Videotaped Talk on Shuttle Accident Given by Former Lab Employee

Bring your lunch and join Robin Wendt, Acting EH&S Division Director, in Perseverance Hall at 11:45 a.m. on Friday to view a videotaped presentation by NASA Ames Deputy Center Director -- and former Berkeley Lab employee -- Scott Hubbard.  Hubbard was the only NASA employee on the board that recently investigated the Space Shuttle Columbia accident.  In this presentation, Hubbard points out the pitfalls of complex high-risk systems, as well as faulty decision-making, and how these areas can be improved. Go here to read about Hubbard.

Tax Return Workshop
For International Staff

The Berkeley Lab Chinese and Asian Association is sponsoring a 2003 Tax Returns Workshop that focuses on foreign employee tax returns in relation to Visa issues. It will take place on Friday, from 2 to 4 p.m. in Building 90-3148. Seating is limited to the first 50 people. Sui Hing Jen, a tax specialist from UC Berkeley's payroll office, will give a PowerPoint presentation on the topic and take questions from attendees. All employees are welcome. For information, contact Larry Li Guo.

Sunflower Database
Down All Today

The Sunflower Database -- the main tool used by the Property Management department to establish and track records of the Lab's nearly 17,600 assets -- will be offline all day today for maintenance. It is expected to be up and running on Thursday. For information, contact Gavin Robillard.

Why Death of Hubble Telescope Matters

Perlmutter

Adam Riess, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute, has helped spearhead groundbreaking "dark energy" research. But he is also among a group of scientists who face a halt to their studies. He relies heavily on data from the Hubble Space Telescope, but NASA announced in January that it would no longer use the space shuttle to service the Hubble. "The public has this opportunity to watch the next chapter of scientific discovery being made in front of them," says Saul Perlmutter, a prominent astrophysicist at Berkeley Lab, "and they're being asked to sit it out for potentially half a generation." Full story.

SANs Speed Doubles, But More Bandwith Required

Bennett

Storage networking equipment vendors are preparing a slew of new Fibre Channel switches and host bus adapters that can effectively double the speed of current storage-area networks (SAN) to 4Gbit/sec. Mike Bennett , a senior network engineer at Berkeley Lab, believes that new servers being offered with 64-bit processors and faster internal bus designs will require more than the additional bandwidth being offered by 4Gbit Fibre Channel switches, RAID controllers and host bus adapters for SANs. Full story.