Tuesday - June 17, 2008
SLAC Today is available online at:
http://today.slac.stanford.edu
In this issue:
Looking for New Light
Safety Today: SLAC Partners with Stanford to Reduce Chemical Waste
Purchasing Department to Offer New Tool
|
|
|
|
Tuesday - June 17, 2008 |
Researchers at SLAC are trying to shed light on asteroids. This artist's
conception shows an asteroid belt filled with rocks and dusty debris orbiting a
star. (Image courtesy of
NASA.)
Looking for New LightIn many ways, astronomers are in the dark about asteroids. In the dark depths of the Kuiper Asteroid Belt beyond Neptune's orbit, and even in the nearby Main Belt between Jupiter and Mars, most asteroids are too small to reflect back enough sunlight to be seen by our telescopes. But as cosmic rays travel through our solar system, they may strike a glancing blow off the surface of an asteroid, producing gamma rays (short wavelength lightwaves). Researchers now report that they can use this gamma ray radiation to infer the number of small asteroids in different groups of small solar system bodies. However, they will have to wait to test their ideas until the new Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), launched last week by NASA, returns data.
The paper detailing this new technique will be published by researchers from the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC) and the Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics (SCIPP) at U.C. Santa Cruz in the July 10 issue of The Astrophysical Journal.
|
||
 |
||
SLAC Partners with Stanford to Reduce Chemical Waste
Activities change, laboratories close and part of the aftermath is unneeded chemicals without a purpose. In the past, instead of keeping this material—and the increased risk—in a storage cabinet, the options were to either dispose of it as hazardous waste or find someone else who wants it. Now we have another choice. Donate it to the Stanford University Surplus Chemical Redistribution program! Stanford will accept unopened, unexpired laboratory chemicals from SLAC. But it doesn’t stop there. The surplus chemicals on campus are now available to SLAC at no cost. Stanford even delivers this material to us. If you have chemicals looking for a new home or if you would like to see if Stanford has something you can use, please contact Judy Fulton (x4538). She will make all the arrangements down to the Material Safety Data Sheet. "This is truly one of those situations where everyone wins—including the earth," Fulton said. Founding Member of SLAC Passes AwayHerbert "Hobey" DeStaebler, one of the founding members of SLAC, passed away last Friday. He worked with Dick Taylor, Pief Panofsky, and many others on the very beginnings of the laboratory, and retired from SLAC in 2003. Learn more... |
Purchasing Department to Offer New ToolBeginning on June 19, the SLAC Purchasing Department will roll out a new 90/60/30-day advance notification process for customers with expiring subcontracts requiring additional performance beyond the subcontract performance period. This is one of several improvements implemented by the SLAC Improvement Initiative (SII) Procurement Management team. The notification system will alert procurement customers with an automated e-mail message 90 days prior to the subcontract expiration date. This initial message will be followed by two additional reminders at 60 and 30 days. The intended goal is to assist purchasing customers by ensuring uninterrupted subcontract support and minimizing the last minute turmoil currently associated with the subcontract renewal and option exercising processes. Along with advance procurement planning initiatives also under development, customers will be able to eliminate situations leading to ratification activities. Ratification activities are burdensome to all parties involved, so the Purchasing Department asks for your support to avoid ratifications by using this newest tool. Please contact Bob Todaro (x2425) to address any questions or to obtain any clarifications regarding this latest Purchasing Department communication tool. SHALA Interpretation Workshop TodayThe Stanford BeWell program will offer a one-hour Stanford Health and Lifestyle Assessment (SHALA) interpretation class today at 12:00 p.m. in Panofsky Auditorium. To prepare for this class, simply fill out the SHALA and then sign up for the interpretation session online. Learn more... |
Events
Access (see all)
Announcements
|
| | ||
|
|
||
<%
Response.AddHeader "Last-modified", getArticleDate()
'Response.AddHeader "Last-modified","Mon, 01 Sep 1997 01:03:33 GMT"
'Monday, December 06, 2010
%>View online at http://today.slac.stanford.edu/ |
||
