They know it’s there but they don’t know what it's made of. That pretty much sums up scientists’ knowledge of dark matter. This knowledge comes from observations of the universe, which indicate that the invisible form matter is about five to six times more abundant than visible matter.

One idea is that dark matter comprises dark particles that interact with each other through a mediator particle called the dark photon, named in analogy with the ordinary photon that acts as a mediator between electrically charged particles. A dark photon would also interact weakly with the known particles described by the Standard Model of particle physics, including the Higgs boson.

At the Large Hadron Collider Physics (LHCP) conference, happening this week in Puebla, Mexico, the CMS collaboration reported the results of its latest search for dark photons.

The collaboration used a large proton–proton collision dataset, collected during the Large Hadron Collider’s second run, to search for instances in which the Higgs boson might transform, or “decay”, into a photon and a massless dark photon. They focused on cases in which the boson is produced together with a Z boson that itself decays into electrons or their heavier cousins known as muons.

Such instances are expected to be extremely rare, and finding them requires deducing the presence of the potential dark photon, which particle detectors won’t see. For this, researchers add up the momenta of the detected particles in the transverse direction – that is, at right angles to the colliding beams of protons – and identify any missing momentum needed to reach a total value of zero. Such missing transverse momentum indicates an undetected particle.

But there’s another step to distinguish between a possible dark photon and known particles. This entails estimating the mass of the particle that decays into the detected photon and the undetected particle. If the missing transverse momentum is carried by a dark photon produced in the decay of the Higgs boson, that mass should correspond to the Higgs-boson mass.

The CMS collaboration followed this approach but found no signal of dark photons. However, the collaboration placed upper bounds on the likelihood that a signal would have been seen.

Another null result? Yes, but results such as these and the ATLAS results on supersymmetry also presented this week in Puebla, while not finding new particles or ruling out their existence, are much needed to guide future work, both experimental and theoretical.

For more details about this result, see the CMS website.

In accordance with the Status Agreements with CERN, Switzerland and France facilitate the entry of members of the Organization’s personnel on to their territories. Where relevant, detailed procedures for obtaining visas apply.

Within the framework of those procedures, only the following individuals are authorised to initiate the Note verbale procedure as well as to sign the Official Invitation Letters and the Conventions d’accueil.

• Kirsti ASPOLA (EP – CMO)
• Maria BARROSO LOPEZ (IT – DI)
• Ioana BERTHEREAU (HR – TA)
• Catherine BRANDT (DG – DI)
• Michelle CONNOR (TH – GS)
• Rachelle DECREUSE-MICHAUD (EN – ARP)
• Gaëlle DUPERRIER (EP – AGS) 
• Nathalie GOURIOU (EP – AGS)
• Nathalie GRÜB (EP – AGS)
• Cassandra HEIGHTON (BE – HDO)
• Georgina HOBGEN (TE – PPR)
• Cécile NOELS (ATS – DO)
• Tania PARDO (EP – AGS)
• Maria QUINTAS (HR – TA)
• Kate RICHARDSON (EP – AGS)
• Christoph SCHAEFER (IR – REL) 
• Emmanuel TSESMELIS (IR – REL) 

The French and Swiss Authorities will reject any request signed by a person who is not on this list.

We would like to remind you that in accordance with the memorandum of 7 December 2000 issued by the Director of the Administration, (ref. DG/DA/00-119), “the Organization shall not request any legitimisation document (or residence permit) or visa from the Host States for persons registered as EXTERNAL” (people who do not hold a contract of employment, association or apprenticeship with CERN). 

We would also like to remind you that those coming to CERN should find out in good timeabout the conditions of entry to Switzerland and France applying to them and ensure that they obtain the requisite visas, where applicable, in the country in which they are habitually resident.

Useful information can be obtained from the Swiss and French diplomatic representations abroad, as well as from the following Web pages:

• Swiss State Secretariat for Migration
• French portal of the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs and Ministry of the Interior

The Authorities of the Host States have informed the Organization on a number of occasions that they insist upon scrupulous compliance with visa legislation.

