Perlmutter

New Data On Supernovae
Backs 'Dark Energy'

Results from the first year of a major study using distant supernovae to measure cosmological parameters will soon appear in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics and are now available online. Early results from the Supernova Legacy Survey seem to favor a form of Einstein's cosmological constant as the dark energy accelerating the expansion of the universe. The ongoing study is being conducted by 40 researchers from France, Canada, the United States, and other countries, many of them members of the international Supernova Cosmology Project based at Berkeley Lab and headed by Saul Perlmutter of the Physics Division. Full story here.

2006 Open Enrollment Ends
Wednesday at Midnight

The window of opportunity for participating in Open Enrollment 2006 will close at midnight (PT) Wednesday. Open Enrollment is your opportunity to:

• Transfer to a different medical or dental plan
• Enroll in Supplemental Disability or reduce your waiting period without a statement of health - one time opportunity this year only
• Enroll or re-enroll in the Health Care Reimbursement Account (HCRA) or Dependent Care Reimbursement Account (DepCare) - if currently enrolled you must re-enroll to participate in 2006
• Change participation in the Tax Savings on Insurance Premiums (TIP) program
• Enroll eligible family members in your health plans
• Opt in or out of medical, dental, and/or vision plans
• Cancel health plan coverage for currently enrolled family members

All Open Enrollment transactions can be completed and confirmed online - the important details can be found on UC's At Your Service website. Changes will be effective Jan. 1, 2006.

Tiny solar cells in Paul Alivisatos' lab

Nanoscientists, Biologists
Copy Nature for Solar Fuel
By Ian Hoffman

A growing number of scientists in labs from Berkeley to Boulder to Rochester are working to plug into a source that delivers more energy in an hour than the world's population uses in a year — the sun. For now, its energy is among the most expensive on the planet, more than four times the cost of electricity from coal, gas and nuclear sources. But an eclectic bunch of physicists, biologists and materials scientists suggest they can deliver multiple breakthroughs in cost and technology for solar energy, if only the government would muster the will and the money to set them loose.  Physicist Steven Chu walked away from $300 million worth of research at Stanford University to take charge of Berkeley Lab and tackle "the single most important problem that science and technology must solve in the coming decades." Full story.

New Venture Firm Targets
East Bay, Lab Innovations
By Barbara Grady

Three veteran venture capitalists have set up a new venture firm in Oakland with plans to fund early stage East Bay companies. Claremont Creek Ventures was co-founded by Nat Goldhaber, Randy Hawks and John Steuart — seasoned chief executives hailing from companies they founded as entrepreneurs and nurtured into established, often publicly traded businesses. "There's a great amount of entrepreneurial flow among the research institutions here," Goldhaber said. "The University of California campuses in Berkeley and Davis are churning out engineers and MBAs while the Lawrence Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore laboratories are centers of innovation." Full story.