The Oak Ridge Reservation Communities Alliance will meet on Wednesday, February 4, at 2 p.m. in the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, DOE-Oversight Office, at 761 Emory Valley Road in Oak Ridge.
The Alliance includes Terry Frank, Tim Burchett, Garland Lankford, Don Edwards, George Thacker, Warren Gooch, Amy Fitzgerald, Ron Woody, and Scott Stout.
The meeting is open to the public.
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“Like Lessons Learned from Children’s Books and Stories” will be the topic when Shirley Raines speaks to the Altrusa Club of Oak Ridge on Wednesday, January 28.
Raines—who is a speaker, consultant in education and leadership development, and former president of the University of Memphis—will delight us with her humorous approach about how stories shape our lives in families, in classrooms, and in careers.
Raines began her career as a teacher of young children, then became a Head Start and child care director. She later wrote 14 books for early childhood educators. [Read more…]
The Oak Ridge Recreation and Parks Advisory Board will discuss its work plan for the upcoming year during a Saturday morning work session. The Board will also discuss ways it can work alongside the Recreation and Parks Department on long-range planning.
The work session starts at 9 a.m. Saturday, January 31, in the Club Room of the Oak Ridge Civic Center at 1403 Oak Ridge Turnpike.
For more information about the Recreation and Parks Department, call (865) 425-3450 or visit www.orrecparks.org for information on all of their programs.
Researchers used electricity and water to control friction levels on ionic surfaces at the nanoscale. As water forms around the nanoscale electrode, it allows for further penetration into the sample surface, thereby increasing or decreasing friction. (Image courtesy ORNL)
Friction impacts motion, hence the need to control friction forces. Currently, this is accomplished by mechanistic means or lubrication, but experiments conducted by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have uncovered a way of controlling friction on ionic surfaces at the nanoscale using electrical stimulation and ambient water vapor.
The research, which demonstrates a new physical effect, was undertaken at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, a DOE Office of Science User Facility at ORNL, and is published in the journal Scientific Reports.
“Our finding can have a significant technological impact on applications for both macroscopic and nanoscale devices,” said lead author Evgheni Strelcov. “Decreasing or increasing nanoscale friction at will and thus controlling mechanical energy losses and wear of a microelectromechanical system’s parts has enormous implications for applied energy research and opens a new vista for fundamental science studies.” [Read more…]
More rehabilitation work of the city’s sewer collection pipes is scheduled to continue this week, starting Monday, January 26.
The work is being done by Hurst Excavating and Portland Utilities Construction Company under contract with the City of Oak Ridge. It includes rehabilitating sewer collection pipes within city easements in yards and in roadways, a press release said. [Read more…]
Clinch Bend Daughters of the American Revolution will hear about quilt codes used by slaves on the Underground Railroad during their escape to freedom.
The program, “Underground Railroad Quilt Code,” will be presented by Gwen Cole during a meeting of Clinch Bend Daughters of the American Revolution, a press release said.
The meeting is at 1 p.m. Saturday, February 14, at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Oak Ridge.
For more information, visit http://www.tndar.org/~clinchbend/ or call (865) 945-5605.
A former president of the first Planned Parenthood in the Southeast will discuss the organization during a Monday evening meeting of Democrats.
Elizabeth Peelle helped organize and then served as president and volunteer executive director from 1969 to 1970 for Planned Parenthood of the Southern Mountains, the first Planned Parenthood in the Southeast, serving health care needs of women in Anderson County and surrounding Appalachian counties, a press release said. She drafted the first proposal for outside funding that led to a professional staff for the agency.
Peelle then organized Tennesseans for Choice in 1989 because Planned Parenthood could not lobby for the pro-choice view, and she served as its president for the first eight years, the press release said. [Read more…]
Joanna McFarlane
A manager in the Fossil Energy Program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory will discuss the environment and hydraulic fracturing, often referred to as “fracking,” during a Monday meeting.
Joanna McFarlane, who has a doctorate, is a manager for the RPSEA (Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America) and Environmentally Friendly Drilling in the Fossil Energy Program at ORNL.
She will give a presentation on “Hydraulic Fracturing and the Environment” during a meeting at 11:30 a.m. Monday, January 26. It’s a luncheon meeting of the AAUW Oak Ridge Branch. The group will meet in the Activities Building of First Presbyterian Church at the corner of Oak Ridge Turnpike and Lafayette Drive. [Read more…]
Susan Moore
Susan Moore, program manager for the East Tennessee region of Prevent Child Abuse Tennessee, will be the featured speaker at a February meeting of Women’s Interfaith Dialogue of Oak Ridge.
Moore will discuss “Healthy Families, Healthy Start: A home-visiting program promoting the well-being of children.”
The meeting will start at 11 a.m. Monday, February 2, in the Entry Forum of the Jewish Congregation at 101 West Madison Lane. [Read more…]
This 3-D visualization represents projected changes in U.S. population between 2010 and 2050 as predicted by a new Oak Ridge National Laboratory model. Areas seen in red indicate higher levels of population growth, whereas the vertical spikes signify population growth with new land development. (Image courtesy ORNL)
Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a population distribution model that provides unprecedented county-level predictions of where people will live in the United States in the coming decades.
Initially developed to assist in the siting of new energy infrastructure, the team’s model has a broad range of implications from urban planning to climate change adaptation. The study is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“We do a census every 10 years because those data help us do long-term socioeconomic planning,” said Budhendra Bhaduri, who leads ORNL’s Geographic Information Science and Technology group. “Population projection numbers are important, but many pressing societal needs also require an understanding of where people are going to be. This has always been a challenge; we’ve never had a good method to make future projections spatially explicit.” [Read more…]
Parts of Tuskegee Road in central Oak Ridge will be closed temporarily for repairs to the gravel section of the road. The closure is scheduled to start Monday, January 26, and end Friday, January 30, weather permitting.
The repairs will be done by the Oak Ridge Public Works Department. The work will require sections of the road to be closed during the day starting at 8 a.m. and ending at 3 p.m., a city press release said.
There will be no through traffic during the closures, although provisions will be made for residents to access their properties.
For additional information about the Public Works Department, call (865) 425-1875 or visit www.OakRidgeTN.gov.
Tennessee’s per-capita revenue for highways in 2010 was the lowest of the 50 states, but its roads are generally rated as being of good quality, officials said Tuesday.
Tennessee was fourth-highest among 50 states in the percentage of roads in good condition and 13th-lowest in percent of deficient bridges.
A study by the Offices of Research and Education Accountability in the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury said the state’s fuel taxes have stagnated and are not expected to be sufficient to maintain existing infrastructure and meet long-term transportation demands. [Read more…]