Relations with the Host States Service

http://www.cern.ch/relations/

relations.secretariat@cern.ch

Tél. 72848/75152

Launched on 8 June 2017, and after just two years of existence, the CERN Alumni Network has now grown to more than 4500 members across the world.

We will celebrate the network's anniversary throughout the week of 3 June, by installing a world map in CERN’s Restaurant 1. We have asked our alumni to fill our world with their words, which we will attach to the map where each member of the CERN Alumni Network is located. Our alumni’s messages demonstrate the far-reaching and diverse nature of the community.

Pass by and meet the Alumni Relations team on Tuesday lunchtime, from 12.15, to find out more about the network and to read the myriad greetings sent by our alumni as a sign of support and of their strong links with the Laboratory.

CERN Alumni Relations team

Since April, the teams involved in the DISMAC (Diode Insulation and Superconducting Magnets Consolidation) project have been working in the LHC tunnel. Their task is to improve the electrical insulation of the diodes of the accelerator’s 1232 dipole magnets, replace 22 of the main superconducting magnets and carry out a series of other activities.

Each dipole magnet is fitted with a diode, a parallel circuit allowing the current to be diverted in the event of a quench. This diode is connected to the associated magnet via a copper bus bar.

Since 2006, nine short circuits involving these diodes have occurred. “These short circuits were caused by residual metallic debris present in the machine since the magnets were manufactured,” explains Jean-Philippe Tock, leader of the DISMAC project. “The heating and cooling phases of the accelerator, particularly during technical stops, result in significant flows of helium. These flows can cause the metallic debris to move, which may then go on to cause short circuits.”

To avoid this happening again, the electrical insulation of the diodes needs to be improved. To do this, three steps are followed: remove as much as possible of the metallic debris; insulate the connection between the diodes and the bus bars (known as the half-moon connection); and insulate the bus bars themselves near to this connection.

Although it would not be feasible to eliminate all the debris present in the cold masses of the LHC dipole magnets (which are 15 metres long!), it is nonetheless possible to remove the debris that is within reach of a vacuum cleaner. The specially adapted DISMAC vacuum cleaner, which is fitted with an endoscope and is compatible with the radiation protection requirements, allows the debris located near to the interconnections to be eliminated.

To resolve the problems with the electrical insulation, made-to-measure insulating parts have been developed for the half-moon connections and bus bars in the framework of the DISMAC project. “The design of these parts was very tricky because the insulation must under no circumstances result in a degradation of the electrical properties of the diode connections, particularly their electrical resistance,” continues Jean-Philippe Tock. The insulating parts, which resemble caps, are currently being installed in sector 8-1 of the LHC. A total of 1232 sets of caps must be installed between now and the end of LS2.

“Since 2017, we have been working a lot on developing and optimising our tools and installation procedures,” says Jean-Philippe Tock, “as the work needs to proceed at a rate of ten diodes per day at the interconnections, which are very restrictive locations in which to work.” The process involves the removal and refitting of the beam loss monitors [BE department], mechanical cutting [EN], opening of the interconnection [TE], cleaning [TE/BE], installation of the insulation [TE], electrical tests [TE], quality assurance tests [TE/BE], welding [EN] and more, so no fewer than 150 people from CERN, external firms and collaborating institutes are working in the LHC tunnel each day as part of the DISMAC “train”. A train? In the LHC? Not exactly... we call it that because the technicians work in a chain, moving from one interconnection to the next.

But not everyone involved in DISMAC is aboard the train. A special team, consisting of 20 people, has another job: the replacement of 19 dipole magnets and three quadrupole magnets, as well as the installation of the cryogenic assemblies for the HL-LHC project and the addition of instrumentation to study the heat loads caused by the beam. This team is also responsible for dealing with major instances of non-compliance. Finally, three specialists are taking care of the maintenance of the LHC’s current leads. These provide the link between the copper cables at room temperature and the superconducting cables at 1.9 K (−271.3 °C) in order to transfer the electrical currents of up to 13 000 amps that power the magnets.

