Several ways have been proposed to examine dark energy, in hopes of finding out just what it is. One of them, “supernovae” for short, certainly works: it’s how dark energy was discovered in the first place. Other independent techniques, such as weak gravitational lensing and baryon acoustic oscillation, also promise great power but are as yet unproven. These three techniques all have a share of the proposed Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM), a satellite design managed by NASA with the participation of the Department of Energy. DOE’s JDEM Project Office is headquartered at Berkeley Lab and led by Michael Levi of the Physics Division. More>
In June, the Energy Biosciences Institute held its first all-inclusive research retreat at one of its partner institutions, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The retreat offered scientists, students, and staff the opportunity to exchange information and build connections for future development of the EBI's projects and programs. A special issue of the EBInsider summarizes the discussions and reports on the status of work in feedstock production, plant depolymerization, socioeconomic and ecosystem impacts, biofuel chemistry, bioconversion, and microbially enhanced hydrocarbon recovery. More>
IT: Outage of E-mail, Calendar, Web, and Other LDAP Services on Sunday Morning E-mail, calendar, web, and any services requiring LDAP authentication (such as LETS) will be unavailable this Sunday morning from 8 to 9 a.m. The outage is required for the installation of new network monitoring equipment. All incoming e-mail will be queued during the maintenance and delivered once the service is restarted. For more information, contact the Help Desk (x4357).
[San Francisco Business Times] Livermore’s two national labs recently took a step closer to better collaboration with the outside world as the National Nuclear Security Administration signed off on the labs’ proposal for an open campus. The Livermore Valley Open Campus aims to connect lab scientists and their discoveries with academia and private industry to accelerate research and commercialization of technologies with an open facility outside the gates of the Lawrence Livermore and Sandia National Laboratories. More>
World of Science: Scientists Urged to Step to Plate on Climate Politics[USA Today] Money and politics, the stuff of social science, now drive global warming, and climate science needs to get with it, a National Research Council report suggests."Demand is growing for credible, understandable and useful information for responding to climate change," says the report, called Restructuring Federal Climate Research to Meet the Challenges of Climate Change. The report, released Thursday, calls for "transformation" of climate science to emphasize the climate's influence on food, economics and public health. Otherwise, there's lots of evidence that politicians will tackle such practical problems without scientists. More>
Rated X 15, Scared Hitless 2
Clone Warriors 16, Clean Sweep 8
Ballpark Estimates 12, SUDZ 8
Silver and Black 14, Small Ball 4
Standings:
1. Silver & Black 7-0
2. Rated X 6-1
3. Ballpark Estimates 5-2
4. Animals 4-3
5. Scared Hitless 3-4
6. Clone Warriors 3-4
7. SUDZ 3-5
8. Small Ball 1-6
9. Clean Sweep 0-7
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