SLAC Today is available online at:
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In this issue:
Hewett and Wisniewski Named 2007 Fellows of the APS
Colloquium Monday: Martin Perl to Discuss Creativity and Innovation in Engineering and Science
Fossil in Visitor's Center Gets New Name
ILC NewsLine: Podcasting the ILC

SLAC Today

Monday - December 3, 2007

Hewett and Wisniewski Named 2007 Fellows of the APS

Bill Wisniewski and JoAnne Hewett.
(Click on image for larger version.)

Congratulations to SLAC researchers JoAnne Hewett and William Wisniewski, who have been named 2007 Fellows of the American Physical Society (APS).

Hewett's citation praised her "contributions to our understanding of constraints on and searches for physics beyond the Standard Model, and service to the particle physics community leading studies of future experiments."

Wisniewski was recognized for his "outstanding contributions and leadership in the design, construction, and operation of the BaBar detector, that have enabled the accumulation of a unique data sample for addressing precision physics in the heavy flavor sector."

The APS Fellowships recognize those who have made advances in knowledge through original research or have made significant and innovative contributions in the application of physics to science and technology. Each year, no more than one-half of one percent of the current APS membership is recognized by their peers for election to the status of Fellow. The hundred-year-old Society numbers 40,000 physicists worldwide.

Colloquium Monday

Martin Perl to Discuss Creativity and Innovation in Engineering and Science

Creativity is sought everywhere: in the arts, entertainment, business, mathematics, engineering, medicine, the social sciences and the physical sciences. Common elements of creativity are originality and imagination. Creativity is intertwined with the freedom to design, to invent and to dream. In engineering and science, however, creativity is useful only if it fits into the realities of the physical world.

In this afternoon's colloquium, SLAC's very own Martin Perl will discuss creativity and innovation in engineering and science. He will also touch on the necessary conditions for creativity and how to develop a good idea.

The colloquium will take place at 4:15 p.m. today in Panofsky Auditorium. All are invited to attend.

ILC NewsLine: Podcasting the ILC


(Left to right) Taisei Tanaka, Satoru Yamashita and Erika Yamada record the ILC podcast.

Blogs, Social Network Services, Podcasting, Social Bookmarks—these types of social media have become influential sources of information. Some might say that they have as much influential power as the conventional media. Scientists working on the International Linear Collider are catching on too and realize that podcasting is another way to promote the proposed project to a non-scientific audience.
Read more...

Fossil in Visitor's Center Gets New Name

(Photo - Paleoparadoxia)
The newly-named Paleoparadoxia repenningi skeleton in SLAC's Visitor's Center. (Click on the image for more views of the fossil)

About 14 million years after it lived and died, the fossil skeleton in the Visitor's Center has gotten a new name. First unearthed at SLAC during the 1964 excavation for the linear accelerator beam switchyard, the fossil has this year been renamed Paleoparadoxia repenningi.

A member of a small family of large, herbivorous marine animals that inhabited the northern Pacific coastal region until about 10 million years ago, the mammal was first named Paleoparadoxia tabatai by paleontologist Norihisa Inuzuka. After meticulously studying and describing the fossil, Inuzuka named it after similar skeletons found in Japan. Yet recent, more detailed studies of the description revealed that although both the Japanese and SLAC fossils are from the same family, the SLAC fossil is much more evolved and modern. In keeping with this new understanding, the fossil is now categorized under a new name: Paleoparadoxia repenningi.

This name honors the late Charles A. Repenning, the vertebrate paleontologist and marine mammal specialist working for the U.S. Geological Survey who helped Adele Panofsky unearth the skeleton at SLAC.

The fossil skeleton is currently on display in SLAC's Visitor's Center and was assembled by Adele Panofsky (see her report entitled Stanford Paleoparadoxia Fossil Skeletal Mounting) and engineered by John Flynn, with assistance by many SLAC staff members.

Learn more about Paleoparadoxia repenningi in the Virtual Visitors Center.


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