Tag Archives: Berkeley Lab
Unstable hillside closes road, relocates Berkeley Lab staff
Local photographer Daniel Parks recently posted some dramatic images on Flickr of a slumping hillside on the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory campus.
According to a page set up by Berkeley Lab to share news about the situation, “Consistent rain over the last few months has destabilized the hillside above McMillan Road between Buildings 17 and 71. The hillside continues to inch toward the road, which has been closed as a precaution. A potential landslide warrants the road closure and relocation of Building 46 occupants.” (See a map of the area here.) … Continue reading »
UC Berkeley’s Helios Building set to open in August
The Helios Building, a new addition to downtown Berkeley, is in the very final stages of construction and the scientists for whom it has been built are expected to move in over six weeks, starting on July 30.
The $133 million, 133,000 sq ft building, which stands five stories high on a two-block lot bounded by Oxford, Hearst, Berkeley Way, and Shattuck, is home to UC Berkeley’s Energy Biosciences Institute, a collaborative project between Berkeley Lab, UC Berkeley and the University of Illinois. BP (British Petroleum) has committed $500 million over the next 10 years to the institute, whose mandate is to explore the application of modern biological knowledge to the energy sector. Scientists working in the building will be exploring cellulosic fuels and bio-products among other things, including developing non-food crops to produce fuel and power.
The wedge-shaped building — which is now formally known as the Energy Biosciences Building – will also house Cal’s Synthetic Biology Institute, whose bioengineering research focuses on applications for health, food and the environment. … Continue reading »
Program trains girls to build phone apps, embrace science
The mood was serious at 8:00 am Saturday at the David Brower Center. Fifty girls from Berkeley and Albany high schools were milling around the lobby in anticipation of showing off the Android apps they had spent weeks designing.
In one corner was a team of five girls from Berkeley High with “EcoPrint,” an app that helps people trace their carbon footprint.
“It’s like a quiz. It asks questions to get a sense of your impact on the environment, like how many times did you eat meat or do you drive,” said Lauren Hoffman, a junior in Berkeley High’s International Program. “Then we give them suggestions on how to reduce their carbon imprint.”
In the opposite corner another Berkeley High team was showing off “Connect the Stars,” an app that teaches kids about the constellations.
“It’s like connect the dots,” said Donntay Moore-Thomas, a senior in the International Program. “It helps children learn about the constellations in an engaging and fun way.” … Continue reading »
From a Berkeley garage, a solar initiative that saves lives
The week before last, the city of Berkeley took time to honor two of its citizens. Laura Stachel and her husband Hal Aronson were issued with a proclamation and words of praise from Mayor Tom Bates and Councilmember Linda Maio, among others, at the April 3 meeting of the City Council. The following night, PBS Newshour ran an eight-minute segment on the couple’s work (watch it below). Six months ago, Diane Sawyer introduced Stachel as “Person of the Week” on ABC World News Tonight. Also in October, the pair appeared on CBS after winning the Nokia Tech Awards as part of the San Jose Tech Museum Tech Awards.
Such plaudits have come to the couple, who live with their kids near College Avenue in south Berkeley, because they are literally helping to save people’s lives on a regular basis, and are doing so through a combination of smarts and sheer determination. … Continue reading »
Revealed: A Berkeley restaurant guide and labor of love
Over the past 34 years, Art and Lucille Poskanzer, who dine out at least once a week, have compiled what is probably the only dedicated restaurant guide to Berkeley and Oakland. However, unless you happen to work at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, it’s unlikely you will have seen it.
That changes today, as Berkeleyside is honored to be able to introduce “Restaurants in the Berkeley Area”, which includes regularly updated reviews of 100 restaurants in Berkeley and 80 in Oakland, as well as maps and a recent news section.
The printed guide began life in 1978 as “Guide to Berkeley’s Restaurants and Hot Tubs”. It was conceived by Berkeley Lab physicist Art Poskanzer, who, that year, was tasked with hosting an international nuclear physics conference which drew in many out-of-town visitors.
“This was the days before Yelp,” Poskanzer says today. “We wanted to be able to provide a useful dining-out resource for visitors.” … Continue reading »
Lab choice may prove beneficial to Berkeley in long term
By Lance Knobel and Frances Dinkelspiel
In late September and early October, Dr. Jeff Ritterman, a member of the Richmond City Council, went down to Berkeley West Biocenter on Potter Street, one of the divisions of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. Both times, Dr. Ritterman arrived before 8 am and staked out a spot in front of the entrance. As scientists came to work, Dr. Ritterman handed them a 4×6 postcard with a picture of the Richmond shoreline, signed by a resident of that city. It was a pitch for placing LBNL’s second campus in Richmond.