On Friday, 17 May 2019, ten and eleven-year-olds from every school in the Meyrin-Cointrin district took part in the “Ethnopoly” intercultural game in the commune of Meyrin. The aims? To soak up cultural wealth, promote diversity and bring people together.

Some 70 individuals, institutes and associations opened their doors to groups of children in order to present an aspect of their home culture or a particular feature of the commune: paella recipes, how to drape a sari, roadside recycling and ... international collaboration at the largest particle physics laboratory in the world!

CERN, which was founded in Meyrin, has had a stand in the Forum Meyrin for ten consecutive games of Ethnopoly. Volunteers present the activities of the Laboratory, where more than 10 000 scientists and engineers of over 100 different nationalities work together to advance research, speaking one common language: science! 

Despite the fatigue and depletion of energy, three CERN runners used muscular strength and mental force to secure first place for the CERN team in the Challenge Entreprise competition of the 15th edition of the Harmony Geneva Marathon for UNICEF (12 May 2019). The CERN team, made up of Vladimir Loncar, Harry Perkins and Davide Bozzini finished the 42.2km race in a combined time of 8:58:34, a massive 27 minutes faster than the team that came in in second place (HUG). In total, twenty-three teams from regional companies and organisations took part in the Challenge Entreprise race and a record 18,300 runners took to the start lines of the various race formats on offer at the event. In order to prepare for such a race, the three CERN runners explain that they train 4 to 6 times per week, averaging between 40km to 100km. All three had already run several marathons between them.

Furthermore, 20 runners from the CERN Running Club successfully finished in one of the proposed races at this year’s Geneva Marathon event, amongst whom, CERN’s Steffen Doebert won the half marathon in the Men 50+ category.

On Tuesday 4 and Wednesday 5 June, 25 Dutch firms will be present at CERN.

4 June:

• 11:30 - 13:30: companies will be at their stands
• 13:30 - 14:30: pitches from companies in the Council Chamber (503-1-001)

5 June:

• 11:30 - 13:30: companies will be at their stands

More information can be found here: https://www.bigscience.nl/files/brochures/Holland_at_CERN2019.pdf

New websites have been launched for the Accelerators and Technology, Finance and Human Resources and Research and Computing sectors. They aim to facilitate access to information about the sector and departments, their committees, meetings and documentation, and to highlight some events and useful links.

• Accelerators and Technology: https://ats.web.cern.ch
• Finance and Human Resources: https://fhr.web.cern.ch
• Research and Computing: https://rcs.web.cern.ch

In times of scarce resources, time pressure, and the increasing complexity of running software applications, why not follow the herd and go clever? It just doesn’t make any sense any more to reinvent the wheel and then just stand back. Running your own computing hardware, installation stack, (web) applications, databases, etc., is just not cost effective and usually you won’t be able to commit the required attention to keeping those systems sufficiently secure. Just recently, CERN "lost" two locally managed "Jenkins" instances because they were not kept up to date (see our Monthly Report for details). So, wouldn’t it be better to concentrate on the real job and delegate non-core responsibilities to CERN's professionals?

The CERN IT department provides you with a vast catalogue of centrally managed computing facilities, starting with hardware platforms to run your favourite operating system ("Openstack") or application (e.g. "Apache", "Grafana", "Jenkins", "Nexus", .NET/Perl/PHP/Python/Ruby or "Rundeck" on "Openshift"). They also allow you to choose from a variety of centrally supported software applications for Windows ("CMF"), Linux ("Linuxsoft") and Mac ("Mac Self-Service"). This includes dedicated and sophisticated software packages for engineering, mathematics and mechanical design. If you require your own database ("Database-on-Demand") or need to store vast amounts of data ("EOS"; "CERNbox") central professional IT services are there to help. And if you are running your own local computer cluster, CERN IT would be happy to discuss with you how to integrate your needs into the services provided by CERN's central computing centre.

This approach may not always provide a 100% match but, if you can compromise, it’s a great way not only to reduce the time you spend maintaining layer upon layer of computing hardware and software, but also to relieve you from the need to check for new updates and worry about patches, and to avoid the hassle of implementing all necessary features in order to keep your application well protected and secured. So, take a look at CERN IT’s full list of central computing services and/or join the next IT User’s Meeting for the most recent news and deployments available to you. And if you need help, you can always contact the CERN IT Consultants to get an opinion on how best to cover your needs with CERN IT solutions.

