CERN is modernising its safety policy and organisational structure in matters of Safety with the introduction of new reference documents that have come into force on 29 September. These texts adapt the Organization’s safety policy to take account of how the Laboratory has evolved and to include best practice in Safety matters.

Safety is a priority at CERN, so it’s no coincidence that the Organization’s anniversary has been chosen as the time to launch a modernised approach to its Safety policy and how Safety matters are organised. On the day of CERN’s 60th anniversary, the SAPOCO 42 document, which covered both policy and organisational aspects, was replaced by a more concise general policy statement. The organisational structure and responsibilities in matters of Safety are now set out in a Safety Regulation, that is supplemented by subsidiary documents. Together these documents will replace the corresponding parts of the former SAPOCO 42 as well as Safety Codes previously in force. “SAPOCO 42 covered both policy and organisational questions,” explains Philippe Lebrun, Chair of the Safety Policy Committee. “In accordance with modern standards the two aspects are now separated. The policy will remain perennial as it defines the general overarching principles and the basis for all the regulatory texts in matters of Safety.”

Over its 60 years of scientific activity, the Laboratory has changed its internal structure many times. From the old days when each machine had its own division to more recent times where the department activities cover various machines. Over the years, some experiments have become very large collaborations, while smaller ones continue to exist. In general the complexity of CERN’s organizational structure has increased. In addition CERN is an ‘open’ organization with an extensive presence of contractors and many users and trainees from institutes all over the world. “The new Safety Regulation  stipulates - just as the previous one - that Safety responsibilities follow the hierarchical line,” explains Angela Goehring-Crinon, Legal Advisor to the HSE Unit. “However, it also now reflects the fact that many activities at CERN operate in a matrix structure, across departments and takes into account the complexity of the large experiments and the specific challenges associated with it. Finally, it underlines that all collaborating institutions and contractors must comply with the CERN Safety rules.”

Many stakeholders, including department heads, technical co-ordinators of the large experiments and numerous Safety officers, were consulted during the preparation of the new documents. “It was important for us to collaborate with the many people involved with Safety at CERN,” explains Ralf Trant, Head of the HSE Unit. “The documents were discussed with a great variety of stakeholders and modified where needed. The final result of this collaborative effort is a set of documents which is in accordance with today’s standards and reflects CERN’s current needs and structure.” The new documents provide a perennial policy as well as a consistent regulatory framework in matters of Safety, which describes all the organizational aspects.

The new safety policy and rules were published on the HSE website on 29 September. “The success of this new policy will depend on all persons participating in the activities of the Laboratory putting it into practice, each at their level of responsibility,” emphasizes Ralf Trant. “The Organization's culture of excellence applies to Safety too. Every one of us has a role to play and must ensure that we carry out our duties safely.”

“The Safety policy and organization are now setting the right framework that will allow the organization to meet its future challenges,” concludes Philippe Lebrun.

A few more technical details

Up to 29 September 2014, responsibilities and organizational aspects of Safety were described in SAPOCO 42 as well as in Safety Codes A9 and A10. The “SAPOCO 42” document used to cover both policy and organizational aspects. In 2006, the document was very partially revised to introduce a different system of Safety Rules. Also the safety codes were partially revised by a number of memoranda and EDMS documents to adapt them to the evolution of CERN’s structure and needs.

As of 29 September 2014 all the old documents are officially replaced by the new ones (see diagram). Please read the Official News for further legal information.

If you  want to find out more about the new Safety Policy or the Safety organization or if you have any questions please consult the HSE website or contact hse.secretariat@cern.ch.

A series of fascinating lectures about the Sun and a sound and light show are being organised by the Wright Science Colloquium, which takes place from 10 to 14 November.

You might think we know all there is to know about the Sun and its unchanging celestial ballet. But our star still holds plenty of intrigue for the scientists who continue to make fascinating discoveries about its nature, how it works, its influence on the climate and uses for its energy. This year’s Wright Science Colloquium, organised from 10 to 14 November by the Fondation H. Dudley Wright and the University of Geneva, is devoted to the Sun, and comprises four lectures, two on physics, one on climate change and a fourth on an astonishing process of artificial photosynthesis.

