[Rolling Stone] During the oil crisis of the 1970s, California was one of the first to recognize that promoting blind consumption of energy was a dangerous idea. So the state started experimenting with policies designed to increase energy efficiency and force utilities to buy more electricity from renewable sources. Now, with Barack Obama in the White House, the Golden State may turn out to be the template for a new national energy policy. Art Rosenfeld and his creation of Berkeley Lab’s Center for Building Science are mentioned in the article, as well as former Lab Director Steve Chu, and a quote from Joint Genome Institute Director Eddy Rubin. More>
Special Event: Albany High School Wins Regional Science BowlQuestions flew, seconds ticked, buzzers flashed, answers were proffered, and scores tallied. And when all was said and done, Albany High School emerged as the winner of the DOE Regional Science Bowl held at the Lab on Saturday. Actually, Albany High School Team 1 won first place, and their Team 2 took third place, with Acalanes High School (Lafayette) Team 1 in second place. The daylong event was sponsored by the Center for Science and Engineering Education and made possible by the assistance of many staff volunteers. The first place team (from l-r, Yi Cai, Jamie Lincoff, Benji Kessler, coach Peggy Carlock, and Corwin Shiu) will head to Washington D.C. on April 30 to compete with others high school students from across the country.
“Aldehyde tags” invented by Berkeley Lab scientists are used to label proteins in bacterial recombinant-DNA systems — and now in proteins that can only be expressed by mammalian recombinant-DNA systems. While some recombinant drugs like insulin are made in bacterial systems, most have to be produced by mammalian cells. Aldehyde tags direct chemical modifications to specific sites on proteins, including monoclonal antibodies and other therapeutics important in the pharmaceutical industry. More>
Interim Lab Director Paul Alivisatos has issued a call for proposals (CFP) for the FY2010 Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program. The program is among the principal means for seeding innovative science and new research directions. For the FY2010 cycle, there will be a mutually exclusive two-track review process. The first track, similar to prior years, will be proposals reviewed as Divisional and/or Lab-wide. The second track will be for “Discovery” proposals. Up to approximately one million dollars of the FY2010 budget will be reserved for funding a set of smaller proposals with higher scientific risk and potential payoff. They will be reviewed and funding recommendations made by external scientific reviewers. The LDRD CFP and downloadable forms are available here.
To ensure the effectiveness of the University of California's practices regarding the re-employment of retirees, the University has enacted a new policy for retired UC employees who return to UC in staff or Senior Management Group (SMG) positions. The University's policy, which does not apply to academic appointments, aims to ensure compliance with Internal Revenue Service rules regarding defined benefit pension plans such as the UC Retirement Plan (UCRP), while continuing to give managers the flexibility to call on a valued resources — retired employees — when needed. More>
The rollout date for UC’s newly revised online Sexual Harassment Prevention training course is scheduled for tomorrow. Supervisors and managers required to take the course at this time will receive an e-mail notification from the UC Learning Center with instructions on how to take the course. Those interested in fufillling the two-hour training requirement by participating in an onsite interactive session can do so on Monday, March 9, in the Building 66 Auditorium from 10 a.m. to noon. Registration by Monday, March 2, is required. Those who complete the interactive training session will not be required to complete the online course.
As announced in yesterday’s edition of Today at Berkeley Lab, the Lab plans to install a new Virtual Private Network (VPN) with added features, however the new network is not yet available. The date for the installation is Tuesday, Feb. 17. An announcement will be made in TABL that day, including links to resources where users can obtain additional information.
