Today at Berkeley Lab nameplate Berkeley Lab
Monday, November 29, 2004
 
CALENDAR
Today

Noon
Employee Activities Assoc.
Yoga Class with Inna Belogolovsky
Bldg. 70A-3377

4 p.m.
Structural and Quantitative Biology Seminar
A Third Type of Actin-based Cellular Engine, the Horseshoe Crab Acrosomal Process, an Actin Spring
Paul Matsudaira, Whitehead Institute, MIT
100 Lewis Hall

4:30 p.m.
Seminar
Quantum Mechanics and Relativistic Astrophysics
Dr. George Chaplin, LLNL
1 LeConte Hall

Tomorrow

11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Gift Fair
Lawrence Hall of Science
Cafeteria

4 p.m.
Life Sciences & Genomics Seminar
Ancient Origins—Modern Diseases: A Mitochondrial Connection
Douglas C. Wallace, Director, Center for Molecular and Mitochondrial Medicine and Genetics, UC Irvine
Bldg. 66 Auditorium

Physical Chemistry Seminar
Calcium Isotopic Variations Due to Geochemical and Biological Processes
Donald DePaolo, Earth Sciences
120 Latimer Hall, Pitzer Auditorium

CAFETERIA
 

Morning Editions: Ham & Cheese Omelet with Hash Browns
Tomorrow's Breakfast: Breakfast Quesadilla with Home Fries
Market Carvery: Chicken Fried Steak with Gravy
The Fresh Grille: Grilled Bacon Cheese Burger Combo
Menutainment:
Chinese Chicken Salad

B'fast: 6:30 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.
Lunch: 11 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Full menu
IN THE NEWS


‘Blind’ Cells See Light;
Maybe Humans Are Next
By Robert Sanders

Kramer

Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, and Berkeley Lab have given "blind" nerve cells the ability to detect light, paving the way for an innovative therapy that could restore sight to those who have lost it through disease. A team lead by neurobiologist Richard H. Kramer, UC Berkeley professor of molecular and cell biology and a materials scientist at the Lab, and Dirk Trauner, assistant professor of chemistry, inserted a light-activated switch into brain cells normally insensitive to light, enabling the researchers to turn the cells on with green light and turn them off with ultraviolet light. The work was supported by a grant from Fight-for-Sight and an award from Berkeley Lab. Full story.


Attwood Edits ‘Roadmap’
For EUV Light Sources

Attwood

A special cluster of papers that provide a timely review of the status of high power Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) plasma sources for semiconductor manufacturing has been published in the Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics (J. Phys. D). Guest Editor David Attwood of Berkeley Lab’s Center for X-ray Optics writes in his editorial, “The International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors provides industry expectations for high-volume computer chip fabrication a decade into the future …The leading candidate for the 2009 node is EUV lithography.” All eight articles will be freely available online until the end of February 2005 and to institutional subscribers following this date.

     
Park
Novel Quasicrystals Present Less Friction

Quasicrystals, solid materials possessing an odd five-fold or ten-fold symmetry (making the ten-fold solid partly periodic and partly aperiodic) and which form dodecahedral grains, seem to present less friction than do many other materials. For the past ten years no explanation for this has been found. Berkeley Lab postdoctoral fellow J.Y. Park and his colleagues here and at Ames Lab have looked at this issue by dragging a probe microscope across a sample. At a recent AVS Science & Technology meeting in Anaheim, Park reported finding was a highly anisotropic friction for his Al-Ni-Co quasicrystal: low friction when sliding the probe in the aperiodic direction and high friction when sliding along the periodic direction. Read the paper here.

Cerny

Panel Studies Nuclear
Science Workforce Issues

The joint Department of Energy/National Science Foundation Nuclear Science Advisory Committee (NSAC) devoted its November meeting to the nuclear science and engineering workforce, and how best to educate, prepare, diversify and maintain it for the 21st century. Berkeley Lab’s Joseph Cerny was among those evaluating DOE and NSF investments in education relevant to nuclear science. A survey of current graduate students showed "substantial satisfaction" with a career in nuclear science, Cerny said, but also revealed "a significant fraction" of highly dissatisfied individuals. Full story.

 
PEOPLE   IN MEMORIAM


Lab Researcher Moses
To Head IEEE Society

Moses

Life scientist Bill Moses was recently named President of one of the 37 Societies of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineering (IEEE), the world's largest professional society. Moses will head the Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society. The NPSS has two general fields of interest — radiation detection and measurement, and plasma science. Moses is a senior staff physicist in the Department of Functional Imaging, researching medical imaging instrumentation.

 
Holley
Radiation Biologist William Holley Dies on Nov. 19

William R. Holley, a physicist by training who joined the Theoretical Modeling program in the Life Sciences Division 22 years ago, passed away on Nov. 19. Colleague Aloke Chatterjee said Holley “made significant contributions in developing complex algorithms related to DNA structure and chromosome organizations inside a cellular nucleus.” Prior to joining the modeling group, Bill was involved in treatment planning with heavy ions at the BEVALAC. His primary interest was radiation biology and the effects of energetic heavy ions on humans. “Bill will be missed by many,” Chatterjee said. “He was very well known for his simple living and high thinking.” A memorial service is pending. Read more about Holley in the Dec. 17 issue of The View.

WEATHER
Sunny.
Highs: mid 50s (14° C).

IMAGE: Weather icon

Extended Forecast

SECURITY CONDITION
SECON level 3

Weather icon

More Information

INFO
Today at Berkeley Lab
is online at
http://www.lbl.gov/today/
Submit items to
[email protected]
Previous issue graphic
Archives graphic
IMAGE: DOE logo IMAGE: Office of Science logo IMAGE: UC logo