And the IT department is not the only central entity providing you with professional IT services for free. The Business Computing group in the FAP department provides you with all the financial and HR applications you could possibly need. As does the EP-SFT group for physics computing, simulations and data analysis. And the CO and ICS groups of the BE department, which can provide you with all the necessary control system software you need to run your accelerator or experiment at CERN. Thanks to all of these, you can obtain professionally managed and well secured software, applications and computing services for free, instead of losing time through reinventing the wheel. Last but not least, we’d also like to say a big thank you to another central service, the CERN Translation and Minutes Service, to whom we are grateful for the English proof-reading and translation into French of all our Computer Security Bulletin articles!

Do you want to learn more about computer security incidents and issues at CERN? Follow our Monthly Report. For further information, questions or help, check our website or contact us at Computer.Security@cern.ch.

From 3 June, check out the restaurants and cafeterias of CERN for a green metamorphosis. We can all become recycling champions! 
Take part through a quiz and a photo competition...

Registration is now open for the CERN Accelerator School’s course on  Advanced Accelerator Physics, to be held in Slangerup, Denmark from 9 June to 21 June 2019.

This Introductory CAS Course represents the core teaching of all CAS courses and also represents the ideal opportunity to be introduced into the field of particle accelerators. This course will be of interest to staff and students from laboratories and universities, as well as companies manufacturing accelerator equipment. The course will focus on various aspects of beam dynamics and will provide an introduction to the underlying accelerator systems. Key topics will be consolidated through a series of discussion sessions and tutorials, while topical seminars will complete the program.

For more information and application, please visit the school website. 

Murray Gell-Mann, one of the foremost figures in the development of the Standard Model of particle physics, and who received the 1969 Nobel prize in physics, passed away on 24 May at the age of 89. Gell-Mann was responsible for naming quarks, the elementary particles found within hadrons such as protons and neutrons: he borrowed the term from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake.

In 1961, Gell-Mann had introduced a scheme called the Eightfold Way for classifying hadrons, based on the mathematical symmetry known as SU(3), for which he won the Nobel prize. Gell-Mann built upon this work in a new model that could successfully describe – among other phenomena – the magnetic properties of protons and neutrons. But Gell-Mann’s model required there to be three new elementary particles, which he called quarks, whose existence he proposed in 1964. Independently, and in the same year, Georg Zweig also described these elementary particles, calling them “aces”.

The existence of quarks was experimentally demonstrated in the late 1960s by experiments at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). Subsequently, results from the Gargamelle bubble chamber at CERN contributed evidence showing that these particles have charges of ⅓ or ⅔ that of an electron or proton, as predicted by Gell-Mann and Zweig.

Numerous experiments at CERN are exploring the theory that describes quarks and their interactions, called quantum chromodynamics. At the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), physicists are still discovering novel combinations of Gell-Mann and Zweig’s particles, further testing the Standard Model.

Gell-Mann spent some time at CERN in the ’60s, and returned in the late-’70s, when he lectured about the grand unification of the different forces in nature. In his later life, Gell-Mann turned his curiosity and attention to linguistics, among other fields, and led the Evolution of Human Languages programme at the Santa Fe Institute, which he co-founded. He was also the Robert Andrews Millikan Professor Emeritus at Caltech.

Also read:

• Gell-Mann’s obituary published by Caltech
• Fifty years of quarks (published in 2014)

Nearly seventy years ago, before the CERN Laboratory was established, two models for European collaboration in fundamental physics were on the table: one envisaged opening up national facilities to researchers from across the continent, the other the creation of a new, international, research centre with world-leading facilities. Discussions were lively, until one delegate pointed out that researchers would go to wherever the best facilities were. From that moment on, CERN became an accelerator laboratory aspiring to be always in the vanguard of technology to enable the best science. It was a wise decision, and one that I was reminded of while listening to the presentations at the European Strategy for Particle Physics Open Symposium in Granada earlier this month. Because among the conclusions of this very lively meeting was the view that providing world-leading accelerator and experimental facilities is precisely the role the community needs CERN to play today.

