Chu

Lab Physicist to Head
U. of Tokyo Institute

Murayama

Berkeley Lab physicist Hitoshi Murayama was appointed as the founding director of the Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) at the University of Tokyo. The goal of the institute is to discover the fundamental laws of nature and to understand the universe from the synergistic perspectives of mathematics, statistics, theoretical and experimental physics, and astronomy. IPMU was launched as one of the World Premier International Research Center Initiatives of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Full story.

Clarification of Coffee
Bar, Cafeteria Hours

This week, the cafeteria and coffee bar will be open until 3 p.m.  Starting on Monday, Jan. 22, the hours will be extended to 7:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, and 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on  Saturdays and Sundays.

Bioscientist Signaling
An End to Tuberculosis

Alber

HIV, SARS, and ebola may get the headlines, but among public health officials, tuberculosis is the pathogen to watch. Once routinely treated with cheap antibiotics, TB is poised to make a terrifying comeback. More and more, doctors in developing nations are finding patients infected with strains of TB invulnerable to all but a handful of extremely expensive, exotic drugs. Without new methods to stop the spread of drug-resistant strains, the cost of treating TB could bankrupt even the most prosperous economies. Berkeley Lab physical bioscientist Tom Alber is working to forestall this dire scenario by characterizing a class of enzymes TB uses to sense and adapt to its environment, then subverting this system to thwart even the most stubborn strains of TB. Full story.

Textbook Reaction
Has a Subtle Twist

Neumark

A textbook reaction fundamental to organic synthesis has a subtle twist, according to researchers in Germany and the United States. The SN2 bimolecular nucleophilic substitution involves the addition of one chemical group and removal of another in a single step. But scientists from Freiburg University, Germany, and Texas Tech University have now used pioneering crossed-beam experiments and computer simulations to show such reactions may be more complex than chemists had realized. Daniel Neumark, director of Berkeley  Lab’s Chemical Sciences Division, called the work “a beautiful experiment.” But other chemists contacted pointed out this is still a gas phase-isolated experiment. Full story.