Contents of this Issue:
1. Science Highlight —
A Golden Ruler Used to Measure the Stretching Rigidity of Short-length Scale
DNA
(contacts: R. Mathew-Fenn, becks@stanford.edu; P.A.B. Harbury,
harbury@cmgm.stanford.edu)
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2. Darwin's Dinobird Fossil Analyzed at SSRL
A keystone of evolutionary history, the Thermopolis Archaeopteryx fossil,
arrived at SSRL in December to undergo a revolutionary type of analysis for
fossil studies. Using intense x-ray beams, scientists search for spatially
distributed chemical characteristics of the "dinobird" that have eluded all
previous scientific analyses.
A team of researchers attempted to uncover secrets of the Archaeopteryx hidden
from view since the creature sank to the bottom of a shallow lagoon and became
entombed in limestone some 150 million years ago. Only ten Archaeopteryx
fossils have been found and studied. These specimens have undergone extensive
visual analyses and even CT scans in the past, but never anything as
comprehensive as the element-specific x-ray fluorescence imaging technique
being utilized at SSRL on BL6-2. Here, researchers made the first maps of the
chemical elements hidden within one of the best preserved specimens, possibly
including remnants of soft tissue-not just bone. Approximately 16 by 16 inches
(40 by 40 centimeters) in size, the Thermopolis specimen was originally
discovered near Solnhofen, Germany, and is now owned by the Wyoming Dinosaur
Center, located in Thermopolis, Wyoming. Read the full press release at:
http://home.slac.stanford.edu/pressreleases/2008/20081211.htm
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3.
Holiday Greetings from the SSRL Director
On December 5 and 6, lab management hosted the semi-annual visit of our
Scientific Policy Committee. The SPC is now one of four subcommittees of our
Board of Overseers, which is chaired by Stanford Vice President for SLAC Bill
Madia. This fall, for the first time, all subcommittees completed meetings,
and a full board meeting will take place on December 19. The new system of
Stanford University oversight is in place and seems to be working well.
You've read this above in our Director's message and we'll say it again because
we cannot overstate the importance of users not only informing us about
SSRL-related publications, but also acknowledging SSRL and our funding agencies
in each publication. We need your ongoing help in keeping current records on
publications including refereed journal papers, conference proceedings, book
chapters and theses, invited lectures and major awards and patents based at
least in part on work conducted at SSRL. This information allows SSRL to
demonstrate scientific achievements and productivity when responding to
requests sent out by the Department of Energy and the National Institutes of
Health.
__________________________________________________________________________
SSRL Headlines is published electronically monthly to inform SSRL users,
sponsors and other interested people about happenings at SSRL. SSRL is a
national synchrotron user facility operated by Stanford University for the
U.S. Department of Energy Office of Basic Energy
Sciences. Additional support for
the structural biology program is provided by
the DOE
Office of Biological and Environmental Research, the NIH
National Center for Research Resources and the NIH Institute for General Medical
Sciences. Additional information about
SSRL and its operation and schedules is available from the SSRL WWW
site.
__________________________________________________________________________
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Dear Users, Colleagues and Friends of SSRL,
As we near the end of 2008, I would like to take a moment to send you my best
wishes for a happy holiday and to reflect back on many high points from the
past year.
During the FY2008 run (November 2007-August 2008), SPEAR3 continued to provide
very stable beam for >97% of the scheduled time. Over >2,000 researchers
benefitted from 5,027 hours of beam which were delivered on our 28 experimental
stations for a total of 91,717 hours delivered to users. Also during the past
three scheduling periods, >1,200 experiments were conducted on 391 different
proposals. Users consistently rated their overall scientific experience at
SSRL very highly (96% ranked their experience as excellent or very good).
The FY2009 run has started off well. You may recall that we opened a new Beam
Line 13 last year. In November 2008 we opened a newly rebuilt Beam Line 4. We
project 5,100 hours for users in the current run, contingent on the final
operating budget we receive when the continuing resolution ends in March 2009.
SSRL continues to provide valuable scientific training experience for the
future workforce, indicated by the large number of on-site users who are
undergraduate students, graduate students, or postdoctoral fellows (>60%).