In the first lecture on Monday, 10 November, André Brahic, one of the world’s foremost experts on the solar system, who discovered the rings of Neptune, will talk about the formation of planetary systems. The following day, renowned particle physicist Arthur McDonald will talk about the Sun, underlining how the two disciplines of astrophysics and particle physics are now converging.  He will give a lecture on the solar neutrinos studied by the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO), of which he is the Director. These ephemeral neutrinos, created in the Sun's nuclear reactions, are messengers from our star. The SNO detector is particularly famous, among its other successes, for having demonstrated the oscillation of solar neutrinos in 2001 (http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/28474).

The Wright Science Colloquium is also organising two other popular science lectures, a sound and light show in the Parc des Bastions every evening from 6 to 23 November, and a discovery day for young people.

16^th Wright Science Colloquium

10 to 14 November 2014

Uni Dufour, Geneva, lecture every day at 6.30 p.m. Free admission.

The lecture by André Brahic will be in French with simultaneous interpreting into English. The other lectures will be in English, with simultaneous interpreting into French.

For more information:

http://www.colloque.ch/

The CERN & Society programme brings together projects in the areas of education and outreach, innovation and knowledge exchange, and culture and arts, that spread the CERN spirit of scientific curiosity for the inspiration and benefit of society. Today, CERN & Society is launching its "giving" website – a portal to allow donors to contribute to various projects and forge new relationships with CERN.

"The CERN & Society initiative in its embryonic form began almost three years ago, with the feeling that the laboratory could play a bigger role for the benefit of society," says Matteo Castoldi, Head of the CERN Development Office, who, with his team, is seeking supporters and ambassadors for the CERN & Society initiative. "The concept is not completely new – in some sense it is embedded in CERN’s DNA, as the laboratory helps society by creating knowledge and new technologies – but we would like to do more."

The CERN & Society programme is funded primarily by individuals, trusts, organisations and commercial companies around the world. They give through the CERN & Society Foundation, a public-benefit foundation based in Switzerland, which follows the CERN Policy for Ethical Fundraising. "The Foundation allows a fundraising structure that is otherwise not possible for CERN, and creates a clear separation between CERN research and the CERN & Society activities," says Castoldi. Through the foundation, the public can donate to the various projects that fall outside CERN's core remit of fundamental science, which is paid for by contributions from the Organization's 21 member states.

To be eligible for the initiative, each project must have a clear and direct impact on society. Current examples include the beam line for schools project, which makes a working beam line available for use by high-school students; the OPENMED biomedical facility for cancer treatment; and the Collide @ CERN residency programme, which sponsors artists to visit CERN to seek creative inspiration. "With the help of donors and supporters we can really make a change and bring direct benefits from CERN to society," says Castoldi.

If you would like to know more about CERN & Society projects or donate to a project, check out the website. And if you have got a project at CERN that you think would be eligible for help from the CERN & Society Foundation, contact the Development Office.

Twenty-nine fully equipped and ergonomic workstations, one meeting area and 11 large format screens in a completely refurbished room: the ALICE Run Control Centre (ARC) implements the best and newest solutions for its shift workers and expert operators, including access for persons with reduced mobility and very soon a magic window for Point 2 visitors.

“Our initial intention was just to optimise the old layout,” says Federico Ronchetti from Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati (Italy), a CERN scientific associate currently appointed as ALICE Run Coordinator and person in charge of the ALICE Consolidation Task Force. “However, during the review process, we carried out a study of all the existing control rooms at CERN and became aware we needed a radical change. Hence we started planning a complete redesign of the workspace.” Designed and equipped over many years, the old ALICE control room did not have enough space to fit all the shift workers and detector experts in one single environment. In addition, the room suffered from the presence of large structural pillars, internal walls and a corridor that fragmented the precious usable space. Such a layout did not help information exchange among the operators, needed for a flawless quick response to critical issues.

Inaugurated last July, the new room can now very comfortably fit the four main operators plus the 19 detector experts and the Run Coordination team who will control and monitor 24/7 all the sub-systems of the ALICE detector and its interface with the LHC accelerator. “The detector workstations are not initially assigned to any defined system,” explains Ronchetti. “Following the approach seen in the main CERN Control Centre, a common software interface allows all the operators to connect to their sub-detector from any computer in the room.” A small but functional meeting area has been added within the room’s open space so that the coordinators can get together and quickly react to unplanned run configuration changes. “The shift leader and Run Coordinators now have more central and dedicated workspaces compared to the old layout, allowing them to catch any change in conditions quickly during the data taking operations,” adds Ronchetti.