“I knew the decision would be important to (lab) employees,” said Dr. Ritterman, who served as head of cardiology at Kaiser Richmond for 30 years and became a city councilman in 2009. “I knew people had some concerns about Richmond and I wanted to reassure them and make an extra effort.” … Continue reading »
Breaking: Berkeley Lab chooses Richmond for 2nd campus
The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has selected Richmond as the site for its second campus. The Lab annnounced the news this morning on its website, saying the University of California-owned Richmond Field Station site “presents the best opportunity to solve the Lab’s pressing space problems while allowing for long term growth and maintaining the 80-year tradition of close cooperation with the UC Berkeley Campus.”
Three Berkeley-connected sites were on a shortlist of six for the campus. They were: Berkeley Aquatic Park West, located in West Berkeley; Emeryville/Berkeley, (which included properties currently occupied by the Lab in Emeryville and West Berkeley); and Golden Gate Fields, spanning the cities of Berkeley and Albany.
The Lab had originally said it would announce its decision in November 2011, but revised that to “early in 2012″ in late November, saying it needed more time to fully evaluate its options. … Continue reading »
Misconceptions about scientists, this one at Berkeley Lab
Daniel Parks is one of Berkeleyside’s favorite photographers. You will have seen, and probably admired, many of his images here over the years, including “Storm over Berkeley”, the photograph we recently offered as a gift to readers who lent their support to the site.
Parks is not, it may surprise you to learn, a professional photographer. He is, in fact, based at the Berkeley Lab, doing research for his doctorate.
Parks recently uploaded to the Berkeleyside Flickr pool … Continue reading »
Berkeley Lab second campus decision delayed into 2012
Cities and developers eagerly awaiting a decision on the second campus for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are going to have to wait a little longer. When the lab announced its program to find a second campus, the choice among the six shortlisted sites — three with footprints in Berkeley — was scheduled for this month. Today the lab announced it expected the decision in early 2012.
“We have been working diligently over the past months since announcing our list of finalists,” said Berkeley Lab Director Paul Alivisatos in the lab’s notice of the delay. “We need a bit more time to fully evaluate our options and to confer with stakeholders in order to arrive at the best possible decision. We have a number of excellent options before us. Our goal now is to complete this phase of the process and announce a preferred site as soon as we can.” … Continue reading »
Berkeley’s Saul Perlmutter wins Nobel Prize in Physics
Update 7:30 a.m. “It’s the only reason to win a Nobel Prize,” replied Saul Perlmutter to Berkeleyside during a teleconference early this morning. The new Nobel laureate was replying to our question about when he would receive the prized NL parking permit, reserved for laureates on the Berkeley campus. He expects to pick it up today, he said.
Perlmutter said he first heard about the prize when his phone rang at 2:45 a.m. this morning. A Swedish reporter asked him, “How do you feel?” “How do I feel about what?” Perlmutter replied. Perlmutter’s wife hurried to check the web to see if the call was a hoax. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences reached Perlmutter at about 3:15 a.m. with the official call.
Perlmutter said the academy had called the wrong cellphone number earlier, because one of his colleagues, a Swedish physicist, still had an old number in his contact list.
The discovery that led to the prize was described by Perlmutter as “the slowest aha moment you’ve ever heard”. He explained how he and his team spent four months sifting data from their observations of type 1a supernovae, expecting that further calibration would allow the data to plot “where we expected it to”. Instead, the data were absolutely in contradiction to “the elements of physics that we knew about”.
“This was a big shock,” Perlmutter said. … Continue reading »
Aquatic Park pitches for Berkeley Lab 2nd campus tonight
Yesterday, Golden Gate Fields had its turn in the spotlight at a public meeting held by the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab to discuss that location as one of the six possibles on its shortlist for its second campus. Richmond, Alameda and Oakland have all had their chance to shine, and Monday August 8th will see a pitch by Wareham Development for a Berkeley/Emeryville site.
Tonight Aquatic Park West, the only site that is 100% in Berkeley, will be presenting its case.
The site is co-owned by Michael and Steven Goldin and the Jones Family. The Goldins would act as partners to Forest City, the developers of the 12.5 acre site off Bolivar Drive. As it has done at all the meetings, the Lab will talk about its requirements — UC Berkeley’s Professor Jay Keasling is among those who will be on the platform today — and members of the public will be invited to share their views. … Continue reading »
Berkeley sites for Lab’s second campus in the spotlight
As the Berkeley Lab rolls into town this week to hold three public meetings about a second campus, there has been a lot of speculation about which community will be the best cheerleader. The bar has already been set high: Richmond had drummers and dancers perform at its meeting, Oakland put forward its mayor, and Alameda had a packed house.
But a curious thing happened in each community meeting. Instead of the cities wooing the Lab, the Lab … Continue reading »
