Travel Office Seeks
Input on Improvements

Berkeley Lab's Travel Department is embarking on a project to improve how services are delivered.   To help reach this goal, the department invites employees to fill out a brief online survey that will help them prioritize service improvements. Go here to fill out the survey (it takes about 8 minutes). For questions or more information, contact Jill Stark (x5073).

This week's cover story in Time magazine focuses on the article "Is America Flunking Science." It notes, "The U.S. still leads the world in scientific innovation. But years of declining investment and fresh competition from abroad threaten to end our supremacy." The story features comments from Berkeley Lab Director Steve Chu on how countries like China are determined to reproduce the spirit of wide-open inquiry that has made U.S. science so appealing and successful. "They are catching up quickly," he says. Time is available on newsstands or via web subscription here.

Helping to Build Better
Sudanese Cookstoves
By Betsy Mason

Sudanese cookstove

Most foreigners visiting the refugee camps in western Sudan's troubled Darfur region are aid workers welcomed with open arms by the displaced residents there. But despite the smiles that greeted them, Berkeley Lab scientists Ashok Gadgil and Christie Galitsky (Environmental Energy Technologies Division) were struck by the desperation and extreme hardship many of the people there were enduring, particularly the women. They hope to help the women by designing inexpensive, energy-efficient stoves that use less than half the wood needed to fuel the fires the refugees currently use for cooking. Full story. The Times' editorial on the work can be read here.