The new ARC also includes a variable-intensity LED light system, which combines well with the natural light coming in through the two side windows left uncovered by the large-size TV array, and a new access ramp for persons with reduced mobility, while three large windows have been opened along the hangar corridor to provide visitors with a good view of the room. One of these will become a “magic window” to be used by guides at Point 2. “The magic window will turn opaque on demand,” explains Ronchetti. “In this way, the window transforms into a super-size touch screen for the guides to run interactive presentations. Once done, we can toggle the window back to the normal glass transparency and our visitors will enjoy a “shift leader’s” view of our Run Control Centre.”

A full collection of photographs showing the transition from the old to the new control room is available on the Facebook public page of the Run Coordination project. Posts targeting the general public concerning ALICE highlights, the experiment’s day-to-day activity and the progress of data-taking operations are periodically published, so do not hesitate to visit and “like” it!

The pupils took over a hall at CERN for an afternoon to test a new software tool called CIMA (CMS Instrument for Masterclass Analysis) for the first time. The software simplifies the process of recording results and reduces the number of steps required to enter data. During the exercise, each group of pupils had to analyse about a hundred events from the LHC. For each event, the budding physicists determined whether what they saw was a candidate W boson, Z boson or Higgs boson, identified the decay mode and entered key data. At the end of the analysis, they used the results to reconstruct a mass diagram. CIMA was developed by a team of scientists from the University of Aachen in Germany, the University of Notre-Dame in the US, and CERN.

CMS has also added yet another educational tool to its already large collection with the introduction in recent weeks of virtual tours. Several hundred students, from Egypt, Pakistan and Iran among others, have already been on one of these virtual tours, during which they were able to view the detector from every angle. With just a few weeks to go before the end of “real” underground tours, virtual tours from the control room or the service caverns will mean that CMS’s doors remain open, virtually at least, to schools and the general public.

CERN and the Japanese high-energy accelerator research laboratory KEK have a long history of collaboration. An agreement signed at KEK on 21 November puts this on even firmer ground: both labs will establish CERN-KEK offices to increase the collaborative effort on accelerator R&D and construction projects of mutual interest.

There are a number of key projects that fall into this category: the LHC and its luminosity upgrade, the LHC injectors, linear collider studies and the associated accelerator test facilities ATF and ATF2, which all feature on the strategy roadmaps for the future of particle physics both in Europe and in Japan. The programmes at the Japan Proton Accelerator Complex – including upgrades and KEK’s future SuperKEKB  accelerator – involve a wide community of European researchers, and generic R&D on high-field magnets and high-gradient structures for the FCC study and CLIC are of great importance for both labs. European scientists, including from CERN, form part of the preparation team for the International Linear Collider that is being pursued in Japan.

“CERN and KEK have many common interests, but it has been difficult to form collaborations for each of them. That's why it is important to establish these offices,” says Katsuo Tokushuku, supervisor of the KEK office at CERN. The new offices do not only consist of physical office space but also of administrative help for scientists travelling to and installing themselves at the partner lab. Registration procedures at a new lab and in a new country are often tricky, and the office staff will make sure that accelerator specialists can focus on their R&D work rather than on paperwork.

CERN’s Linear Collider Study Leader Steinar Stapnes supervises the CERN office at KEK and is looking forward to sending CERN researchers over to Japan, as well as welcoming more KEK accelerator scientists to CERN. “There is significant overlap of this new office agreement with an EC-funded project starting in 2015 called E-JADE (Europe-Japan Accelerator Development Exchange Programme), which supports the exchange of key researchers in the field of accelerator science between Europe and Japan,” he says. 

Another important aspect the offices will handle are official visits from the other lab and from other regions, planning travel, arranging meetings, workshops and training and the exchange and transport of hardware components. 

“With the establishment of the branch offices, we have entered into a new phase of international cooperation in which human and technological resources are shared with each other. We hope that this new scheme will gather momentum on advancing accelerator science,” says Atsuto Suzuki, Director-General of KEK, who signed the Agreement together with CERN’s Head of International Relations Rüdiger Voss.

