ALSNews Vol. 225, june 25, 2003
ALSNews is a biweekly electronic newsletter to keep users and other interested parties informed about developments at the Advanced Light Source, a national user facility located at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California. To be placed on the mailing list, send your name and complete internet address to ALSNews@lbl.gov. We welcome suggestions for topics and content.
Previous Issues are available.
Table of Contents
- High-Quality X-Ray Scattering Data for Water
- ALS and SSRL Staff Meet to Coordinate Efforts
- Approved Program Policy: Letters of Interest
- ALS Makes Its Debut on Silver Screen
- Who's in Town: A Sampling of ALS Users
- Operations Update
1. HIGH-QUALITY X-RAY SCATTERING DATA FOR WATER
by Art Robinson
(Contact: TLHead-Gordon@lbl.gov)
Given the importance of water, it is no surprise that determining the geometrical structure of this life-giving liquid has a long history. In principle, an accurate characterization of the structure of liquid water can be obtained from x-ray and neutron scattering experiments. However, the inconsistency in the experimental results over the past 30 years means that an accurate measurement of water structure is still needed. A group from the University of California, Berkeley, and Berkeley Lab has now reported improved x-ray scattering data taken at the ALS for pure water over the biologically relevant temperature range of 2 to 77 degrees Celsius. Not only are the new data of higher quality than in the past, but the x-ray scattering intensities are qualitatively different.
Read the full story at http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/science/sci_archive/63water.html.
Publications about this research: G. Hura, D. Russo, R.M. Glaeser, T. Head-Gordon, M. Krack, and M. Parrinello, "Water structure as a function of temperature from x-ray scattering experiments and ab initio molecular dynamics," Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. (PCCP) 5, 1981 (2003) and T. Head-Gordon and G. Hura, "Water structure from scattering experiments and simulation," Chem. Rev. 102, 2651 (2002).
2. ALS AND SSRL STAFF MEET TO COORDINATE EFFORTS
(Contact: ZHussain@lbl.gov)
Continued communication and cooperation were goals of the third annual coordination meeting, held on June 11, between representatives of the ALS and the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL). Since 2001, the two West-Coast light sources have been committed to working together and keeping the lines of communication open through high-level meetings held annually at alternating sites. This year's meeting was held at SSRL, and agenda items included the coordination of strategic plans; research and development projects; demonstration experiments for future facilities (e.g., Sub-Picosecond Pulse Source, slicing source); the timing of shutdowns (including accommodating users during SSRL's SPEAR upgrade shutdown); coordination of users' meetings, workshops, and conferences (such as SRI 2003); and various other opportunities for sharing lessons learned and avoiding duplication of effort. Specific R&D projects addressed were high-speed (GHz) detectors, advanced (superconducting, small-gap) insertion devices, electron gun improvements, x-ray compression, and beamline and endstation development. Participants also discussed ideas for a common, easily understood metric to be used by light sources for evaluating a facility's current capabilities against its full future potential. After the meeting, the ALS visitors were given a tour of the recently completed, 112-room Stanford Linear Accelerator Center Guest House. ALS participants included Daniel Chemla, Neville Smith, Ben Feinberg, Zahid Hussain, Gary Krebs, David Robin, John Corlett, Peter Denes, Phil Heimann, Steve Marks, and Thomas Earnest. SSRL representatives included Keith Hodgson, Jo Stohr, Herman Winick, Jerry Hastings, Gordon Brown, Anders Nilsson, Piero Pianetta, Britt Hedman, and John Galayda.
3. APPROVED PROGRAM POLICY: LETTERS OF INTEREST
(Contact: NVSmith@lbl.gov)
An Approved Program (AP) policy has been devised jointly by ALS management, the Science Advisory Committee, the Users' Executive Committee, and the general sciences Proposal Study Panel (PSP). AP status enables an investigator or group of investigators to receive an assured percentage of beamtime for a period of a few years to carry out an extended program of research. The process for acquiring AP status begins with the submission of a short letter of interest by a principal investigator through the User Services Office for consideration by the PSP. The next meeting of the general sciences PSP will be on July 18, 2003. Letters of interest received by July 11 will be forwarded to them for their consideration. As AP time slots become available, the PSP will solicit full proposals from investigators either self-identified through letters of interest or nominated by the PSP itself as well as from AP investigators coming up for renewal. For more detailed information on the AP policy and procedure, go to http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/uec/UserPolicy.html.
