away, the Employee Activities Association is busy making preparations. Among them is the contest for the Runaround t-shirt design. Submissions are now being accepted and can be sent here as a JPEG or PDF file. Be sure to include your employee and phone numbers, as well as a brief description the design. Deadline is Friday, Aug. 21, with the winner announced in mid-September. Pictured is Linda Matyas, winner of last year's design.
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