An overview of the ATLAS experiment written by physicists Monica Dunford and Peter Jenni has been published on Scholarpedia. The article is the first in the series on experimental high-energy physics that the editors of the topic hope to host on the website.

Scholarpedia itself began only five years ago as a hub for neuroscientists to find reliable information from experts in the field. Since then, it has branched into other fields such as Applied Mathematics, Astrophysics, Celestial Mechanics, Computation Intelligence, Theoretical High Energy Physics and more.

“Physics as a Scholarpedia topic began three years ago and this is the first from experimental high energy physics. We would like to get material from other experiments at CERN and high energy physics laboratories around the world,” says Laurent Serin, co-editor of the section together with Lydia Roos.

Unlike Wikipedia, articles in Scholarpedia are written and peer-reviewed by people who are well known in their respective fields. The published content is a living material as the authors curate it or entrust the task to other experts in the same field. Curation includes ensuring that the article remains relevant as the topic develops over time. The materials are written for high-school and university students, scientists and people who have some knowledge of the subject.

“There is usually a gap between materials that are available for the non-science audience and the very technical reports. This was the perfect audience to write for, people who had some knowledge and genuine interest – especially students, engineers and people starting out in the field,” says Monica Dunford, who has blogged about particle physics for the US-LHC and The Huffington Post.

She worked with Jenni, who is a former spokesperson of ATLAS and current curator of the content. “We spent a lot of time planning a coherent structure. It was a hard balance to strike as you cannot oversimplify or include too much raw information, and still maintain accuracy in 6000 words on a topic in which you’ve invested your life,” says Dunford.

The ATLAS experiment’s Scholarpedia page, which was visited more than 1000 times within its first few days, was reviewed by Fabiola Gianotti of CERN and Michel Lefebvre of University of Victoria, Canada.

Today CERN and the business incubator Technopolis Thessaloniki Incubator S.A. announced the launch of a new Business Incubation Centre (BIC) for CERN technologies in Greece. The agreement follows the establishment of BICs in three other CERN Member States: the UK, Netherlands and, last month, Norway.

More than 30 companies have passed through Technopolis since its formation in 2007. Following discussions between the company and CERN’s Knowledge Transfer (KT) group, CERN Director-General Rolf Heuer signed an agreement with its President, A.Tzikas.

"This agreement provides a catalyst to build an ecosystem that nurtures the efforts of local entrepreneurs and helps them to develop opportunities into tangible goods and services," says Nick Ziogas of the CERN Knowledge Transfer group, who worked on the agreement.

CERN’s KT group uses BICs, among other tools, to disseminate CERN technologies. They aim to nurture innovative ideas based on technologies developed at CERN. Technopolis will provide local support, while successful applicants will also receive 40 hours of free consultancy from CERN experts with the support of the KT Group. The company will also provide infrastructure and facilities management, business development support and advice and a valuable grant for a period of up to two years.

KT is actively involved in the selection of companies applying to the BIC and acts as a filter to ensure that only serious proposals compatible with CERN work and values go through. CERN experts invest their time and knowledge to make this a valuable offering to companies.

"The main objective is to support start-up companies from the beginning and accompany them in their development as well as offering researchers from Greece the vision to convert their research ideas and results into sustainable business ventures," says Ziogas. "This helps to bridge the gap between the academic and business communities."

Even if the start-up companies do not use a CERN technology, but are active in an area where CERN has expertise, they can benefit from this expertise by collaborating with scientists who have faced similar challenges.

The new incubator in Thessaloniki provides an exciting opportunity to Greek start-up companies or researchers that want to pursue their innovative ideas.

This agreement underlines CERN's commitment to make new technologies stemming from basic research in particle physics available and constitutes yet another way to increase the return to the member states.

Today, Rolf Heuer, CERN’s Director-General, published a blog post on Huffington Post. This is the first post in a series to be published in a blog for the online news aggregator. The idea of the blog stems from the International Geneva Perception Change project, which aims to put the spotlight back on the relevance and impact of the work done by all of the UN and international organizations, NGOs and other institutions based in Geneva. Heuer joins Michael Møller and other project members on the blog for Huffington Post.

