Committee Named
For Director Search

Search committee includes Lab scientist John Clarke

University of California President Robert Dynes yesterday named a 10-member committee of UC Regents, faculty and researchers to advise him in the search for the next Director of Berkeley Lab. The successor to current Director Charles Shank, who announced in February that we was stepping down at the end of the year, will likely be selected at the Board of Regents meeting in May, according to the University. The search committee will visit the Lab Thursday to meet with researchers, faculty, staff and community representatives. Go here for more details on the committee.

Ex-UC Davis Manager To Head Plant Operations

Facilities Director George Reyes has announced that Steve Black , whose 25-year career in the field includes service as Director of Plant Operations at the University of California's Davis campus, is Berkeley Lab's new Head for Plant Operations. A mechanical engineer, Black will be on site starting tomorrow to begin transitioning into his new role, which is effective April 15. Read Reyes' memo to employees about the appointment here.

'Tumbleweed' to Seek Water On Other Worlds

A balloon-shaped robot explorer that could one day search for water on other planets has survived some of the most trying conditions on planet Earth during a 40-mile, wind-driven trek across Antarctica. The Tumbleweed Rover, which is being developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, left the National Science Foundation's Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station on Jan. 24, completing its roll across Antarctica's polar plateau roughly eight days later. Full story.

Bashful vs. Brash in
New Field of Nanotech
By Michael Hopkin

	Alivisatos

When it came time to invite a representative company to attend President Bush's signing of a bill last December authorizing $3.7 billion in federal spending on nanotechnology over the next four years, a three-year-old Silicon Valley company named Nanosys got the call. Nanosys's scientific advisory board includes luminaries like Dr. Charles M. Lieber of Harvard, and Paul Alivisatos, director of the Lab's Materials Sciences Division. Full story (requires registration).

Lab Research Featured in Microscopy Publication

	O'Keefe

The lead paper in the February issue of Microscopy and Microanalysis -- written by Berkeley Lab materials scientist Michael O'Keefe and MIT scientist Yang Shao-Horn -- describes "Ångstrom Atomic-Resolution Imaging from Heavy Atoms to Light Atoms." "By using sub-Ångstrom focal-series reconstruction of the specimen exit surface wave to image columns of cobalt, oxygen and lithium atoms in a transition metal oxide structure commonly used as positive electrodes in lithium rechargeable batteries," the article explains, "we show that the range of detectable light atoms extends to lithium." Full story.

Internet, E-Mail Down Wednesday Evening

LBLnet has scheduled a brief external network connectivity outage starting at 6 p.m. tomorrow. The work will last about 15 minutes and will interrupt access to the World Wide Web, IMAP E-mail, SMTP E-mail (outgoing and incoming), Directory Services/On-line Phonebook/Automatic E-mail Addressing (LDAP), Calendar, Novell, and ISS Services. Internal Lab e-mail and websites will not be affected. E-mail will be queued during this outage and delivered once network connectivity is restored. For more information, contact the Help Desk.