Ames Laboratory is expanding its recycling efforts to include laboratory glass. The Laboratory supports Iowa State University and the city of Ames’ efforts to reduce/eliminate glass from the solid waste stream and landfill. Instead of placing your laboratory glass into broken glass boxes (Fig. 1), please use the specially marked glass-recycling containers, plastic Tidy Cat® containers, (Fig. 2). ESH&A provides these new containers for your unwanted (broken or intact) laboratory glass.
 Fig. 1 Broken Glass Boxes |
Fig. 2. NEW Glass-Recycling Containers |
NEW CONTAINERS
There is no cost for the glass-recycling containers. Containers are for laboratory glass only (e.g. beakers, pipettes, flasks, etc.). Do not place any chemical bottles in the containers; leave them beside the glass-recycling container for ESH&A to pick-up. Full glass-recycling containers will be picked-up by ESH&A, emptied, and returned for reuse. Food/beverage glass-recycling containers are located in breakroom areas.
Questions, need a glass-recycling container, need your glass container emptied, or need your broken glass boxes removed? Please contact Dan Kayser at kayser@ameslab or 294-7923. Your participation is greatly appreciated!!
Fifteen students from the Greenlee School of Journalism walked away with a better understanding of Ames Laboratory science after visiting with Ryan Ott, associate scientist. The students were at the Lab as part of the Greenlee Project, a program in which students from the school’s science writing class interview Ames Laboratory scientists on their work and then try to get their stories published in the Iowa State Daily.
Ott discussed his research on rare-earth recycling, as well as his other research projects. The students will be searching for stories and then contacting Lab scientists about their research.
Due to Apple iMac LCD issues, we are seeing a delay in delivery times. Standard models are running 6-10 weeks lead-time and customized units are running 8-12 weeks lead-time. Please contact the purchasing department to review options when considering an Apple (iMac) purchase.
Many of you may have already received notices of some kind via email, AccessPlus or postcard at your home address regarding an important employee benefit, Group Long Term Care Insurance with Genworth Financial.
The enrollment period for this benefit is a short one beginning Jan. 22, 2013 to Feb. 15, 2013.
The ISU Benefits Office has issued the following information when considering long term care insurance:
“It covers expenses for long term care services received at home, in the community or in a nursing facility. Here are a few quick points to consider:
- Neither health nor disability insurance will cover this kind of care.
- Relying on government programs may not be a viable solution.
- Without insurance, the costs of these services may have to come out of your savings or income.”
For more information, you may visit https://www.genworth.com/groupltc
and use Group ID: ISU and Access Code: groupltc. To speak with an expert about this benefit, please call 800-416-3624.
The Ames Laboratory will be hosting a watch session on Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2013 at 10 a.m. If you are interested in viewing the webinar and obtaining more information about this employee benefit, please report to 151 TASF at this time.
If you are unable to attend the watch session or would prefer attending a live presentation with a Genworth representative available to answer questions, please see the following list of webinars and live presentations available:
Webinars
- Tuesday, Feb. 12 at 1:30pm
- Wednesday, Feb. 13 at 10am
Live Presentations at the Memorial Union
- Tuesday, Feb. 5 at 9 a.m. and noon in the Gold Room, open house until 1:30 p.m.
- Wednesday, Feb. 6 at 9 a.m. and noon in the Cardinal Room, open house until 1:30 p.m.
- Thursday, Feb. 7 at 9 a.m., noon and 3 p.m. in the Gold Room, open house until 4:30 p.m.
For more information regarding Long Term Care Insurance including webinar and live presentation details, please visit the ISU Benefits website at http://www.hrs.iastate.edu/hrs/node/554.
Bethesda Community Food Pantry and the Raising Readers in Story County program offer their thanks and appreciation for the generosity of Ames Laboratory employees. The two organizations received proceeds from the record-setting 2012 Holiday Auction.
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Budget uncertainty brought on by Congress' running battle over the possible sequestration and the fiscal cliff was the focus of an all hands meeting Jan. 11. Lab Director Alex King discussed potential scenarios and impacts on the Ames Lab.
"We simply don't know what's going to happen but I feel a whole lot better about it than I did on Monday before we found out about the (CMI) Hub proposal," King said. "We're not even allowed to plan for it, DOE hasn't told us what their plans are and in fact, the White House has told federal agencies not to make plans and certainly not to announce plans. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t take a look at what we can do now to try and make the eventual impact as painless as possible.”
