Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory - Preliminary Design Report

The DUSEL Project has produced the Preliminary Design of the Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory (DUSEL) at the rehabilitated former Homestake mine in South Dakota. The Facility design calls for, on the surface, two new buildings - one a visitor and education center, the other an experiment assembly hall - and multiple repurposed existing buildings. To support underground research activities, the design includes two laboratory modules and additional spaces at a level 4,850 feet underground for physics, biology, engineering, and Earth science experiments. On the same level, the design includes a Department of Energy-shepherded Large Cavity supporting the Long Baseline Neutrino Experiment. At the 7,400-feet level, the design incorporates one laboratory module and additional spaces for physics and Earth science efforts. With input from some 25 science and engineering collaborations, the Project has designed critical experimental space and infrastructure needs, including space for a suite of multidisciplinary experiments in a laboratory whose projected life span is at least 30 years. From these experiments, a critical suite of experiments is outlined, whose construction will be funded along with the facility. The Facility design permits expansion and evolution, as may be driven by future science requirements, and enables participation by other agencies. The design leverages South Dakota's substantial investment in facility infrastructure, risk retirement, and operation of its Sanford Laboratory at Homestake. The Project is planning education and outreach programs, and has initiated efforts to establish regional partnerships with underserved populations - regional American Indian and rural populations

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

COVID-19 impacts on sport governance and management: a global, critical realist perspective

This commentary considers the impacts of COVID-19 on sport governance and management, given the global threat to sport services and organizations evident as a result of the disease since early 2020. To frame this analysis of the impacts and lessons to be learned, we use a Critical Realist (CR) perspective, which takes a multi-level view of reality and seeks to establish how and why something occurs in reality [Byers, T. (2013). Using critical realism: A new perspective on control of volunteers in sport clubs. European Sport Management Quarterly, 13(1), 5–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/16184742.2012.744765]. While the existing commentaries and emerging research on COVID19 have focused on a superficial level of reality (i.e. what stakeholder responses have been), a CR view encourages a more holistic account of what and why something happens. Specifically, this commentary contributes to the discussion of COVID-19 impacts focusing on sport governance, using a philosophy that encourages examination of what is happening in sport organizations, how different stakeholder’s perspectives and assessment of the legitimacy of COVID-19 may reveal underlying social structures and biases that help explain sport administrator’s responses and value systems. We hope this novel perspective on sport governance encourages readers to think of new ways of organizing and governing that is more inclusive of diversity (e.g. race, gender, disability) in sport

Weak Lensing from Space I: Instrumentation and Survey Strategy

A wide field space-based imaging telescope is necessary to fully exploit the technique of observing dark matter via weak gravitational lensing. This first paper in a three part series outlines the survey strategies and relevant instrumental parameters for such a mission. As a concrete example of hardware design, we consider the proposed Supernova/Acceleration Probe (SNAP). Using SNAP engineering models, we quantify the major contributions to this telescope's Point Spread Function (PSF). These PSF contributions are relevant to any similar wide field space telescope. We further show that the PSF of SNAP or a similar telescope will be smaller than current ground-based PSFs, and more isotropic and stable over time than the PSF of the Hubble Space Telescope. We outline survey strategies for two different regimes - a "wide" 300 square degree survey and a "deep" 15 square degree survey that will accomplish various weak lensing goals including statistical studies and dark matter mapping