Have you ever wanted — or been asked — to visit one of your children's classrooms to talk about science, but were unsure of having something engaging and educational to do? The Center for Science and Engineering Education (CSEE) is launching the Berkeley Lab In School Settings (BLISS) Resource Center to provide kits of age-appropriate, kid-tested, educationally sound science activities for check out and use by Lab employees in local elementary and middle schools.
Staff from the Lawrence Hall of Science and CSEE will present a series of workshops starting Monday, Oct. 5, to help prepare Lab employees to use these resources, held in Building 7-211, from 11:30-1:30. Lunch will be provided. Scheduled topics and dates include:
Oct. 5: Grade K - Sifting Through Science
Oct. 19: Grade 3 - Earth, Moon, and Stars
Nov. 2: Grades 1-3 - Liquid Explorations
Nov. 16: Grade 1 - Penguins and Their Young
Contact CSEE (x5511) for more information or to sign up.
Cynthia McMurray of the Life Sciences Division is receiving $1.3 million over two years (funded for the first year at $611,104) for research into mechanisms that prevent or delay the onset and progression of Huntington’s disease (HD). HD is a neurodegenerative disease that is expected to affect 200,000 Americans in the next decade, yet no effective long-term approaches to therapy are currently available. This project will build on and explore recent discoveries that DNA oxidative damage causes the somatic expansion in HD that is observed with age and governs onset that begins around mid-life, and that loss of expansion is accompanied by an unforeseen amelioration or delay of pathophysiology. More>
Claude Lyneis (right) and Daniela Leitner of the Nuclear Science Division have won the Brightness Award of the 2009 International Conference on Ion Sources "for the first demonstration and characterization of the performance of third-generation, 28-GHz ECR ion sources" — namely the powerful VENUS ion source at the 88-Inch Cyclotron. VENUS is the prototype source for the Department of Energy’s Facility for Rare Isotope Beams. Lyneis and Leitner share the $6,000 prize with Z. Q. Xie and Hongwei Zhao, both with the Institute of Modern Physics in Lanzhou, China. More>
EH&S: Laser Safety Vendor Fair TomorrowThe Lab’s Environment Health and Safety Division is hosting a laser safety vendor fair tomorrow, from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., in Perseverance Hall. The fair includes free snacks and displays on eyewear, optics, lasers and more.
Non-construction subcontractors and vendors performing work at Berkeley Lab are required to complete a Subcontractor Job Hazards Analysis and Work Authorization (SJHAWA) that includes review of their hands-on work activities and identification of the hazards and necessary controls. Recently a subcontractor performing a traffic speed survey at the Lab was observed using a powder-actuated tool (nail gun) in an unsafe manner. The work was stopped by an EH&S safety engineer because the subcontractor did not have an SJHAWA for the scope of work and was not authorized to use a powder-actuated tool. As a result, an Occurrence Report was prepared and submitted to the Department of Energy. The report determined that an SJHAWA had not been prepared because the requester of the traffic speed survey incorrectly concluded that the scope of work did not include hands-on work.
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