Since SSRL began user operations in 1974, users have reported approximately
8,600 scientific publications based on research conducted at SSRL. In the last
three years alone, users published >1,000 papers including >95 student theses
(reported to date). I encourage you to inform us of your SSRL-related
publications, awards, and invited lectures as this information provides an
important metric for our funding agencies. The current list of publications
that have been reported to SSRL to date can be found at http://www-ssrl.slac.stanford.edu/pubs/. Please forward
information on your updated publications to Lisa Dunn,
lisa@ssrl.slac.stanford.edu, or use the web form at: http://smb.slac.stanford.edu/forms/reporting/form_publication.shtml
At a ceremony at SLAC on October 15, Dr. Patricia Dehmer, Deputy Director for
Science Programs at the DOE Office of Science, and SLAC Director Persis Drell
announced SLAC's new name, the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Since it
is customary for National Laboratories to have only one "Laboratory" on site,
SSRL became the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource. We will continue
to use the SLAC and SSRL abbreviations that are so well-known throughout the
world-wide scientific community.
Approximately 315 individuals participated in the various activities of the
second joint LCLS/SSRL Users' Meeting held October 15-18, 2008.
http://www-conf.slac.stanford.edu/ssrl-lcls/2008/default.asp The
four-day event began with an LCLS-themed science and development session held
concurrently with two SSRL-related workshops: Advanced Topics in EXAFS Analysis
and Applications; Crystallography Made Easy through Automation. The next
full-day plenary session was devoted to a joint LCLS/SSRL session including
LCLS and SSRL overview talks, updates from Washington, science highlights, a
keynote speech by SLAC Director Persis Drell on the future of photon sciences
at SLAC (see http://www-ssrl.slac.stanford.edu/newsletters/headlines/headlines_10-08.html) and ended with the user scientific poster
session, reception and dinner. Activities resumed on Friday with an SSRL
session devoted to science and technical developments as well as two concurrent
LCLS workshops: Application of Coherent X-rays at the LCLS; Atomic, Molecular &
Optical Physics with the LCLS. The final event was an all-day joint
SSRL/LCLS/ALS workshop on Soft X-ray Beam Line for Material and Energy Science
at the LCLS. We have already started planning the next Users' Conference, so
mark your calendar and plan to participate October 19-21, 2009.
http://www-conf.slac.stanford.edu/ssrl-lcls/2008/2009.asp
We offer our congratulations to the recipients of awards for outstanding
scientific and technical achievement in synchrotron radiation-based science,
including prizes for Outstanding Student Scientific Posters: Rebecca Fenn
(Stanford University), Reassessing the Mechanical Properties of DNA; Sarah
Hayes (University of Arizona), Characterization of Mine Tailings Using
Complimentary Synchrotron Techniques; Thomas Lohmiller (UC Berkeley), What is
the Role of Ca in Photosynthetic Water Oxidation: Polarized X-ray Absorption
Spectroscopy of the Ca-depleted Oxygen Evolving Complex of Photosystem II;
Jasquelin Pena (UC Berkeley), Zinc Surface Speciation on Biogenic Manganese
(IV) Oxides: Influence of pH and Surface Coverage; Ming Yi (Stanford
University), Angle-resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy on the New Iron-based
High Temperature Superconductors; Diling Zhu (Stanford University), Beyond
Fourier Transform Holography: Reference Guided Phase Retrieval. The William
Spicer Young Investigator Award was presented to R. Joseph Kline, a staff
scientist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in
Gaithersburg, MD. Ajay Virkar, a graduate student in the Department of
Chemical Engineering at Stanford University, received the Melvin P. Klein
Professional Development Award. And, the SSRL Users' Organization Executive
Committee presented the 2008 Farrel W. Lytle Award to Robert A. Scott in
recognition of his contributions to synchrotron radiation research.
http://www-conf.slac.stanford.edu/ssrl-lcls/2008/default.asp
In 2009 we anticipate implementing top-off as well as higher current operations
pending reviews and approvals. We have also started to prepare for the more
distant future of SSRL. You can read about the potential new x-ray source
PEP-X http://www-ssrl.slac.stanford.edu/pep-x/ on our website, and we
have also posted a document put together by SLAC and Berkeley scientists on
future scientific opportunities with x-rays. http://www-ssrl.slac.stanford.edu/aboutssrl/documents/lbnl_slac_white_paper.pdf
We are now working with Berkeley, Argonne and Brookhaven on a document that
makes the case for future US investments in x-ray science and technologies, and
we hope to be able to share this with you early in 2009.
I want to thank everyone who provided feedback and suggestions to us through
the 2008 users' survey, the end-of-run surveys, and especially those
individuals who serve on SSRL's advisory committees - the SSRL Scientific
Advisory Committee (SAC), Proposal Review Panel (PRP), the SMB Advisory
Committee (SMBAC) and the SSRL Users' Organization Executive Committee.
