ALSNews is a biweekly electronic newsletter to keep users and other interested parties informed about developments at the Advanced Light Source, a national user facility located at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California. We welcome suggestions for topics and content.
Previous Issues are available.
The ALS is in a planned shutdown for equipment installation and maintenance. Shutdown maintenance and installation activities are progressing well, with all major tasks either on schedule or running ahead of it. Notable accomplishments include the temporary removal of the U5 undulator in sector 8 and the successful replacement of its vacuum chamber with the new narrow-gap chamber, as well as installation and alignment of the pinger in sector 2. In order to understand how the catalysis works, a group of innovative researchers is using circularly polarized light to study these bio-inorganic molecules. Their efforts have already led to results that challenge conventional ideas about how some metalloproteins catalyze reactions.