To Kyoto!

For the second time in my life, I will be flying across the Pacific to visit a new continent.  The first time was my study abroad year in Australia in 2000-2001.

This time, I will be presenting a poster at the 25th International Conference on Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics (Neutrino 2012) in Kyoto, Japan.  The entire MINOS collaboration has been intensely preparing for this conference for many weeks now.

As the name suggests, this is the most important conference in neutrino physics and is only held every two years.  It will be the final conference at which we can present results from new data since our beam was shutdown at the end of April in preparation for a year-long upgrade for the NOvA experiment, which is currently under construction.   Also, at the end of this year, the MINOS collaboration will officially cease to exist and be replaced by MINOS+, which will continue to operate the MINOS detectors in the NOvA era.

I will be sure to post the poster here once I have posted it at the conference.

Surprised It Actually Worked!

Though this is Bike to Work Week, the picture above is from a bicycle trip to our neighborhood grocery store Berkeley Finer Foods.  They had 40 pound packs of charcoal on sale, and we decided to buy one for grilling this summer.  I decided to try getting it on my bicycle.  It was easier than I expected.  With a few bungee cords and the pack balanced on my rear bike rack, I was able to bring coals, bike, and rider home safely.   It is a amazing what we can do when we are sufficiently determined to find a way.

Practical Benefits of Particle Physics #7

A particle accelerator named ALICE (not to be confused with the LHC experiment of the same name) is researching and developing an energy recovery technique.  It also may be able to generate infrared laser light that may be able to enable early diagnosis of esophageal cancer.