The first post concerns the Chief Scientific Advisor role at the European Commission. The European Commission President’s recent decision not to renew the role of Chief Scientific Advisor shook the scientific community. Heuer addresses the media attention and concerns of the scientific community but remains cautiously optimistic.

“Scientific evidence is not an option in policy-making, it is a necessity. It is about evidence based decision making,” says Heuer. "As scientists, we must continue to encourage Juncker to keep science at the centre of policy, and I look forward to seeing how he proposes to achieve that”.

Read more:"Europe must keep science at the heart of policy making"– CERN Director-General Rolf Heuer, Huffington Post

At a ceremony on Saturday morning, CERN Director-General Rolf Heuer and Mayor of Meyrin Monique Boget inaugurated "Wandering the immeasurable"– the 15-tonne steel sculpture by the Globe of Science and Innovation.

Twisting 11 metres into the air, the sculpture, which is shaped like a giant ribbon, pays homage to great discoveries in physics through the ages. Some 37 metres of steel are laser cut on the outside surface with 396 discoveries in their language of origin. Each shows a scientist's name and the year and nature of his or her breakthrough in the field of physics, astrophysics or mathematics.

The first inscription, written in cuneiform at the base of the sculpture, deals with sexagesimal calculations, discovered by the ancient Mesopotamians in around 1500 BC. Greek inscriptions follow from early thinkers such as Archimedes, before Chinese, Sanskrit and Arabic make their mark.

Electroplated on the inside surface of the sculpture, these same discoveries are represented with scientific symbols – early Babylonian sky maps and algebraic equations including Pythagoras' theorem and Einstein's famous e=mc², culminate with the complex Langrangian equation that describes the Standard Model of particle physics.

"The steel ribbon rises from the Earth and twists as if on a peregrination – the science does not know where it will lead," says CERN's Bernard Pellequer, who initiated the sculpture project.

The sculpture was designed by Canadian artist Gayle Hermick and made possible by a one-off donation from the Fondation Meyrinoise du Casino. Swiss metalwork firm SENN-AG put the steel together.

His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and his entourage visited the CMS experiment before meeting a group of international scientists led by CERN Director-General Rolf Heuer. H.A.H Bartholomew came to Geneva primarily to visit CERN making it the first visit of an Ecumenical Patriarch. An interest in CERN arose from recent discussions held with Emmanuel Tsesmelis – a CERN scientist and Deputy Head of International Relations – on the subject of science and religion.

During the visit, H.A.H Bartholomew addressed the interface of science and religion with the aim of discussing a common vision and vocabulary.  “It is indeed a unique honour and privilege to be among you at this prestigious international centre for nuclear and broader scientific research,” said H.A.H Bartholomew. “In our own humble opinion, the Orthodox Christian approach to creation is not irreconcilable with scientific theories about the origin of the universe.”

“We have a common vision, religion and science are both looking for the origin of the universe,” confirmed Rolf Heuer before inviting H.A.H Bartholomew to sign the CERN guest book, as is tradition.

Only ten years younger than CERN, the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, ICTP, celebrated its 50th anniversary in October 2014. Today, the centre is recognized as a driving force that supports scientists in their home countries in order to stem the scientific brain drain from the developing world. The current director is Fernando Quevedo, who first came to CERN as a young post-doc. In his role as director of ICTP, he took part in a colloquium at CERN in September, on “From physics to daily life”, and found time to talk to Antonella Del Rosso about the contribution that theorists make to society and why it deserves support.

Read more:"ICTP: theorists in the developing world"– CERN Courier

During its 174th session, the CERN Council confirmed Agnieszka Zalewska in her position of President of the CERN Council for a further year. Walter Van Doninck was also re-elected as Vice President of Council, Charlotte Jamieson as Chair of the Finance Committee and Tatsuya Nakada as Chair of the Scientific Policy Committee, all for one year. Bernard Dormy was re-elected as Chair of the Tripartite Employment Conditions Forum, TREF, for three years. Full membership of Council and its committees will be published on the Council website. Thierry Lagrange was appointed ad-interim Chief Executive of the CERN pension fund until 31 December 2016 at the latest.