There was huge interest in the Symposium, as witnessed by the 600-plus participants, including many from the nuclear and astroparticle physics communities, as well as, of course, particle physicists. The vibrancy of the field was fully on display, with future hadron colliders offering the biggest leap in energy reach for direct searches for new physics. Precision electroweak studies at the few per cent level, particularly for the Higgs particle, will obtain sensitivities for similar mass scales. The LHC, and soon the High-Luminosity LHC, will go a long way towards achieving that goal of precision. Indeed, it’s remarkable how far the LHC experiments have come in overturning the old adage that hadrons are for discovery and leptons for precision – the LHC has established itself as a precision tool, and this is shaping the debate as to what kind of future we can expect. Nevertheless, however precise proton-proton physics becomes, it will still fall short in some areas. To fully understand the absolute width of the Higgs, for example, a lepton machine will be needed, and no fewer than four implementations were discussed. So, one key conclusion is that if we are to cover all the bases, no single facility will suffice. One way forward was presented by the ACFA Chair, Geoff Taylor, representing the Asian view, who advocated a lepton machine for Asia, while Europe would focus on advancing the hadron frontier.

Interest in muon colliders was rekindled, not least because of some recent reconsiderations in muon cooling. The great and recent progress of plasma wakefield accelerators, including AWAKE at CERN, calls for further research in this field so as to render the technology usable for particle physics.

Methods of dark matter searches abound and are an important element of the discussion on physics beyond colliders, using single beams at CERN.

The Granada meeting was a town meeting on physics. Yet, it is clear to all that we can’t make plans solely on the basis of the available technology and a strong physics case, but must also consider factors such as cost and societal impact in any future strategy for European particle physics. With all the available technology options and open questions in physics, there’s no doubt that the future should be bright. The European Strategy Group, however, has a monumental challenge in plotting an affordable course to propose to the CERN Council in March next year.

There were calls for CERN to diversify and lend its expertise to other areas of research, such as gravitational waves: one speaker even likened interferometers to accelerators without beams. In terms of the technologies involved, that statement stands up well to scrutiny, and it is true that technology developed for particle physics at CERN can help the advancement of other fields. CERN already formally collaborates with organisations like ITER and the ESS, sharing our innovation and expertise. However, for me, the strongest message from Granada is that it is CERN’s focus on remaining at the forefront of particle physics that has enabled the Organization to contribute to a diverse range of fields. CERN needs to remain true to that founding vision of being a world-leading centre for accelerator technology. That is the starting point. From it, all else follows.

After the great success of last year’s charity tournament, CERN Table Football Club has decided it is time for round 2. Once again, the proceeds of this event will support the Education & Outreach projects of the CERN & Society Foundation.

The tournament will take place in Restaurant 1 at CERN on 24-26 July.

Anyone at CERN is welcome to participate with an entry fee of 15 CHF per team, which will be directly donated to the CERN & Society Foundation.

The rules of the tournament are simple: register in a team of two, play one evening in the group stage and cross your fingers that you can make it through to the knockout stage! Last but most importantly, have fun!

More information on the prizes and registration process on www.cern.ch/TFTournament2019.

_________

Read the full article here.

Marcello Giorgi, one of the first members of the CERN–Trieste High-Energy Group, passed away on 1 May. In the 1960s, Giorgi worked on several experiments at CERN, first at the PS, and then, as soon as the SPS started operation, on the WA6 experiment. Later, in the 1980s, he participated in a series of experiments that the Trieste group performed at LEAR. Giorgi also spent a sabbatical as a CERN Research Associate, after which, fascinated by the nucleon-spin crisis, he moved with the Trieste group to the DIS experiments with the high-energy muon beam: first the SMC and later the COMPASS experiment.

In time, his interests gradually drifted from particle physics to the history of physics and epistemology. He was the driving force behind the organisation of many conferences on “Conceptual tools to understand nature” held in Trieste in the 1990s. As a professor, he was an excellent teacher, highly appreciated by the many students who graduated under his guidance over the course of his long career.

