CERN Accelerating science

     
 

CERN
Bulletin

   
 

Measuring past a micron...

Infinity: That is the name of the new ultra-precision machine used by CERN's Metrology Service to measure the copper components for the CLIC accelerating structures. This project is the result of a collaboration between CLIC and the EN Department. Curious to find out more? Read on because there’ll be an opportunity for you to get a very close look at Infinity!  >>

The start of the harvest

The first major particle physics summer conference has just started this week in Grenoble. After the Quark-Matter conference, the Europhysics Conference on High-Energy Physics marks the start of a promising harvest for the LHC experiments. >>

LHC Report: Rocky Recovery

The last technical stop finished on Friday 8 July, but the machine returned to its pre-stop performance level over a week later. >>

ELENA prepares a bright future for antimatter research

At its recent session in June, the CERN Council approved the construction of the Extra Low ENergy Antiproton ring (ELENA) – an upgrade of the existing Antiproton Decelerator. ELENA will allow the further deceleration of antiprotons, resulting in an increased number of particles trapped downstream in the experimental set-ups. This will give an important boost to antimatter research in the years to come. >>

Strengthening the link between science and society

On Friday 8 July, the lifts in the Main Building filled with directors-general, assistant directors-general, chiefs of staff, and secretaries-general from a veritable alphabet soup of international organisations. They were heading to a round-table discussion about science and society, chaired by CERN Director-General, Rolf Heuer. >>

BlogForever: Intelligent Blog Preservation

A new EU co-funded project, BlogForever, has set its sights on a developing region of the Internet: the blogosphere. With society growing ever more online-oriented, blogs have become rich repositories of cultural, scientific and social information. The BlogForever software platform is designed to manage and distribute this content and preserve it for posterity. >>

Looking at CERN from a different perspective

Although the vast majority of students at CERN study and work on projects in the physics, engineering or IT fields, there are some who come to use CERN as a subject to complement their research in other fields. Larissa Kuchina, a graphic design student, and Jérôme Wohlschlag, an architectural student, completed their degrees and their dissertations on unusual aspects of the Laboratory. Both offer valuable perspectives that are not necessarily the ones we usually encounter. >>

The Google Science Fair winner comes to CERN

Shree Bose, the Google Science Fair Grand Prize winner, will come to CERN for a three-day internship. She is looking forward to it and hopes to sit in the CERN Control Room, and to learn more about ALICE and in general the work going on here right now. >>

Product Lifecycle Management: CERN to host an important international conference

CERN designs, builds and operates machines that contain millions of items of many types, such as software, electronics, and electrical, mechanical and chemical components. It is a challenge to maintain a coherent configuration of everything that has been developed and installed. To do this, CERN developed the EDMS system – an integrated Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) platform that enables management of all the information related to the entire lifecycle of each single component. On 5 and 6 September CERN will host an international PLM conference at which participants will exchange experience and address how best to apply PLM in their organisations. >>

CERN takes over the EIROforum Chairmanship

On 1 July 2011, CERN took over the chairmanship of EIROforum for a period of one year. The EIROforum calendar of activities for the period of the CERN chairmanship includes the organisation of many events and the launch of new initiatives. >>

e-EPS News: Consultation on European Research, Innovation & Gender

e-EPS News is a monthly addition to the CERN Bulletin line-up, showcasing an article by the e-EPS – the European Physical Society newsletter – as part of a new collaboration between the two publications. >>

The “Theoreticals” Pack

The Particle Zoo is a colourful set of hand-made soft toys representing the particles in the Standard Model and beyond. It includes a “theoreticals” pack where you can find yet undiscovered particles: the best-selling Higgs boson, the graviton, the tachyon, and dark matter. Supersymmetric particle soft toys are also available on demand. But what would happen to the zoo if Nature had prepared some unexpected surprises? Julie Peasley, the zookeeper, is ready to sew new smiling faces… >>

First ‘Gentner Doktor’ finishes PhD at CERN

In 2007, the CERN Doctoral Student Programme saw the addition of the Gentner Doctoral Student Programme, named in honour of the celebrated nuclear physicist, Wolfgang Gentner. Four years later, on 22 June 2011, Marcel Schuh finished his PhD with a thesis in the field of accelerator technology and became the very first ‘Gentner Doktor’. >>

Two national teams train at CERN

The Swedish and Czech national orienteering teams trained at CERN on Wednesday, at the invitation of the president of the orienteering club, Lennart Jirdén. >>

1000 passwords exposed, what about yours?

In the last three issues of the Bulletin, we have stressed the importance of the secrecy of your password. Remember: Your password should be treated like a toothbrush: do not share it, and change it regularly! And this is not only valid for your CERN password, but also for any other password you use to log into your university or laboratory, Facebook or Twitter portals, or other web sites. >>

Ombuds’ corner: Fear of retaliation?

In this series, the Bulletin aims to explain the role of the Ombuds at CERN by presenting practical examples of misunderstandings that could have been resolved by the Ombuds if he had been contacted earlier. Please note that, in all the situations we present, the names are fictitious and used only to improve clarity. >>

News from the Library: Ebooks: 15,000 and counting

After an inspiring lecture of the Summer Student program, would you like to get hold of the books suggested by the speaker? The Library is there to help you. >>

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