4. ALS MAKES ITS DEBUT ON SILVER SCREEN
Standing in for the "Berkeley Nuclear Biotechnology Institute," the ALS made its big-screen debut last weekend as the birthplace of "The Hulk," the latest comic-book character to come to life at the movies. Director Ang Lee and cast members Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, and Nick Nolte were on site last year to film the ALS location scenes, including several shots of the ALS patio, lobby, and mezzanine offices as well as a few panoramas of San Francisco Bay. A special return trip was made this past April to film Hulk creator Stan Lee and TV Hulk Lou Ferrigno walking out of the ALS lobby in cameo roles as security guards. In one climactic scene, the Hulk rips the Gammasphere (a real-life gamma detector portrayed in the movie as a gamma source) from its connections and hurls it through the wall of the ALS. Anyone who has ever felt frustrated by a piece of equipment may be able to relate.
5. WHO'S IN TOWN: A SAMPLING OF ALS USERS
Following are some of the experimenters who will be collecting data during the next two weeks at the ALS.
Beamline 1.4.3
Hoi-Ying Holman (Berkeley Lab)
Beamline 4.0.2
Jo Stohr (Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory)
Beamlines 5.0.1, 5.0.2, 5.0.3
Peter Hwang (Univ. of California, San Francisco)
Marc Jacobs (Vertex Pharmaceuticals)
Richard Brennan (Oregon Health & Science University)
Xiayang Qiu (Pfizer Global Research and Development)
Russell Doolittle (Univ. of California, San Diego)
Ian Wilson (The Scripps Research Institute)
William Somers (Wyeth-Ayerst Research)
Tina Izard (St. Jude Children's Research Hospital)
Ed Berry (Berkeley Lab)
Nigel Walker (Tularik, Inc.)
Glen Spraggon (Novartis Institute for Functional Genomics)
Beamline 5.3.2
Harald Ade (North Carolina State Univ.)
Gary Mitchell (The Dow Chemical Company)
Adam Hitchcock (McMaster Univ., Canada)
Beamline 7.0.1
Steve Kevan (Univ. of Oregon)
Jim Tobin (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)
Beamline 7.3.1.1
Geoffrey Thornton (Manchester Univ., UK)
Beamlines 8.2.1, 8.2.2
Jennifer Doudna (Univ. of California, Berkeley, and Berkeley Lab)
Axel Brunger (Stanford Univ.)
Stephen Lippard (Massachusetts Instititue of Technology)
Wim Hol (Univ. of Washington)
Christopher Garcia (Stanford Univ.)
Elizabeth Getzoff (Research Institute of Scripps Clinic)
Beamline 9.3.2
Artur Braun (Univ. of Kentucky)
Beamline 10.0.1
Dan Dessau (Univ. of Colorado at Boulder)
Nora Berrah (Western Michigan Univ.)
Beamline 10.3.2
Donald Sparks (Univ. of Delaware)
6. OPERATIONS UPDATE
(Contact: Lampo@lbl.gov)
For the user runs of June 3 - 8, 10 - 15, and 18 - 23, the beam reliability (time delivered/time scheduled) was 99%. Of the scheduled beam, 94% was delivered to completion without interruption. There were no significant outages.
Long-term and weekly operations schedules are available on the Web (http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/schedules/index.html). Requests for special operations use of the "scrubbing" shift should be sent to Bruce Samuelson (ALS-CR@lbl.gov, x4738) by 1:00 p.m. Friday. The Accelerator Status Hotline at (510) 486-6766 (ext. 6766 from Lab phones) features a recorded message giving up-to-date information on the operational status of the accelerator. A Web page showing the ring status in real time can be found at http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/status/.
ALSNews is a biweekly electronic newsletter to keep users informed about developments at the Advanced Light Source, a national user facility located at Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California. To be placed on the mailing list, send your email address to ALSNews@lbl.gov. We welcome suggestions for topics and content. Submissions are due the Friday before the issue date.
LBNL/PUB-875
Editors: lstamura@lbl.gov, alrobinson@lbl.gov, amgreiner@lbl.gov
This work was supported by the Director, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC03-76SF00098.