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var newsnumber = 7;

var randomnumber = Math.random() ;

var rand_num = Math.round( (newsnumber-1) * randomnumber);

fixed_num = 2;



switch(rand_num){


case 0:

	document.write('<p align="left"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><img src="Images/Catanach_Scholarship.jpg" alt="photo" width="244" height="164" align="right"><font color="#009933">Thomas Catanach recipient of APS Scholarship</font></font></b></p>');

	
	document.write('<p align="left">Sophomore physics and classical languages major Thomas Catanach (pictured here with Director of Undergraduate Studies, Professor Anthony Hyder, and Chairman of the Department of Physics, Professor Mitchell Wayne), has received a Minorities in Physics scholarship from the American Physical Society. This scholarship is aimed at fostering continued education in physics and undergraduate research. Catanach&rsquo;s application included significant research he performed as a Notre Dame freshman in Project GRAND, Gamma Ray Astrophysics at Notre Dame, led by Physics professor John Poirier.</a>');


	document.write('<p align="left">“I’ve been looking at long data sets of cosmic ray intensity,” Catanach said. “I&rsquo;ve been studying long-term trends. The data comes from GRAND&rsquo;s 64 detectors in a field north of campus. The analysis focuses on accounting for the effects on temperature and pressure on muon detection. That allows researchers to understand what the cosmic ray is doing, rather than what the muon, generated by the cosmic ray in the atmosphere, is doing.”</a>');


	document.write('<p align="left">“Both temperature and pressure exhibit periodic variation. Temperature changes with the day-night rotation of the Earth and the yearly seasons. Pressures changes are the result of a two-cycle-a-day change in the atmosphere caused by solar tides. When the effects of pressure are excluded, the increase in the two cycles per day increases indicating that there is another two cycle variation in cosmic ray flux probably caused by the interplanetary magnetic field. You learn more about the cosmic rays themselves,” he said.</a>');


	document.write('<p align="left"> Last summer, Catanach did research at SNO lab in Canada with Queen&rsquo;s University, looking at ultra high energy cosmic rays and helping with the development of the SNO+ detector. He has worked with cosmic rays since he was in high school in Dallas and became involved in a QuarkNet program at SMU, where he did research for several summers. QuarkNet is heavily involved in cosmic ray studies and maintains an online data repository from participating schools. The American Physical Society scholarship supports Catanach&rsquo;s continued research. He said, “It&rsquo;s to encourage you to be involved in research.”</a>');


	document.write('<p> Post date: 11/12/09 </p>');
	
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case 1 :         

	document.write('<p align="left"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><img src="Images/Chris_Kennedy.jpg" alt="photo" width="187" height="240" align="right"><font color="#009933">Chris Kennedy returns to department to discuss "Post Ph.D"</font></font></b></p>');
	
	document.write('</p><p align="left">Chris Kennedy (Notre Dame Ph.D. 1993) returned to campus on October 16 to speak with a group of approximately 30 physics majors and graduate students about the reality that a significant number of Physics PhD&rsquo;s go into the private sector rather than move toward an academic career. According to an NSF survey, between the years 1996 and 2000, 46% of Ph.D. recipients went into industry, 40% went into academe, and 13% into government, non-profit, and hospital work. Chris focused on the why and what to expect when they got there.</p>');
	
	document.write("</p><p align='left'>Why would you want to go into industry? Chris explained that the work can be fun. Many industries are in attractive locations, i.e. the Bay Area, Seattle, New York, Atlanta, Boston. Industry &quot;allows you to get on with your life. It offers more stability than extended postdoctoral appointments and, of course, the money is generally better.&quot; As Chris said, &quot;Someone has to donate to the Notre Dame Fund Drives and industry jobs tend to be paid higher than academic jobs.&quot; Chris concluded by stating that industry is a better fit for some, while academia is a better fit for others, and chances are you can survive in either place.</p>");

	document.write('</p><p align="left">Of course, you have to decide what you love doing. If you love teaching, industry is not for you. The problems in academia are more elementary. &quot;What are the fundamental laws of the universe vs. What am I going to be able to sell and, of course, the fact that companies don&rsquo;t have college football teams. No matter what, you will still have budgets, bosses, human resource issues, politics, canceled projects, dead start-up, mergers, acquisitions, and spin-offs.&quot;</p>');
	
	document.write('</p><p align="left">Chris Kennedy has a long association with the University of Notre Dame. His great grandfather was kicked out of the Moreau Seminary, his father received his Ph.D. from Notre Dame in 1966 (Chris was born while his father was in the Ph.D. program). Chris attended Creighton University as an Undergraduate and started Graduate School at Notre Dame in 1986 as a Schmidt Fellow. Chris worked in the High Energy Physics group under Professor Randy Ruchti and received his PhD in 1993. From 1993 to 1995 Chris worked as a Postdoc at Yale University. In 1995 Chris began working for AT&T. In 2002 the division that Chris was working for at AT&T was sold to Comcast where Chris is currently working as Director of Product Engineering.</p>');

