[Mercury News] Will Baird has been fascinated with outer space ever since he was a little kid. Now he plans to put all that daydreaming to use by shooting a contraption into the heavens and landing it softly on the moon. What could possibly go wrong? "The intent is to not let this get out of control," Baird says, standing next to a 4-foot-high lunar lander prototype that looks like some sort of three-legged insect. Baird is a computing analyst at Berkeley Lab who was hooked on rocket ships from the first time he saw "Star Wars."
So when he heard that Google was sponsoring an X Prize Foundation race to the moon — which awards $20 million to the first team to put a lander on the moon before 2013 and send back video — he was all over it. More>
Berkeley Lab chemical biologist Carolyn Bertozzi will receive this year's $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize, which is named for the prolific inventor Jerome Lemelson and honors an "outstanding mid-career inventor who is dedicated to improving our world through technological invention and innovation." Bertozzi directs the Molecular Foundry and holds positions with both the Materials Sciences and Physical Biosciences Divisions. She is the T.Z. and Irmgard Chu Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at UC Berkeley and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She was recognized for her development of copper-free click chemistry reactions that can be used to create imaging probes that are safe for biological molecules, living cells, and even live animals. More>
Newly appointed Department of Energy Technology Transfer Coordinator Karina Edmonds visited Berkeley Lab last week. Following presentations on the Lab's technology transfer avenues, she fielded questions from Tech Transfer staff. She then attended a roundtable with some of the Lab's entrepreneurial principal investigators — including Alex Zettl, Nitash Balsara, Joel Ager and Wladek Walukiewicz — and capped her visit with a tour of the Advanced Light Source. Edmonds is pictured above right with ALS Director Roger Falcone. Edmonds will be responsible for working with the national laboratories to help accelerate the movement of discoveries from the laboratory to the private sector. This is the first time the DOE has appointed a full-time person to fill the role. More>
Computing: Video Blog Chronicles ISC Conference in Germany John Shalf, head of NERSC's Advanced Technologies Group, is one of two video bloggers offering his views on developments from the International Supercomputing Conference in Hamburg, Germany. On the first day (Sunday), Shalf comments about a new processor announcement by Intel, discusses the latest TOP500 list and toasts the end of a successful day. Co-blogging with Shalf is Heike Jagode, a computer scientist at the University of Tennessee. Check the blog tomorrow for more from ISC '10.
A few spots have opened up for employees who want to be part of the Berkeley Lab contingent participating in KQED’s televised pledge night tomorrow evening. Lab staff will appear on air, answering phones and processing donations for the public broadcasting station, which offers high-quality science programming that often features Berkeley Lab research. The pledge night runs from 7:15 to 11 p.m. at the KQED station in San Francisco. Food and parking are provided. Employees interested in participating can send e-mail here.
Tomorrow and Friday, parking and access around the Advanced Light Source will be closed in order to lift new rooftop equipment. Tomorrow, a crane will be positioned in the parking area in front of the ALS next to Building 7, and equipment delivery trucks will be staged around Building 52 and 53 during the morning. On Friday, a concrete pump boom truck will be positioned in the same area during the morning. Parking and traffic control measures will be in place and bus routes may be affected at times to accommodate the closure. The hours of operation for this lift are from 6 a.m. to approximately 4 p.m. each day. Pedestrian traffic will be rerouted from the main entrance and patio area of the ALS during this time. For more information, contact Dan Galvez (x6213).
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