Giorgi was a generous person, with an open character, well known at CERN and in the physicist community. A real sportsman, all his life he practiced mountaineering and climbing, and scaled Mont Blanc with Arne Lundby in the 1970s. Prior to this, he had chosen to join the alpine corps for his military service. In the following years, he continued to attend refresher training sessions with the corps, attaining the rank of senior officer. Needless to say, he was extremely proud of the white eagle feather on his alpine hat. Mountaineering was not his only love: he also loved cycling and boxing. As a welterweight, he even fought a few times, before turning to promoting the sport, always stressing the educational merits of the discipline.

A man of great culture, he had a remarkable memory. He had a great sense of humour and his friends always greatly enjoyed the stories he would tell when we would gather around a table at the end of a day. We will deeply miss him.

Agenda for the 124^th ACCU meeting to be held
on Tuesday, 11 June 2018 at 9:15 a.m.
in Room Georges Charpak (Room F, 60/6-015)

1. Chairperson’s remarks                     
2. Adoption of the agenda                         
3. Minutes of the previous meeting
4. News from the CERN Management
5. Report on services from SMB Department
6. Report on services from IT department
7. CERN and Environment
8. The CERN Science Gateway
9. Update on Internal Taxation certificate change
10. Users' Office News
11. Matters arising
12. Any Other Business
13. Agenda for the next meeting

The Advisory Committee of CERN Users (ACCU) is the forum for discussion between the CERN Management and the representatives of CERN Users to review the practical means taken by CERN for the work of Users of the Laboratory. The mandate of ACCU is available on: http://accu.web.cern.ch/content/mandate

There are one or two Delegates from each Member State (two Delegates from the large Member States), one Delegate from each of the Associate Members, four Delegates from non-Member States (NMS), and two from CERN. The list of ACCU members is available on: http://accu.web.cern.ch/content/accu-members

ACCU meetings are attended by the Director General and members of the Directorate, other members of the CERN management and departmental representatives, the Head of Users’ Support and a representative of the CERN Staff Association. Other members of the CERN Staff attend as necessary for specific agenda items.

Chairperson: Dragoslav-Laza Lazic (Dragoslav.Lazic@cern.ch)
Secretary: Michael Hauschild (ACCU.Secretary@cern.ch)

Anyone wishing to raise any points under “Any Other Business” at the upcoming ACCU meeting is invited to contact the appropriate User representative, or the Chairperson or the Secretary.
https://accu.web.cern.ch/

Major endeavours have got under way way in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) over the past few weeks, with the extraction of magnets from the accelerator tunnel. The LHC has a total of 1232 dipoles, magnets which bend the particles’ trajectories, and 474 quadrupoles, which squeeze the bunches. All these magnets are superconducting, i.e. they operate at a temperature of -271°C, are 15 metres long and weigh up to 28 tonnes. So moving them around is no trivial matter.

During the second long shutdown, 22 of these large components (including 19 dipoles) have to be replaced, especially as several have been showing operating deficiencies. Twelve have already been brought above ground and the last one is scheduled to be dismantled at the beginning of July.

The replacement magnets are arriving one by one. Ten new magnets have been installed, aligned and are being connected in the first sectors of the accelerator (sectors 8-1 and 1-2). This involves reconnecting the beam-pipes, the superconducting cables that transport currents of up to 13 000 amps, the transfer lines for the helium that cools the magnets, the beam shields that thermally insulate the magnets once they have been cooled down to -271°C. Care needs to be taken to ensure the tightness of the insulating vacuum, and tests then are carried to check that the new magnets are perfectly interconnected with the neighbouring magnets. These operations take several weeks for each magnet ! All 22 magnets should thus be connected at the beginning of 2020.

Ladislav Sandor, one of the founders of the ALICE collaboration and leader of the ALICE-Košice team in Slovakia, passed away on 23 May, two days after his 78thbirthday.

