Chu, Experts Brief
Bush at White House

Berkeley Lab Director Steve Chu was among the energy experts who were invited to the White House on Friday to brief President Bush on alternative fuels. The President, who said he spoke with "people on the leading edge of change," emerged from the meeting optimistic that Americans will achieve his proposed 20-in-10 program, which seeks to reduce gasoline consumption by 20 percent in 10 years. Read his remarks here. Go here to view photos of Bush with Chu and other experts.

Check Calendar
For Shifted Meetings

Due to the recent change in the start and end dates for Daylight Savings Time (DST), the Lab's calendar software was upgraded by the IT Division on Sunday. An Oracle bug may cause some events — especially recurring meetings — scheduled during the new DST days (March 11 to April 1 and Oct. 28 to Nov. 4) — to be shifted by one hour from their intended time. The only solution is to manually correct the shifted meetings. Go here for instructions on how to correct these entries. The IT Division is following Oracle’s recommended solution, similar to other institutions. For assistance, contact the IT Help Desk (x4357).

ATLAS Physicist Arguin
Wins Dissertation Award

Arguin

The American Physical Society (APS) has selected Berkeley Lab physicist  Jean-Francois Arguin as winner of the 2007 Mitsuyoshi Tanaka Dissertation Award in Experimental Particle Physics. The award is presented to "exceptional young scientists who have performed original doctoral thesis work of outstanding scientific quality and achievement in the area of experimental particle physics." Arguin is currently at CERN, helping to commission the ATLAS detector for its first run later this year. Arguin's paper was entitled, "Measurement of the Top Quark Mass with In Situ Jet Energy Scale Calibration Using Hadronic W Boson Decays at CDF-II." Read more about him here.

Smoot to Speak
At 'Friends' Event

Berkeley Lab Nobel-prize winner George Smoot will speak at the next "Friends of Science" gathering on Monday, March 5 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Repertory Theater. His talk is entitled " The Big Bang, COBE, and the Relic Radiation Traces of Creation." Lab staff are invited to attend the event. Seating will be available on a first-come-first-serve basis. For more information, contact the Community Relations Office (x7292).

Global Warming Could
Affect Water Supply
By Michael Kanellos

Water could be the first casualty of global warming. The rising temperature of Earth is causing water sources such as glaciers and lakes to rapidly retreat, according to, among others, Steven Chu, director of Berkeley Lab and one of the leading scientific figures trying to get more research funding for alternative energy. The effects of declining water supplies will be noticeable and harsh, according to Chu, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997. Some effects can already be seen, he said. "The Yellow River [in China] is now running dry in summertime," Chu said during a speech at the Cleantech Forum in San Francisco last week. Full story.

Search for Blood
Markers of Cancer

Fisher

Clinicians dream of being able to diagnose cancer reliably with a simple lab test. Cancerous cells create some proteins abnormally. Some of these proteins are secreted or shed, and make their way into body fluids. The quest to identify proteins in blood or urine that signal the presence of cancer has long been a focus of research. Now, new strategies to identify reliable cancer markers are being pursued by a team — led by Susan Fisher, a Berkeley Lab biologist and UCSF professor — thanks to a new $1 million-per-year grant from the National Cancer Institute. Full story.

Avoid Shelf Collapses
With Proper Installations

An employee recently moved to an office that had four 6-foot-wide bookshelves attached to the wall, supported by three vertical metal columns with slots. One of the four bookshelves collapsed when the employee was away. The shelves are supported by brackets anchored into slots in the metal columns, a common set-up in many Berkeley Lab offices. An evaluation revealed that some of the screws used to secure the vertical metal columns impeded the brackets from fully engaging into the slots. Additional screws secured to the columns immediately above the shelves will prevent the shelves from collapsing. Go here to learn more about the incident and to view images. Contact Eugene Lau at x4301 with any questions.