The Department of Energy has awarded up to $122 million over five years to a multi-institutional partnership headed by Cal Tech and Berkeley Lab to establish an Energy Innovation Hub aimed at developing revolutionary methods to generate fuels directly from sunlight. The new energy hub will be called the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis. Leading the Berkeley component of this effort will be Peidong Yang, a chemist with the Materials Sciences Division. Berkeley Lab Director Paul Alivisatos credited Yang as well as Elaine Chandler and Heinz Frei along with “many others” for “doing an incredible job of preparing this proposal.” More>
In The News: Getting Down With CO2 [symmetry magazine] When Princeton University geoscientist Catherine Peters joined with Berkeley Lab Earth Scientists Patrick Dobson, Curt Oldenburg, Joe Wang, and Rohit Salve to pursue the DUSEL CO2 project, their choice of the world’s deepest science laboratory had to do with its depth, not its geology. The researchers propose to build columns taller than the Empire State Building packed with layers of sand and clay and filled with brine or other fluids, models of the geological structures being considered for carbon storage. Testing CO2 at different temperatures and pressures will show how it can leak and thus help keep it underground. More>
The Summer 2010 edition of the Joint Genome Institute (JGI) newsletter, The Primer, has arrived. Included are stories on the recent "Sequencing, Finishing, Analysis in the Future" meeting, the Volvox genome, Amazonian Stinkbird guts, the California Biomass Collaborative’s seventh annual forum, and the newly issued genomics educational flashcards. Back issues of The Primer are available here.
“Things You Should Know About Optical Tables,” “The Challenges of Laser Robotics,” and “Lasers in Biotechnology” are among the topics to be discussed at the sixth annual Laser Safety Officers Workshop, taking place at the Lab next Tuesday through Thursday. A highlight of the gathering will be an opening presentation by Nobel Prize winner Charles Townes. The event — sponsored by the Lab’s Laser Safety Office, the Accelerator and Fusion Research Division, and Environment, Health and Safety Division — also serves as the annual meeting of the Department of Energy Laser Working Group. More>
Not comfortable with Google Calendar? Consider attending one of the remaining training opportunities prior to the migration from the current Oracle calendar system, taking place the weekend of July 31. Training sessions are scheduled for Monday, July 26, in the Building 66 Auditorium, and Friday, July 30 in Perseverance Hall, at 9:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. (both locations) Go here to register.
With the 33rd Runaround, the Lab's annual fun race, just a few months away, the Employee Activities Association is now 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 of the design. Deadline is Friday, Aug. 20, with the winner announced in late September. Pictured is the winning design for 2008, created by Linda Matyas in the Operations Division.
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