The appointment of Fabiola Gianotti as next CERN Director-General was formalised by a unanimous vote of Council.  Her five-year mandate will start on 1 January 2016. In the interim period, she will be working closely with CERN’s current Director-General, Rolf Heuer, to ensure a smooth transition.

Council welcomed the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, JINR, for the first time as an Observer to Council as part of a reciprocal arrangement that also sees CERN becoming an Observer at JINR.  Founded as an international organisation two years after CERN at Dubna near Moscow, JINR soon forged a close partnership with CERN that saw exchanges of personnel and equipment throughout the cold war and beyond.

Council agreed to proceed towards Associate Membership for Pakistan, and the Director-General will be travelling to Islamabad before the end of the year to sign the accession documents, which will be subject to ratification. Pakistan’s formal association with CERN dates back to 1994, when a first collaboration agreement was signed. Today, Pakistan is involved with the four major LHC experiments and with accelerator R&D, and is host to a WLCG tier-2 computing centre. Collaboration agreements have also been concluded with Albania, Mongolia and Bangladesh, focusing on capacity building.

CERN Director for Accelerators and Technology, Frédérick Bordry, delivered the seventh and final report on the LHC’s first long shutdown, LS1. LS1 was conducted under the mantra of ‘safety first’, and has concluded with an exemplary safety record. As 2014 comes to a close, the whole accelerator chain upstream of the LHC is back in operation, with recommissioning of the LHC proceeding on schedule. One LHC sector has successfully been ramped to the equivalent of the run 2 operating beam energy of 6.5 TeV and all sectors are at liquid helium temperature. Sergio Bertolucci, Director for Research and Computing, went on to report on the impressive amount of work that has been carried out on the LHC detectors throughout LS1 and the readiness of the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid for run 2.

The Council week was an opportunity for members of Council to inaugurate the IdeaSquare building on 9 December. This new initiative of CERN’s Development and Innovation Unit brings together researchers, engineers, people from industry and young students to actively take CERN technology to society. Inspired by CERN technologies, IdeaSquare projects will build on existing CERN R&D activities.

CERN appeared a gigantic enterprise to the young people who started to work for the fledgling organization from 1952 onwards. The adventure was vividly described via recollections recorded in interviews carried out by Marilena Streit-Bianchi for the CERN Archives between 1993 and 1997. As a tribute to some of those who passed away before the 60th anniversary, CERN Courier has published some edited extracts that cover a few of the different evolving facets of the organization from the early 1950s to the late 1970s.

Read more: "In their own words"– CERN Courier

The Lift conference is one of Europe’s key events about innovation and digital technologies. This year's conference – Feb. 4–6 2015 at CICG, Geneva – will feature a special blend of inspiring speeches by some of the world’s best speakers, truly interactive workshops, exhibitions of interactive media projects, prototypes to play with and more. Lift15 will also see two events involving members of the CERN community:

• The Fantastic New World of Mister Higgs: an interactive workshop led by Tuuli Utraiainen, from CERN's IdeaSquare, together with Dominic Robson from HEAD Media Design. The event will look at speculative applications from CERN's discoveries and innovations (beyond the World Wide Web), and explore how designers can work with scientists to expose and communicate these potential futures. 
• New techniques in science storytelling: a Masterclass given by participants of the 2014 Storytelling Hackathon held at CERN in the framework of CineGlobe. If you've ever wondered how storytelling can be applied to “non-narrative” concepts, especially those of technical or scientific nature, this is your chance to find it out. 

Lift15 will also feature the European Space Agency, with many of their top researchers, space analysts and project leaders giving presentations at Lift15. Further highlights include a hands-on Masterclass with Simon Lynen on Google's next-generation 3D phones and more. For more information on the conference visit their site LiftConference.com.

As an academic partner of the conference, CERN has 7 free tickets available for internal distribution. If you wish to participate in Lift15, send an email to bulletin-editors@cern.ch. The tickets will be distributed on a first come, first served basis. No more tickets are available.

FameLab is the exciting competition for young researchers that is conquering the world of science communication. CERN, which was already a partner in the Swiss and French competitions, is now launching its own event. 