	document.write('<p>Post date: 10/20/09 </p>');

	break;


case 2 :         

	document.write('<p align="left"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><img src="Images/Kirshner.jpg" alt="Robert Kirshner" width="196" height="265" align="right"><font color="#009933">Leading Astronomer Enlightens a Crowd on Our Accelerating Universe</font></font> </b></p>');
	
	document.write('<p align="left">Robert Kirshner, the Clowes Professor of Science at Harvard University, spoke to a large crowd Thursday evening (October 8) in the Hesburgh Library Auditorium on &quot;Exploding Stars and the Accelerating Cosmos: Einstein&rsquo;s Blunder Undone.&quot;</p>');
	
	document.write('<p align="left">Kirshner guided the audience through nearly 100 years of discovery on the universe. He discussed recent observations of exploding stars located half-way across the universe that reveal that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. It appears that the universe is dominated by a mysterious &quot;dark energy&quot; that drives cosmic acceleration. Kirshner explained the picture of the universe through a richly illustrated presentation, at times drawing on his own first-hand account of the discovery.</p>');
	
	document.write('<p align="left">Kirshner is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Science, and the American Philosophical Society. In 2007, Kirshner and his colleagues of the High-Z Supernova Team (including Notre Dame Professor of Physics <a href="Faculty/garnavich.html">Peter Garnavich</a>) shared the Gruber Prize in Cosmology. His award-winning book, The Extravagant Universe: Exploding Stars, Dark Energy, and the Accelerating Cosmos has been translated into four languages.</p>');
	
	document.write("<p align='left'>Kirshner&rsquo;s lecture was part of the 2009 International Year of Astronomy events at the University of Notre Dame. The lecture was sponsored by the Charles Edison Lecture Fund.</p>");

	document.write('<p>Post date: 10/9/09</p>');

	break;



case 3 : 

	document.write('<p align="left"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><img src="Images/PuWang.jpg" alt="photo" width="163" height="208" align="right"><font color="#009933">New study describes risk of mobile phone virus attacks</font></font></b></p>'); 
	
	document.write('<p align="left">Traditional cell phones have been immune to viruses because they lack standardized operating systems. However, as smart phones rapidly increase in market share, viruses pose a serious threat to mobile communications.</p>');

	document.write('<p align="left">A new study in the journal Science that is coauthored by University of Notre Dame physics doctoral student Pu Wang and researchers from Northeastern University suggests that the risk of mobile phone virus attacks will increase as a few operating systems gain more market share. The study also analyzes the pattern and speed of the spread of infection for Bluetooth and multimedia messaging services (MMS). The researchers used anonymous billing records of 6.2 million mobile subscribers and tracked calling patterns using the location of the closest mobile phone tower.</p>');

	document.write('<p align="left">Smart phones, which can share programs and data, could attract virus writers at a level more disruptive than computer viruses. Mobile viruses can be spread by either Bluetooth or MMS communications protocols. Bluetooth viruses can infect phones with the technology within a local area, comparable to the spread of contact-based disease. The infected phone must be moved into another tower’s range in order to infect a new set of phones. The slow spread provides time to develop protection from the virus.</p>');

	document.write('<p align="left">MMS viruses, like computer viruses, can send copies to everyone in the infected phone’s address book and copy themselves into a new handset in about two minutes, but the underlying call network is so fragmented that viruses can access only a fraction of susceptible phones. Since 2005, virus writers have developed hybrids that spread with both Bluetooth and MMS connections.</p>');
	
	document.write('<p align="left">Wang, who is part of Notre Dame&rsquo;s Center for Complex Network Research, notes that the increasing dominance of some operating systems for smart phones leaves the technology vulnerable to attacks by sophisticated virus writers. "We believe that the understanding of the basic spreading patterns presented here could help estimate the realistic risks carried by mobile phone viruses and aid in the development of proper measures so as to avoid the costly impact of future outbreaks," he said.</p>');
	
	document.write('<p align="left">The other authors of the study are Marta C. González and Albert-László Barabási of the Center for Complex Network Research at Northeastern University.</p>')
	
	document.write('<p align="left">Contact: Pu Wang, Department of Physics, 574-329-2113, <a href="mailto:pwang2@nd.edu">pwang2@nd.edu</a></p>')
	
	document.write('<p>Post date: 9/29/09</p>');

	break;


case 4 :

	document.write('<p align="left"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><img src="Images/bbunkerweb.jpg" alt="photo" width="179" height="231" align="right"><font color="#009933">Bunker elected Vice Chair and Chair Elect of the IXAS</font></font></b></p>');
	
	document.write('<p align="left"><a href="Faculty/bunker.html">Bruce A. Bunker</a>, Professor of Physics, has been elected Vice Chair and Chair Elect of the International X-ray Absorption Society. Bunker is director of the Materials Research Collaborative Access Team, a consortium that develops and uses x-ray beamlines at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago, one of the three most sophisticated x-ray synchrotron sources in the world.</p>');
	
