Wednesday, Feb. 13
- Breakfast: crustless quiche casserole
- Cuban black bean soup
- Teriyaki chicken sandwich
- Seafood newburg
- Smart cuisine: braised beef with vegetables
- Grilled-veggie panini
- Assorted calzones
- Pork carnitas
Wilson Hall Cafe Menu |
Wednesday, Feb. 13
Lunch
- Cheese fondue
- Mixed-green salad
- Mixed-berry pie
Friday, Feb. 15
Valentine's dinner
- Spinach and strawberry salad
- Lobster tail with champagne butter sauce
- Spaghetti squash with scallions
- Roasted broccoli with red pepper butter
- Chocolate pots de crème with fresh berries
Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.
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Neutrinos, the Standard Model misfits
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For years, scientists thought that neutrinos fit perfectly into the Standard Model. But they don't. By better understanding these strange, elusive particles, scientists seek to better understand the workings of all the universe, one discovery at a time. Image: Sandbox Studio |
Neutrinos are as mysterious as they are ubiquitous. One of the most abundant particles in the universe, they pass through most matter unnoticed; billions of them are passing harmlessly through your body right now. Their masses are so tiny that so far no experiment has succeeded in measuring them. They travel at nearly the speed of light—so close, in fact, that a faulty cable connection at a neutrino experiment at Italy's Gran Sasso National Laboratory in 2011 briefly led to speculation they might be the only known particle in the universe that travels faster than light.
Physicists have spent a lot of time exploring the properties of these invisible particles. In 1962, they discovered that neutrinos come in more than one type, or flavor. By the end of the century, scientists had identified three flavors—the electron neutrino, muon neutrino and tau neutrino—and made the weird discovery that neutrinos could switch flavor through a process called oscillation. This surprising fact represents a revolution in physics—the first known particle interactions that indicate physics beyond the extremely successful Standard Model, the theoretical framework that physicists have constructed over decades to explain particles and their interactions.
Now scientists are gearing up for new neutrino studies that could lead to answers to some big questions:
If you could put neutrinos on a scale, how much would they weigh?
Are neutrinos their own antiparticles?
Are there more than three kinds of neutrinos?
Do neutrinos get their mass the same way other elementary particles do?
Why is there more matter than antimatter in the universe?
The answers to these questions not only offer a window on physics beyond the Standard Model, but may also open the door to answering questions about the universe all the way back to its origins.
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—Joseph Piergrossi
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Now accepting applications for URA Thesis Award
Fermilab and the Universities Research Association invite submissions
for the 16th annual URA Thesis Award competition. The award
recognizes the most outstanding thesis based on work conducted at
Fermilab or in collaboration with Fermilab scientists.
Nominations must be submitted to Bob Zwaska by
March 1, 2013, and should include two letters supporting the merits
of the thesis being nominated. At least one letter should be from a
member of the thesis committee of the Ph.D.-granting institution and,
for work carried out in collaboration with Fermilab scientists, at
least one letter should come from one of those scientists.
The URA Thesis Award Committee will select the winners. Committee
members will judge each thesis on clarity of presentation, originality
and physics content. To qualify, the thesis must have been submitted
in fulfillment of the Ph.D. requirements in the 2012 calendar year, must be
written in English and must have been submitted in electronic form
to the Fermilab Publications Office in accordance with Fermilab policy.
For further details consult the URA Thesis Award website.
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University of New Mexico
NAME:
University of New Mexico
HOME TOWN:
Albuquerque, NM
MASCOT:
Lobo Louie and Lobo Lucy
COLORS:
Cherry and silver
COLLABORATING AT FERMILAB SINCE:
1991
WORLDWIDE PARTICLE PHYSICS COLLABORATIONS:
ATLAS (CERN), CDF, RD42 (CERN), RD50 (CERN), SiD (ILC)
NUMBER OF SCIENTISTS AND STUDENTS INVOLVED:
Two faculty, one research engineer, one postdoc, four graduate students, one undergraduate
PARTICLE PHYSICS RESEARCH FOCUS:
The UNM CDF group has focused its analysis efforts on studies of heavy quark bound states, most recently leading the Σb* discovery and precision characterization efforts and the observation of the Λb*.
Our earlier contributions included pentaquark searches and analyses of the properties of three-jet events. UNM collaborators were among the first on the SVXII project, contributing principally to the design, quality assurance and monitoring of the silicon sensors.
FUNDING AGENCIES:
DOE
View all university profiles.
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Audits and financial assessments
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Cindy Conger
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Cindy Conger, Chief Financial Officer and head of the Finance Section, wrote this column.
In October, a team of auditors from KPMG made themselves comfortable on the 4th floor of Wilson Hall. The independent public accounting firm was beginning an audit of Fermi Research Alliance LLC's financial statements, which include Fermilab's activity under FRA's contract with DOE. Over several months the team reviewed financial transactions and procedures in areas such as property, plant and equipment, accounts receivable, payroll, accounts payable, cash and inventory. Last week KPMG issued an unqualified "clean" opinion, attesting that our financial statements are fairly stated in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. FRA/Fermilab and its predecessor have received clean opinions on its financial statements for more than 25 years.
The laboratory also conducts our own audits and assessments to check whether all i's are dotted and all t's are crossed. For instance, each year the dedicated Internal Audit staff spends a considerable amount of time and effort looking for "unallowable costs." These are charges for items such as food that by federal rules cannot be paid for using government funds. Last fiscal year Internal Audit found less than $50 of unallowable costs out of the over $400 million the laboratory spent. Of course, these amounts were promptly repaid.
These audits, assessments and reviews are a very important part of the Finance Management System under FRA's Contractor Assurance System—they are tools to make sure that we are good financial stewards of the resources our nation provides, and they invariably show the fiscal responsibility of our employees. Without the conscientious attention and cooperation of our dedicated employees in following the laboratory's business procedures, we could not achieve such consistently favorable reports from these assessments.
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MINOS in the mist
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Light and fog create an otherworldly scene around the MINOS building. Photo: Marty Murphy, AD |
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ESH&Q weekly report, Feb. 12
This week's safety report, compiled by the Fermilab ESH&Q section, contains two incidents.
An employee noticed increased neck pain after working long hours. Prescription medication makes this case recordable.
An employee slipped and fell on ice, requiring first-aid treatment.
Find the full report here. |
Stressing bipartisanship, House Science Committee looks ahead
From FYI: The AIP Bulletin of Science Policy News, Feb. 8, 2013
"It's my hope that we will be considered a bipartisan committee, working together for the best interests of our country," declared Lamar Smith (R-TX), the new chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee. Smith's comments came at the outset of the first meeting of the committee to introduce its new members, adopt committee rules, and, of note, to agree to an expansive oversight plan for the next two years. Nineteen of the committee members have previously served on the committee; twenty are new.
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