Guidance from these groups is extremely important to help us plan and move
forward in the wisest and most effective ways. We continue to be grateful to
our funding agencies - the Department of Energy's Office of Basic Energy
Sciences for providing the core operations funding and support for materials
research and the DOE Office of Biological and Environmental Research and the
National Institutes of Health NIGMS and NCRR Programs for support of the
structural biology program. Without their effective support, we would not be
able to push the scientific forefront and effectively serve our diverse and
growing user community. I urge you to continue to let us know your opinions
and ideas - it helps us to serve you better, to improve our operations and to
plan for our future.
In closing, on behalf of SSRL and its staff, let me extend our very best wishes
to all of you for this holiday season and for 2009!
—Jo Stöhr, SSRL Director
4.
First Electrons Stream Through the LCLS
December 15, 2008 SLAC Today Article by Kelen Tuttle
On Saturday, December 13, a series of electron beams zipped down the full
length of the Linac Coherent Light Source for the first time. In an exciting
round of first-ever tests, bunches of electrons traveling very close to the
speed of light traveled from the injector, down the final third of SLAC's linac
into the beam transport hall and through the undulator hall, ending their
journey in the electron beam dump.
Teams of physicists and technicians worked throughout the day on Saturday,
December 15, to take the first beams of electrons all the way through the LCLS
to the beam dump. (Photo by Brad Plummer)
The first shot of electrons tripped an improperly configured shut-off monitor
in the beam transport hall and caused a five-hour delay. But once the
situation was rectified, subsequent attempts to reach the beginning of the
undulator section took only 10 minutes. Once final preparations were made to
complete the test and send the beam into and through the undulator hall, the
beam reached its target in only two shots, confirming the predictions of Paul
Emma, head of the LCLS accelerator physics group. The control room erupted in
cheers.
"This is a major milestone, and one that we've been working toward for quite
some time," said SLAC Director Persis Drell. "Congratulations to everyone who
made this test a success. I'm looking forward to the start of LCLS operations
next year!" Read more...
http://today.slac.stanford.edu/feature/2008/lcls-first-electrons.asp
5.
From the SLAC Director: The SPC Visits Again
The SPC is now firmly focused on oversight of our science programs. Highpoints
of this visit were Linac Coherent Light Source progress, plans for early
science and the light source strategy developments led by Jo Stöhr and Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory's Roger Falcone. The SPC was interested to hear
about the future Particle Physics and Astrophysics programs and developments
with SLAC participation in the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider.
Tor Raubenheimer gave an excellent talk on the laboratory's accelerator science
strategy. There was also a series of talks about some of the science currently
going on at the lab, including lovely talks on recent experiments at FLASH and
early results from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.
This meeting was the final meeting for Professor Doug Rees of the California
Institute of Technology, who has chaired the SPC for the past two years through
a time of great change. We owe Doug thanks for his dedication, wise advice and
unwavering support during a trying time for the laboratory. At the May 2009
meeting, Professor Graham Fleming from University of California at Berkeley
will take over as chair and the board membership will rotate. The new
membership will be posted on the director's Web page once the invitations to
the new members have been finalized.
http://today.slac.stanford.edu/feature/2008/Director-20081212.asp
6.
Popular Microprobe on Beam Line 2-3 Moves to Full-time
December 8, 2008 SLAC Today Article by Michael Torrice
Metal-tipped spider fangs, ancient Roman pottery shards and arsenic-sipping
ferns have one thing in common. They've all been studied by the x-ray
microprobe on Beam Line 2-3.
BL2-3
microprobe studies chemical details of environmental, biological and
archaeological samples. (Photo by Sam Webb)
For the past two years, the microprobe has been available part-time for SSRL
users to map specific locations of chemicals on their samples. The probe was
originally designed for environmental scientists to study chemical
contamination, but now users include biologists and archaeologists. Due to this
growing popularity, the microprobe became a permanent fixture at SSRL in early
December.
"Beam Line 2-3 went from being one of the least popular beam lines to being one
of the top five requested, most oversubscribed beam lines," said Sam Webb
(samwebb@slac.stanford.edu), the SSRL scientist in charge of the microprobe.
"Users from many fields have seen how useful the microprobe is and are eager to
use it in their experiments."
The device is one of only a handful of x-ray microprobes in the nation. The
other comparable microprobe on the West Coast is installed at the Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory's Advanced Light Source. Read more...
http://today.slac.stanford.edu/feature/2008/ssrl-microprobe.asp
This information can be submitted anytime via email message to Lisa Dunn or
Cathy Knotts or via the reference submission form at:
http://smb.slac.stanford.edu/forms/reporting/form_publication.shtml
For recent publications lists and the proper acknowledgement statements see:
http://www-ssrl.slac.stanford.edu/publications/
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