	document.write('<p align="left">The International X-ray Absorption Society (IXAS) is an international scientific organization representing all those working on the fine structure associated with inner shell excitation (near edge and extended) by various probes (e.g. x-rays and electrons), and related techniques for which the data is interpreted on the same physical basis.</p>');
	
	document.write('<p align="left">The study of the fine structure of the absorption spectra is important for understanding fine details of the atomic and electron structure of matter in any aggregation state. The IXAS is the reference organization for scientists, students and practitioners using various x-ray based experimental techniques (XAS, EXAFS, XAFS, XANES, NESAFS citing just a few of them) usually conducted at synchrotron radiation facilities. One commonly used acronym, XAFS, stands for X-Ray Absorption Fine-Structure.</p>');

	document.write('<p align="left">The purpose of the IXAS is to oversee activities which benefit the community as a whole, to establish operational committees, to provide for education in the field, to disseminate relevant information, to work with other related regional, national and professional organizations in promoting and developing XAS and related disciplines, and to act as representative for the community to other professional organizations.</p>');
	
	document.write('<p>Post date: 11/5/09</p>');
	
	break;

                                                
case 5 :

	document.write('<p align="left"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><img src="Images/Wiescher_Kaneb.jpg" alt="photo" width="225" height="235" align="right"><font color="#009933">Wiescher named Kaneb Fellow</font></font></b></p>');
	
	document.write("<p align='left'>Each year, the Kaneb Center names eight faculty fellows in recognition of their records of teaching excellence. Kaneb Faculty Fellows share their teaching abilities and experiences through workshops, discussion groups, research, and individual consultation. <a href='Faculty/wiescher.html'>Michael Wiescher</a>, Freimann Professor of Physics, was recently named a 2009-2010 Fellow.</a>");

	document.write("<p align='left'>Michael Wiescher received his PhD in Physics in Munster, Germany. He held research positions at Ohio State University, Caltech, and the University of Mainz, Germany before he joined the faculty of the University of Notre Dame in 1986. His research is focused on nuclear astrophysics, studying the origin of elements in our Universe and the nature of nuclear processes in stars and stellar explosions. He is the Freimann Chair of Physics and Director of the Institute for Structure and Nuclear Astrophysics, a university research center and accelerator laboratory. He is also Director of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics, a Physics Frontier Center of the National Science Foundation between Notre Dame, the University of Chicago, and Michigan State University as well as a number of other national and international research institutions.</a>");

	document.write("<p align='left'>Wiescher heads a large research group with a number of graduate and undergraduate students and over the years he has taught a large number of graduate and undergraduate courses. He is particularly interested in communicating science goals and concepts to non-science students since a basic knowledge of science and understanding of the role of science in society is important in today’s world. In this spirit, Wiescher revitalized and developed a number of interdisciplinary courses to attract non-physics major students and to pass this message to Notre Dame undergraduate students. These courses include Physics in Medicine, Physics Method in Art and Archaeology, and Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Warfare. For this effort Wiescher received the 2007 Joyce Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. He presently plans to develop a course on the Physics of Global Warming.</a>");

	document.write('<p> Post date: 11/6/09 </p>');
	
		break;



case 6 :         
	document.write('<p align="left"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><img src="Images/RuggieroS.jpg" alt="photo" width="174" height="232" align="right"><font color="#009933">Ruggiero Named to Technical Advisory Committee of Global Water</font></font></b></p>');
	
	document.write('<p align="left">Physics Professor <a href="Faculty/ruggiero.html">Steven T. Ruggiero</a> has been named to the Technical Advisory Committee of Global Water. Global Water is an international, non-profit humanitarian organization founded in 1982 by former US ambassador <a href=http://www.conflict-resolution.org/sitebody/education/lecture_series/McDonald.htm>John McDonald</a> and <a href=http://www.globalwater.org/whoweare.htm>Dr. Peter Bourne</a>. The Global Water philosophy is that lack of safe water and proper sanitation facilities are typically the most significant problems affecting rural populations of developing nations. Specifically, that the lack of safe drinking water and of access to sanitation facilities are the root causes of disease, hunger and poverty throughout the developing world today. The Committee will be advising them on and potentially providing a means to remotely monitor the pathogen content of water based on methodology developed by our group (Prof. Ruggiero and <a href="Faculty/tanner.html">Prof. Carol Tanner</a>) to count and identify nano-particles and organisms in water.</a>');
	
	document.write('<p align="left">This association with Global Water reflects the general interest that many groups have in water, aquatic environments and global health, including the Center for Aquatic Conservation here on campus. Our valued partnerships with Global Water and other groups on and off campus stem from studies of the properties of nano-particles, proteins, viruses, and bacteria in solution by our group which also includes Frank Li and Bobby Schafer.</a>');
	
	document.write('<p>Post date: 10/13/09</p>');
	
	break;


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