FameLab is not just another talent show for scientists: its magic formula truly helps real scientists show off their communication skills. Successful candidates will have to impress the judges by giving an original and entertaining 3-minute talk.  In the words of one of the participants in the Swiss competition: “I enjoyed the fact that it wasn't only a competition, and there were also plenty of opportunities to network with other young researchers and to get valuable feedback on our public speaking and science communication skills.”

The contestants are judged on the content, clarity and charisma of their talks. The result is an amazing collection of speeches that are inspiring, educational and accurate, despite their brevity.

Since 2012, CERN has been a partner of FameLab in Switzerland and since 2014 also in France. If you are a French scientist or you work for a French institute, you can enter the French competition; if you are a Swiss scientist or you work for a Swiss institute, you can enter the competition organised in Switzerland. In order to offer further opportunities for you to become a star of science communication, CERN is organising the first Physics FameLab, to be held on 21 May at CERN. It is open to young researchers (up to 35 years of age) with a valid CERN account. The winner of the competition will go on to participate in the international final that will be held during the 2015 Cheltenham Science Festival.

Enter the competition now! Read the rules, record a video (3 minutes long maximum!) of your talk and send its URL to the organisers before 15 March 2015. The best videos will be selected to participate in the CERN event. Visit the website for more detailed information.

Seen from above, the CERN Control Centre resembles the shape of a quadrupole magnet. The consoles are distributed in four circles, called “islands”, dedicated to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS), the Proton Synchrotron (PS) Complex and the Technical Infrastructure (TI) respectively. Spread between TI and LHC are the Cryogenics consoles. Being in the same room allows the 24h-manned islands to be constantly in touch with one another, thus ensuring the best performance of the machines.

At the LHC island, operators are currently busy training the magnets. For them, the best is yet to come, as with the 6.5-TeV energy, many things are about to change. “We’re aware of some of the issues we’re going to face, but we expect the higher energy to bring new issues that will become evident only once the machine is in operation,” explains Mirko Pojer, the engineer in charge of the LHC. Among those issues are UFOs: “Unidentified Falling Objects” that could create unwanted particle collisions in the pipes with a potential risk for the machine. “The effect, probably due to dust particles falling through the beam, causes localised beam loss,” explains Pojer. “That might trigger the automatic beam extraction that reduces the operational efficiency of the machine.” At the moment, the team is performing runs without beams to check all the software, testing the availability of all the systems and doing powering tests for the magnets.

At the Technical Infrastructure island, one person, for a shift of eight hours, monitors CERN’s entire technical infrastructure. “During LS1, each day we have something like two to three thousand alarms going off. With the restart, we expect a smaller number”, explains Gildas Langlois, operator from the Beams Department at the TI station. “Nevertheless, when the LHC starts running at never-before-attained energies, the pressure on our team will be higher, since, from our point of view, a problem occurring during Run 2 could easily grow faster than during LS1.”

The two islands of the injector complex – PS Booster, PS and SPS – have been running at full speed for several months as the injectors were already running last year. The SPS is currently sending argon ions to the North Area, while the PS complex delivered beams to the East Area and the n_TOF facility in 2014. To coordinate their operations, the SPS, PS and PS Booster operation, equipment and user facility representatives meet every week to discuss the programme for the week, the status of the machines, or the beam quality. “So far, we are progressing very well towards the expected operation for Run 2,” explains Ana Guerrero from the PS section in the Beams Department. “The protons are already circulating in the machines and we don’t expect big problems.”

While the current in the LHC magnets increases, the fever rises at the SPS island as the injector will soon be preparing the first beams for the LHC. Initially, only the so-called “doublet” – two proton bunches repeated at a spacing of 25 ns – will be injected. “This special beam is used to perform the “scrubbing”, a way of cleaning the LHC pipes of surface pollution, which can cause “electron clouds”, a phenomenon that can cause beam losses and can be dangerous for cryogenics,” says Karel Cornelis of the Beams Department, SPS section.

If the temperature is increasing elsewhere, it’s “cold stable” in the Cryogenics team, whose control monitors are distributed over the LHC and TI islands. Indeed, the team is in charge of making sure that the temperature of the LHC's superconducting magnets is kept as stable as possible at around 1.9 K. “After analysing what happened during Run 1, we improved the software that regulates the temperature”, explains Antoine Escoleira of the Cryogenics Operation team. “Only once the machine is in operation will we be able to verify its correct behavior.” He adds: “We have enough tools here to intervene via computer if something unexpected happens, but with the restart there will be a little more pressure, since we have to be more than ready to intervene promptly to adjust our machines."

