DOE's Office of Science launches U.S. LHC Web site

U.S. LHC Web site - one stop shopping for information on the U.S. role in the LHC

WASHINGTON, DC - The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science today launched a new Web site to tell the story of the U.S. role in the Large Hadron Collider, a particle accelerator that will begin operating in Europe, near Geneva, Switzerland, next year. Hundreds of physicists, engineers and students from the United States are joining with colleagues from around the globe in the largest and most complex scientific experiments ever built. The LHC experiments will address some of the most fundamental mysteries of the universe.

The new website, www.uslhc.us, funded by DOE's Office of Science, aims to provide one-stop shopping for anyone seeking information about the United States and the LHC. Updated daily, the Web site features up-to-the-minute news and information about the LHC, along with high-resolution graphic images, scientists' blogs, resources for students and educators and contact information for news media.

"The LHC will become the world's highest-energy particle accelerator when it is scheduled to turn on in 2008," said Dr. Robin Staffin, DOE's associate director of Science for High Energy Physics said. "The United States has played key roles in the design and construction of both the LHC experiments and the accelerator. The new Web site will tell the story of U.S participation in this extraordinary scientific adventure as it unfolds."

The LHC is located at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, near Geneva, Switzerland. The LHC, 27 kilometers in circumference, has been more than 15 years in the making. The machine accelerates protons to almost the speed of light and makes them collide in the center of four cathedral-sized experiments, creating conditions that existed billionths of a second after the Big Bang. Scientists will use the information from these collisions to investigate the nature of the physical universe.

Read the DOE press release here.

Seven-digit dialing a thing of the past in 630 area

Perhaps you already have read or heard about the approaching implementation of a new area code 331 and the associated change to dialing procedures. For those who haven't heard, the increased demand for telephone numbers as well as increased competition in the telecommunications industry has prompted the change. Illinois Commerce Commission developed and approved a new area code "overlay" as a relief plan to provide additional prefixes to the present 630 geographic area. As a result, 11-digit or 1+ dialing will become mandatory on Oct. 7, 2007, for all calls placed within the 630 area.

It is recommended that you take an inventory of all devices in your work areas as well as in your home that may be preprogrammed to dial a 7-digit number string and change that number to 11 digits. Remember to precede the phone number with a 9+1 on laboratory devices. Since permissive 1+ dialing already is in effect, you may begin reprogramming devices immediately or at least prior to Oct. 7.

Examples of devices to review include: landline phones, cellular phones, fax machines, modems or other automated dialing equipment. Also, remember to check your internet dial-up numbers, speed dial lists and call forwarding settings.

There will be no impact to calling rates for local calls regardless of the number of digits dialed and, of course, our internal 4-digit lab dialing will not be affected. More information is available here or through the Telecommunications Office at x5411 or telecom@fnal.gov.

Grids point to pollution solutions

eMinerals' scientists are using grid computing to delve into the chemical substitutions that lead to arsenic contamination of drinking water. This image shows an arsenic atom (purple) substituted for a sulfur atom (cream) rather than an iron atom (red) in the structure of pyrite. Image courtesy of Kat Austen and Marc Blanchard

eMinerals scientists will deliver new dirt on soil pollution at the 7th UK e-Science All Hands Meeting in Nottingham this week.

The eMinerals team, funded by the UK's Natural Environment Research Council, is using grid computing to tackle some serious environmental problems, including arsenic contamination of drinking water and dioxin pollution of soils.

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Small 'hobbit' galaxies made almost entirely of dark matter

From Space.com, Sept. 12, 2007

Small, ultrafaint "hobbit" galaxies recently found hovering around our Milky Way are comprised almost entirely of dark matter, a new study confirms.

Dark matter is a mysterious substance scientists think accounts for most of the mass in the universe but that is invisible to current instruments.

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Stanford's X-ray vision

From CNET news.com, Sept. 11, 2007

The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center is home to breakthroughs in particle physics and astrophysics, including the discovery of quarks, one of the two smallest known components of matter.

Six Nobel prizes have been won related to work done here, most recently by chemist Roger Kornberg for discovering how genetic instructions are carried out within cells.

Journalists attending the Society of Environmental Journalists conference in Palo Alto, Calif., took a closer look at the Stanford University facilities on Saturday.

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