SLAC Today is available online at:
http://today.slac.stanford.edu

In this issue:
Main Control Center Gets Ergonomic Update
SLAC Users Organization Elections Open
Annual Winter Contractor Clean Up Begins
Around SLAC: Wire Scanners
LHC a Time Magazine Best Invention of 2008

SLAC Today

Monday - November 17, 2008

Main Control Center Gets Ergonomic Update

The newly updated Main Control Center. (Click on image for larger version.)

The Main Control Center, from which operators monitor and control the beams in the linear accelerator facility, is usually fairly quiet during the annual two-month shutdown. But this year, the operators were hard at work leading a renovation project to improve the ergonomics of the MCC and fully integrate controls for the Linac Coherent Light Source.

"This was really a ground-up effort," said Roger Erickson, head of the Accelerator Operations Department. "It was the MCC operators who figured out what needed to be done to make the area more ergonomically safe, how to do it, and how to make it happen."

The MCC was originally built in the 1970s, and although over the years it's had several updates, it was very much time for another, said Robin Gold, an Engineering Operator in Charge who was actively involved in the project. "This room is staffed 24 hours a day with people of all sizes and shapes, sometimes on 12 hour shifts," she said. "When you have to monitor a large number of display screens for a long period of time, it can lead to neck and back pain if the room isn't designed with ergonomics in mind."  Read more...

SLAC Users Organization Elections Open

(Image - SLUO logo)

The polls are open for the election of the new 2009 members of the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory Users Organization Executive Committee. In addition to the annual election of four new members to fill rotating 3-year terms, two recent vacancies will be filled. All members of the SLAC Particle Physics and Astrophysics community are invited to participate. Online voting is open until midnight December 5.

Registered members of SLUO are eligible to vote. If you are not yet a member of SLUO, you can register online or send e-mail to SLUO administrator Jill Meyers.

SLUO represents the interests of SLAC particle physics and astrophysics scientific users to the lab management and to funding agencies and members of Congress in Washington, DC.  Please do your part to see that SLUO has as strong a leadership as possible. Please vote.

Annual Winter Contractor Clean Up Begins

It's that time of year again... All supervisors are asked to please assist the Human Resources Department in removing terminated contractors from the laboratory database. Later this week, HR will e-mail additional information on how you can help with this process.

Around SLAC:
Wire Scanners

(Photo - LCLS wire scanner)
(Photo by Brad Plummer. Click for larger image.)

Beam profile wire scanners such as this one are used in the Linac Coherent Light Source to determine the physical size of the electron beam before it enters the undulator magnets. A wire inside the scanner is moved back and forth across the beam to directly detect the edges of the passing electron pulse.

LHC a Time Magazine Best Invention of 2008

What’s better than a bionic hand, but not quite as good as an electric sports car? The Large Hadron Collider, according to Time Magazine. This month the magazine awarded the LHC fifth place in its annual list of the top 50 inventions of the year.

The top invention of 2008 was a retail DNA test that makes personal genotyping available to anyone who can afford the $399 price. Rounding out the top five were a $100,000 electric sports car, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and an online hub for network TV shows and movies.  Read more in symmetry breaking.

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