With less than a month to the big event, everything is being prepared to ensure a smooth restart. You can monitor the performance of the whole accelerator complex using the Vistar webtool, and, of course, by reading the LHC Reports in the CERN Bulletin every other week.

After participating as a volunteer in the 2014 European Researchers’ Night – when the POPScience poetry competition was officially launched – Thomas Otto decided to take part in the contest with three poems inspired by CERN. “I’ve always been interested in poetry, but only as a reader,” says Thomas. “At that point I felt inspired and I began to think about all the associations and metaphors I could create to describe CERN and its life to a non-scientific audience.”

The three poems pay homage to the LHC, the CMS experiment and life at CERN. During LS1, Thomas spent time walking in the tunnel, and that was where he found his inspiration. “I couldn’t help wondering how I could put my thoughts into images,” he explains. He thus chose the “cold” theme for the LHC poem, to represent the uniqueness of the machine, colder than outer space, and went on to describe the acceleration of protons using evocative images.

Among the CERN experiments he was particularly inspired by CMS “because of its elegance and compactness,” he explains. “When visiting CMS you can see the whole experiment and realise how beautiful it is.” Thomas also thought about the magnetic field that “moves” the particles and visualised the giant and colourful CMS detector as “a mythical animal hunched deep in its cave, swallowing bunches of protons”, which then collide to “recreate the origins” of our Universe.

After writing two science-related poems, he decided to dedicate his last one to the people working at CERN. “I find it rather funny that scientists and technicians are addressing very complex issues in their daily working routine, but then have to face the apparently trivial problem of finding a parking space or queuing endlessly at the restaurants,” he concludes.

You can download Thomas Otto's e-book here. All the e-books by the POPScience winners are available here. 

One of the highest­ ranking Buddhist Masters, His Holiness the XIIth Gyalwang Drukpa, came to CERN today for the event "Science Meets Buddhism: Great Minds, Great Matters" at which he discussed the intersection of science, philosophy and spirituality with leading scientists at CERN.

Buddhist philosophy shares some common ground with modern scientific principles. Both seek to develop a deeper understanding of the natural world and perceptions of reality.

The four speakers— His Holiness Gyalwang Drukpa, Director General Rolf Heuer, and CERN theorists Gian Giudice and Michelangelo Mangano— addressed topics such as the origins of the universe and the differences between knowledge and understanding.

“It’s always amazing how quickly you identify common ground,” said CERN theorist Michelangelo Mangano. The Drukpa nodded his head in agreement as Giudice discussed how empty space is never really empty, but rather filled with an invisible energy field we cannot see or detect. “We have the same concept is Buddhism,” he said. “We call it Śūnyatā.”

The conference ended with spiritual leaders and CERN scientists agreeing that science and spirituality shape who we are as humans, and that education in both realms could help cultivate an appreciation of the natural world and a sustainable future. “Both are part of our life and should be taken seriously,” said Director-General Rolf Heuer.

LHC run 2 is coming ever closer. Seven of the machine’s eight sectors have successfully been commissioned to the 2015 operating energy of 6.5 TeV per beam, and the eighth is not far behind. There will, however, be no circulating beam in the LHC this week. An intermittent short circuit to ground in one of the machine’s magnet circuits was identified on 21 March and is under investigation. It is a well understood issue, but one that could take time to resolve since it is in a cold section of the machine and repair may therefore require warming up and re-cooling after repair. “Any cryogenic machine is a time amplifier,” said CERN’s Director for Accelerators, Frédérick Bordry, “so what would have taken hours in a warm machine could end up taking us weeks.”

Current indications suggest a delay of between a few days and several weeks. A full assessment is on going, and a revised schedule will be announced as soon as it is known. Whatever the case, the impact on LHC operation will be minimal: 2015 is a year for fully understanding the performance of the upgraded machine with a view to full-scale physics running in 2016-2018.

“All the signs are good for a great run 2,” said CERN Director-General Rolf Heuer. “In the grand scheme of things, a few weeks delay in humankind’s quest to understand our universe is little more than the blink of an eye.”