The Molecular Foundry kicks off its sixth year of Nano*High talks this Saturday with a lecture by Deputy Lab Director Paul Alivisatos. He will discuss “The Helios Project: From Photon to Fuel" at 10 a.m. in the Building 66 Auditorium. Nano*High is geared towards high school students interested in science as well as other areas of the humanities. The lectures are presented by senior scientists conducting research on the cutting edge of emerging science. Registration is required. More>
SC08: Lab Researchers Contribute Expertise to Supercomputing Conference Berkeley Lab researchers are making significant contributions to the SC08 Conference, contributing four technical papers and one research poster, organizing two workshops, participating in two panel discussions, and hosting or co-hosting six birds-of-a-feather sessions. SC08, the international conference on high performance computing, networking, storage and analysis, will be held Nov. 15–21 in Austin, Texas. David Patterson (CRD) is one of four invited speakers and Dale Sartor (EETD) will give a Masterworks presentation on energy-efficient computing. More>
People: Lab Student Among First-Place Winners of Energy CompetitionKiran Rangaraj, with the Lab’s Life Sciences Division, was among six national science students to win first-place honors at the DOE’s inaugural Science and Energy Research Challenge (SERCh) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Student projects focused primarily on energy solutions, with competition categories in biological sciences, materials science and engineering, chemistry, physics, and environmental science. The first-place winners each won $3,000 scholarships. The Science and Energy Research Challenge is part of DOE's ongoing educational outreach efforts. More>
In The News: Former Director Shank on NIST Safety Review Commission; Report Issued [Daily Camera] After a plutonium spill at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) this past summer, a commission was formed to analyze the adequacy of the organization's safety programs. Former Berkeley Lab Director Chuck Shank was a member of the commission, which recently released the results of their investigation, finding that NIST “doesn’t put a priority on safety, nor provides researchers the tools needed to be safe.” More>
Health Note: November is Lung Cancer Awareness MonthThe Lab’s Health Care Facilitator reminds employees that November is “Lung Cancer Awareness Month.” As part of this event, the American Cancer Society has scheduled its annual “Great American Smoke Out” for Thursday, Nov. 20. It is a day to inspire smokers to quit for one day, and to encourage them to quit for good. Tobacco use remains the single largest preventable cause of disease and premature death in the United States. Smoking causes an estimated 438,000 premature deaths each year, including 38,000 deaths due to secondhand smoke. More>