Ladislav was born in the heart of an multicultural region called Spiš in north-eastern Slovakia, with plenty of historical monuments and areas of natural beauty. His interest in mathematics and physics started during his secondary-school years, at a time when nuclear physics had become a very attractive branch of science. He completed his graduate studies in Košice University in 1967 and worked at JINR, Dubna on the Hyperon experiment from 1969 to 1976. Since 1977, he was the Leader of the Nuclear Physics Department at the Institute of Experimental Physics of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Košice. He successfully led the Kosice group into the field of ultra-relativistic nuclear collisions, first at the SPS (in the Helios, WA94, WA97, NA57 experiments) and then in ALICE. As the leader of the Košice team, he contributed to the development and building of the electronics for the silicon pixel detector (SPD) of the ALICE inner tracking system (ITS) as well as to the software developments for the central trigger processor. Ladislav was a very gifted experimental physicist, who contributed significantly to several key measurements in nuclear collisions, and always maintained a passion for diving first-hand into physics analysis.

In 2002, Ladislav received an award from the Slovak Academy of Science for his role in the discovery of the hyperon enhancements, and in 2010 he was awarded a Štúr Medal from the President of the Slovak Republic for his scientific achievements. He had a pivotal role in the negotiation of the CERN membership of the Slovak Republic and so naturally became the first Slovak delegate to the CERN Council.

Ladislav was a passionate photographer and enjoyed gardening, reading, playing the piano and listening to music. He was fascinated by the natural beauty, history and art of Eastern Slovakia. Our warmest sympathy goes to his wife Anna, his daughter Daniela and his son Peter, together with their families. He will be immensely missed by all of us.

His colleagues, collaborators and friends.

Taking “Transformation / Transcendence” as its theme, the international film festival will bring interactions between science and cinema to the silver screen. Will humanity be able to overcome global challenges thanks only to transformations made possible by science and technology, or will we have to find solutions deep within ourselves and transcend our existence?

With a selection of short and feature-length films, practical workshops and fun hands-on activities for families, there’s something for everyone to enjoy. The open-air activities will run non-stop from noon to midnight (from 10 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday) in the area surrounding the Globe of Science and Innovation, CERN’s public event venue.

Feeling peckish? A café will serve lunch and evening meals, as well as light refreshments throughout the festival.

CineGlobe

From Wednesday, 3 to Sunday, 7 July 2019

CERN – Globe of Science and Innovation

From noon to midnight on weekdays and 10 a.m. to midnight at the weekend.

Free, no booking required (except for the weekend workshops).

More information can be found at www.cineglobe.ch and on Facebook

What should you do with your used coffee capsules, your spent batteries or your broken chair? Any idea? If you don’t already know, you can find the answers on the posters and screens in the restaurants and cafeterias. The winners of the quiz will be revealed next week.

Most materials can be repurposed, providing that they’ve been correctly sorted. In 2018, CERN produced no fewer than 5300 tonnes of waste, more than 55% of which was recycled. CERN’s waste is sent to sorting plants in Switzerland and France, where it goes through a second, more thorough, sorting process. Each different type of waste is then sent to the appropriate recycling facility. Paper and cardboard are recycled into new paper; used wood can, for example, be recycled into chipboard; scrap metal goes to steelworks; and certain types of polystyrene can be recycled into insulation panels.

We can all help improve waste repurposing by sorting better at source. So, take a few seconds to think. Numerous waste containers, skips and bins for recyclable materials are available on the CERN sites.

For example:

• Every office has a paper/cardboard recycling box.
• Recycling bins for PET items, aluminium cans and Nespresso capsules are available all across CERN. Several bins for these kinds of waste have also been installed near Building 156 (Meyrin site) and Building 904 (Prévessin site).
• Bottle banks are available all across the Meyrin and Prévessin sites. In the restaurants, glass bottles are sorted in the kitchens, so they should be left on your tray.
• For bulkier items, skips ranging from 4 to 40 m³ are available.

All information relating to waste management can be found on the SMB department’s website.
Take a moment to fill in the survey on waste sorting and recycling.

Last but not least, think of recycling as the final step. To decrease our environmental impact, we first need to reduce, then reuse, if possible, and, last of all, recycle.