Learning from unfortunate incidents or near misses that have occurred to others fosters improvements in safety and can prevent recurrence of similar events. The Lab’s Lessons Learned Program promotes this education by sharing operating experiences from across the Lab, DOE complex, and corporate entities with Lab staff via a database. For more information, contact the Office of Contract Assurance (x7969). The database is also available on the Our Safety website along with featured lessons learned.
Several Lab employees have inadvertently downloaded fake antivirus products that are actually malware intended to extort payment to solve problems that the software itself causes. The names vary but they include AV 2009 and AntiSpywareXP 2009. If you are being prompted to download the software and pay a fee, do not respond and shut down your browser immediately. Sophos is the Lab’s supported antivirus product, which can be downloaded here. More>
Employee Activity: Lab Reimburses Cost for Weight Watchers SessionTo help employees adopt a healthier lifestyle, the Lab will reimburse the cost of the next onsite Weight Watchers session. Staff must attend 14 of the 17-week session, which costs $186. More details will be provided at an information meeting next Wednesday at noon in Building 26-124 (Health Services). Regular meetings will start on Wednesday Feb. 4 with one starting at 11:30 a.m. and a second at 12:30 p.m. (same location). Those interested in attending must contact Cathy Wentworth (x6266).
People: Chemical Scientist Among ACS 2009 National Award WinnersBerkeley Lab chemical scientist Richard Saykally has received the Peter Debye Award in Physical Chemistry, bestowed by the American Chemical Society. Laser spectroscopy of liquids, surfaces, and clusters, synchrotron X-ray spectroscopy of liquids and liquid surfaces, and femtosecond nonlinear optical spectroscopy of liquid surfaces are among the areas in which Saykally conducts research. Peter Debye, the award’s namesake, was a Dutch physicist and physical chemist, and Nobel laureate who died in 1966. Go here to view a complete list of awardees.
In The News: New Chair Selected for Campus Bioengineering Department[Daily Californian] Matthew Tirrell, the current dean of engineering at UC Santa Barbara, has been selected as UC Berkeley's new chair of the bioengineering department. Tirrell said he is especially looking forward to the opportunity to work with Berkeley Lab in conducting the department's research on alternative energies. More>
To accommodate Lab construction projects, several parking spaces in the W lot (adjacent to Building 31 and just north of the Molecular Foundry), will be closed. The space is needed to store dumpsters of dirt and enables trucks to safely load, remove, and replace the dumpsters. For more information, contact Site Construction Coordinator Les Dutton.