According to King, some estimates would put the automatic budget cuts for federal science programs at 11 percent, compared to a 7.8 percent overall cut. The difference is because some program areas cannot be cut, so deeper cuts are required in other areas.
“We don’t know if the automatic (sequestration) cuts will be replaced with negotiated cuts,” he said. “We do not know whether the alternative will be better or worse for us than the across the board cuts. We hope they’ll be better … the President in the past has said he sees science as an economic investment. But it’s not clear whether science will be protected.”
It’s also unclear how DOE will handle any cuts, he said. Pay freezes, travel freezes, hiring freezes, as well as furloughs are possible but there has been no discussion. It’s unknown whether DOE would make targeted cuts or consider the strength of programs before swinging the budget ax.
“Based on our most recent report card, we are one of the stronger programs,” King said. “We’re the third or fourth highest lab based on our scientific performance. They are hearing loud and clear from the lab directors that we can manage our money better than they can manage our money.”
Short of implementing a plan, King asked Lab staff to be cognizant of spending, particularly in the area of travel and utility costs. While travel is essential in many cases, the number of people from a particular group could be reduced. The greater use of teleconferencing was also suggested as another way to reduce travel expenditures.
“Our utility usage as a percentage of our total budget is also high in comparison to other labs,” King pointed out. “So make sure that fume hoods are in setback mode whenever possible.”
Staff can also review refrigerator use and go with the smallest unit reasonable to address needs. Coffee pots, lights and computer equipment should also be monitored closely to reduce energy usage.
Through several graphs, King showed how reducing or delaying expenditures now can dramatically affect the Lab’s ability to cover cuts that may occur later in the fiscal year. With a shorter amount of time over which to spread the cuts, the impact of such cuts is deeper, so a dollar saved now can in effect help offset a two or three dollar cut in the future.
“The less we spend now, the more it helps us to be able to cover potential cuts down the road,” he said.
The Ames Laboratory Director was one of four participants in a DOE Energylive Google+ Hangout that helped introduce and explain the new Critical Materials Institute. In addition to Alex King, who will serve as CMI Director, the Hangout included David Sandalow, DOE Assistant Secretary for Policy and International Affairs; Steve Duclos, Chief Scientist at GE Global Research; and Dan Leistikow, DOE Public Affairs.
The panel fielded questions from viewers via social media and email, explaining what critical materials are, how and where they're used, and how the CMI will help address development of a secure supply of these materials for the future. To view the entire Hangout, click on the video below.
Costas Soukoulis, an Ames Laboratory Senior Scientist and a Distinguished Professor of Physics at Iowa State University has been selected as a recipient of the 2013 James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials from the American Physical Society. In selecting him for the award, the committee cited Soukoulis "for the discovery of metamaterials."
Soukoulis was part of a team of researchers selected for the award that included John B. Pendry (Imperial College) and David R. Smith (Duke University). The three have been instrumental in creating the revolutionary field of left-handed materials (LHMs), also called negative index materials (NIMs) or metamaterials, extending the realm of electromagnetism, and opening up exciting new applications.
The prize was established in 1997 to recognize and encourage outstanding achievement in the science and application of new materials. This includes the discovery of new classes of materials, the observation of novel phenomena in known materials leading to both fundamentally new applications and scientific insights, and also includes theoretical and experimental work contributing significantly to the understanding of such phenomena.
The prize, awarded annually and endowed by IBM, consists of $10,000 plus a certificate citing the contribution of the recipient and an allowance for travel to the meeting of the Society at which the award is presented. Soukoulis will receive the prize at the APS meeting March 18-22 in Baltimore.
Soukoulis received his B.Sc. from University of Athens in 1974. He obtained his Ph. D. in Physics from the University of Chicago in 1978. From 1978 to 1981 he was at the Physics Dept. at University of Virginia. He spent 3 years (1981-84) at Exxon Research and Engineering Co. and since 1984 has been at Iowa State University (ISU) and Ames Laboratory. He has been an associated member of IESL-FORTH at Heraklion, Crete, since 1983.
His research interest is to develop theoretical understanding of the properties of disordered systems, with emphasis on electron and photon localization, photonic crystals, random lasers, and metamaterials. The theoretical models developed are often quite sophisticated to accurately reflect the complexity of real materials.
