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News in Brief

SLAC is No Slacker
aerial view of SLAC facilityScientists at DOE's Stanford Linear Accelerator Center's (SLAC) B-Factory not only reached, but exceeded the design luminosity of the B-Factory's PEP II collider. Since its startup in May 1999 until now, the B-Factory has exceeded the performance expectations of even its builders. This on-time, on-budget facility was a $177 million collaborative project among SLAC, the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, and the Lawrence Livermore National Lab.

The B-Factory accelerates two beams of subatomic particles to nearly the speed of light, and particle collisions from the two counter-rotating beams are tracked by a detector known as BaBar. Starting in July 2000, PEP II exceeded the design per month B meson production culminating in its best operations during the month of October, delivering 10 percent more B mesons than expected during an original "design month" along with other interesting events for ancillary areas of physics that deal with charm and tau particles. Since May 1999, PEP II and BaBar have recorded more than 23 million B mesons, giving physicists a rich supply for study. During the 3-month shutdown of the B-Factory now in progress, several large installation tasks will be performed. PEP-II and BaBar will turn on again on February 1, 2001, and run until August 31, 2001.
For more information, see the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center website

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Fermi Awards Announced
Enrico Fermi Medal On November 9, 2000, President Clinton named Sheldon Datz, Sidney Drell, and Herbert York as winners of the Enrico Fermi Award, given for a lifetime of achievement in the field of nuclear energy. Dr. Datz will receive the award for his pioneering research in atomic and chemical physics. Dr. Drell will receive the award for his contributions to arms control and national security and to particle physics. Dr. York will receive the award for his efforts for nuclear deterrence and arms control agreements.

"These scientists have made important contributions in the fields of chemistry and physics," President Clinton said. "Their pioneering work in the very complex area of arms control has benefited our nation and the world."

The winners will each receive a gold medal and a $66,000 honorarium. The Department of Energy administers the Fermi Award for the White House, and Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson will present the awards on December 18 in a ceremony in Washington, D.C.

For more informaton, see the Enrico Fermi Award website.

Lightweight Land Mine Detector
Timed Neutron DetectorThe DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has developed an affordable, easy-to-use landmine detector called the Timed Neutron Detector. This technology can detect mines containing little or no metal. The system can scan a 100-square-foot area—about the size of a child's bedroom—at a walking pace. The detector is lightweight and portable.

"If a detection system is easy to use and affordable, there's a greater chance Third World countries will use it," said Richard Craig, PNNL principal investigator. "We have focused on building a system that meets the requirements of those countries, because they have the greatest need for clearing mines."

The Timed Neutron Detector uses physics to detect the presence of a landmine. Specifically, the system detects hydrogen, which is present in casings and explosives found in plastic or metal landmines, and its interactions with neutrons.

This research was supported by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences. For more information about how the landmine detector works, see the PNNL website.

Media Contact: Staci Maloof, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, (509) 372-6313, staci.maloof@pnl.gov
Research Contact: For inquiries about this research, call 1-888-375-PNNL, or inquiry@pnl.gov

Two New Information Access Tools
The Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) released two new tools this past August for researchers in response to the "Workshop on Future Information Infrastructure for the Physical Sciences," held in May 2000.

GrayLit NetworkThe first new tool is the "GrayLIT Network," which provides single-query public access to more than 100,000 full-text scientific and technical reports sponsored by several Federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), NASA, the Department of Defense (DOD), and the Department of Energy (DOE). This new interagency product was designed by OSTI in collaboration with several other government agency participants.

Federal R&D Project SummariesThe second is a web-based interagency tool called "Federal R&D Project Summaries," which improves access to federally sponsored research and development. This tool was developed in conjunction with the National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) to provide access to over 240,000 research and development summaries and awards from NSF, NIH, and DOE.

The workshop concluded that scientists are changing the way science is being done and traditional means of access to the scholarly record are no longer sufficient to meet researchers' needs and expectations. Rapid advances in information technology are dramatically altering the nature of scientific communications and are providing ways to realize what could only be envisioned in the past. The workshop emphasized that the ability to compete is based on an ability to know quickly. OSTI has been at the forefront of creating electronic information access tools, providing a portal to a host of information access resources at EnergyFiles, the Virtual Library of Energy Science and Technology.

A report from the "Workshop on Future Information Infrastructure for the Physical Sciences" is available electronically at http://www.osti.gov/physicalsciences.—Karen J. Spence

Contact: Walter L. Warnick, Office of Scientific and Technical Information, (301) 903-7996, walter.warnick@science.doe.gov

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