City Council Cites Lab
Performance Rating

Merola

Berkeley Lab Deputy Director for Operations and Acting Facilities Division Director Sandy Merola accepted a City of Berkeley proclamation on Tuesday night that praised the Lab’s recent contractor performance ratings issued by the Department of Energy. The City Council and Mayor Tom Bates lauded “the Number One-ranked DOE laboratory as a model for institutional performance in our city.” The DOE’s recent performance grades showed Berkeley Lab top among the Office of Science laboratories in science, technology, management and operations. Go here to read the proclamation, and here for a photo of Merola addressing the Council.

Fermilab's baby buffalo is on "Physics Life" list

Staff Invited to Add
To 'Physics Life List'

Symmetry Magazine, produced by the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and Fermilab, is compiling a particle physics list of not-to-be-missed places, experiences, and artifacts. For example, Galileo’s middle finger, Fermilab’s newborn buffalo, America's longest building at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, the six places in the Large Hadron Collider where one can stand with one foot in Switzerland and the other in France, and a hand-held prototype of the first cyclotron built by E.O. Lawrence at Berkeley Lab. The list will appear in an upcoming issue of the magazine and researchers at Berkeley Lab are invited to add to it. To have your ideas considered, send them to Symmetry Magazine with "Life List" in the subject line.  Contributors will be acknowledged in the publication.

GLBTF Luncheon
Is Tomorrow

The Lab's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Friends Club invites all employees to celebrate diversity and acceptance by attending the annual Gay Pride Month Diversity lunch this Friday from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Perseverance Hall.  Food will be provided. Membership to the GLBTF Club is open to everyone. For more information, contact Lee Aleksich (x2995).

New Baryon Discovery
Includes Lab Scientists

The DZero experimental physicists at Fermilab have announced the discovery of a new, electrically charged baryon particle that has approximately six times the mass of a proton. Dubbed the “cascade b” particle, this new baryon consists of a down, a strange and a bottom quark, the first baryon observed to be formed from all three families of quarks. The discovery of cascade b and the measurement of its mass provide a new understanding of how the strong nuclear force acts upon quarks. DZero is an international experiment of about 610 physicists from 88 institutions, including Berkeley Lab. Go here for more about the discovery.

Three decades after women began breaking into male-dominated professions, their numbers in top academic and corporate echelons remain flat, according to a new book by Mary Ann Mason, graduate dean at UC Berkeley. From 1966 to 2000, the book says, the number of women with Ph.D.s rose from 10 percent to more than 40 percent, according to figures provided by the National Center for Education Statistics. Yet, in a 1999 survey of students at UC Berkeley and Berkeley Lab, 59 percent of the female post-doctorates with children polled cited the concern over how to balance career and family as a main reason for leaving the sciences. Full story.

Bish in his annual Santa costume

Former Lab 'Santa'
And Technician Dies

Retired Lab employee Lewis Bish passed away on June 5 at the age of 83. Bish joined the Lab in 1961 as a plant maintenance technician then transferred to the 88" Cyclotron, where he retired in 1984. He was well known for putting on his Santa suit and greeting Lab employees coming through the main gate before the holiday shutdown each year. Bish is survived by his second wife Virginia, daughter Betty, sons Mike and Paul Bish, a 30-year Lab employee working with the Superconducting Magnet Group. Donations can be made to Elizabeth Hospice, 150 W. Crest Street, Escondido, CA 92025.