Soukoulis received the senior Humboldt Research Award; he shared the Descartes award for research on metamaterials; received an honorary doctorate from Vrije University in Brussels and the first Frances M. Craig endowed chair in Physics at ISU. He is Fellow of the APS, OSA, and AAAS. He has served on several boards and committees for organizations, including NSF, DOE, and European Union and he is a member of the editorial board of PRL. He has been a member or a chairman of various scientific committees responsible for various international conferences.
Pleasant Valley High School of Bettendorf defeated Dubuque Wahlert High School (Dubuque, IA) 74-44 to capture the 2013 Ames Laboratory/Iowa State University Regional High School Science Bowl on Jan. 26. Pleasant Valley, which lost only one match all day in the morning qualifying round, advances to the Department of Energy’s National Science Bowl, April 25-29 in Washington, D.C.
Wahlert advanced to the championship match of the daylong quiz-bowl-style competition by defeating another team from Dubuque in the semifinals. Wahlert edged Dubuque Senior High School 56-48 in a very close match. Had Senior answered the final 10-point bonus question correctly, it would have advanced to the finals.
The Pleasant Valley team is comprised of juniors Allen Wang, Deepon Sarkar, Vivian Medithi, and Ben Bruster, and sophomore Mary Sears and is coached by Jamie Homb. Competing for Wahlert were Zach DeMoully, Sam LoBianco, Timothy Miller, Adam Bradley and Raj Mehta and coached by Tom Stierman. The Dubuque Senior team was Blaine Tunnell, Justin Yuan, Ben Martin, Megan Valentine and Ryan Polley with coach Wendy Gibbons.
Grinnell High School, in its very first year of competition, finished fourth. A total of 40 teams from across Iowa competed in the Ames Lab/ISU Regional Science Bowl. Besides the top four finishers, the following teams were among the 16 who advanced to the double elimination afternoon session: West Des Moines Valley, Iowa City Regina, Dubuque Hempstead, Cedar Rapids Xavier, Des Moines Central Academy, Boyer Valley (Dunlap), Ames, Waukon, Pella, Home Schools of Eastern Iowa, Williamsburg and Lake Mills.
1st Place - Pleasant Valley Front (l-r) Allen Wang, Vivian Medithi, and Deepon Sarkar; back (l-r) coach Jamie Homb, Ben Bruster, Mary Sears, Ames Laboratory Director Alex King. |
2nd Place - Dubuque Wahlert Front (l-r) Tim Miller, Adam Bradley, Zach DeMoulley; back (l-r) Ames Laboratory Director Alex King, Raj Mehta, Sam LoBianco, and coach Tom Stierman. |
3rd Place - Dubuque Senior Front (l-r) Rayn Polley, Blaine Tunnell, Ben Martin; back (l-r) Ames Laboratory Director Alex King, Justin Yuan, Megan Valentine, coach Wendy Gibbons. |
| Science Bowl 2013 | ||
 (l-r) Timekeeper Jim Anderegg, moderator David Grant, judge Stacey Althaus and scorekeeper Wyatt Hagen run one of the competition rooms. |
 ISU Provost Jonathan Wickert welcomes the participants. |
 Dubuque Hempstead answers a question. |
 Central Academy coach Scott Schoneberg (left) and Ames Lab Director Alex King show off their Einstein neckties. |
 The little brother of a Pleasant Valley player tries on his brother's Science Bowl T-shirt. |
 Dubuque Senior captain Blaine Tunnell dejected watches the championship match after his team lost on the final question to cross-town rival Dubuque Wahlert to finish in third. |
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 First-year team Grinnell readies for action. The team finished fourth overall. |
 Volunteers (l-r) Samantha Lodge, Emerald Wilson, Diane Bassham in one of the Pearson Hall rooms. |
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(Above) Dubuque Wahlert coach Tom Stierman and his wife watch nervously as the team competes in the championship match. (left) Dubuque Wahlert's (l-r) Zach DeMoulley, Raj Mehta, Sam LoBianco and Tim Miller ponder a bonus question. |
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 (Above) Pleasant Valley's (l-r) Ben Bruster, Vivian Medithi, Allen Wang and Mary Sears debate the answer to a bonus question while (left) coach Jamie Homb looks on. |
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