Today at Berkeley Lab: October 6, 2006

Friday, October 6, 2006

Only 7
Days Until Runaround

Today

8:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
UC Berkeley
China India Russia: R&D
Andersen Auditorium, Haas School of Business

2 p.m.
Physics
Quantum Measurement with Superconducting Circuits
Prof. Irfan Siddiqi, UC Berkeley
390 Hearst Memorial Mining Building

Monday

Noon
Yoga Club
Yoga with Inna Belogolovsky
Bldg. 70-191

4:30 p.m.
Physics
The Condensed Matter Astrophysics of QCD
Prof. Krishna Rajagopal, MIT
1 LeConte Hall

Morning Editions: Biscuits and Gravy with 2 Eggs
Monday's Breakfast: 2 Eggs, 2 Bacon Strips and 2 French Toasts
Market Carvery: Udon Noodle Bar
The Fresh Grille: Tuna Melt Sandwich with Onion Rings
Menutainment: Viva El Burrito with Chicken or Pork

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

Lab, OpenHelix Partner
On Web Tool Training





Dubchak

Berkeley Lab has contracted with OpenHelix of Seattle, WA, to provide training and outreach programs for its free web-based genomics resource, VISTA. VISTA’s focus is comparative genomics, providing a comprehensive suite of programs and databases for biomedical researchers. VISTA includes tools to examine genomic sequences—coding, non-coding, and important regulatory regions like transcription factor binding sites. “VISTA is making a difference in many aspects of research, with important outcomes for medical applications,” said Lab Genomics scientist Inna Dubchak. “But to make it even more valuable and accessible, we wanted to provide the best training material possible." Full story.

Street Sweepers Clean
Lab Roads Tomorrow

Universal Building Services will be street-sweeping and manually cleaning roads and parking lots tomorrow to prepare for the upcoming Berkeley Lab Runaround on Oct. 13. Please watch for vehicles and workers while driving and walking about the lab that day.

Time Running Out
For 457(b) Savings

Maximizing contributions to your 457(b) account is one of the easiest ways to reduce income taxes. There are only a few paychecks remaining to contribute to the 457(b) plan. The deadlines to enroll or to make changes to your 457(b) contributions for the remainder of the 2006 tax year are as follows:

Enroll/change by 5 p.m. on Oct. 31: change reflected on your Dec. 1 check (FINAL 2006 paycheck for monthly paid employees) or your Nov. 10 check (biweekly paid employees)
Enroll/change by 5 p.m. (PT) on Nov. 10: change reflected on your Dec. 8 paycheck (biweekly paid employees only)

This year’s Internal Revenue Code limit for employees under 50 years old is $15,000, and $20,000 for those age 50 years and over. To enroll or make changes to your contributions, access the Fidelity website or contact Fidelity’s customer service at 1-866-682-7787.

Yu and Walukiewicz

Magazine Shines Light
on Solar Cell Advance

MIT's Technology Review features the multiple band gap solar cell materials developed by Wladek Walukiewicz and Kin Man Yu of the Materials Sciences Division, which won the Lab an R&D 100 Award earlier this year. Doping zinc manganese tellurium with oxygen splits the semiconductor's conduction band into two parts, as does adding nitrogen to semiconductor like gallium arsenide phosphide. Walukiewicz explains that the material's three separate energy bands tap low-energy photons in sunlight to help create electrical current because "they can excite electrons to the intermediate band and then up. It's like a stepping stone." Read the article here.

NSF Seeks More Details
On Underground Lab

The National Science Foundation is asking for longer, more detailed proposals as it prepares to select a site for an underground national laboratory. The former Homestake Mine in South Dakota and the Henderson Mine in Colorado had previously been selected as finalists in the NSF process for the proposed lab, to be called the Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory. Berkeley Lab nuclear scientist Kevin Lesko, heading the Homestake scientific effort, said he wasn't surprised by the terms of the latest NSF solicitation. "We're in great shape," Lesko said. Full story.

Chancellor Berdahl?
Where Have We Been?





Birgeneau

Several sharp-eyed readers of yesterday's issue of "Today at Berkeley Lab" pointed out correctly that Chancellor Robert Berdahl, credited with asking Nobelist George Smoot to flip the coin at tomorrow's Cal-Oregon game, hasn't been Chancellor at UC Berkeley since 2004. Indeed, the correct name is Chancellor Robert Birgeneau. Your living-in-the-past editor regrets the error.

WEATHER

Partly cloudy.
High: 66° (19° C)

Extended Forecast

SECURITY CONDITION

SECON level 3

More Information

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