News Briefs (Jan. 11, 2006)

NASA awarded an Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal posthumously to American astronomer and astrophysicist John Bahcall, who worked on the development of the Hubble Space Telescope. Michael Griffin, NASA administrator, presented the medal to Bahcall's widow, Neta Bahcall, at the 207th meeting of the American Astronomical Society yesterday in Washington. Bahcall, who died in August, was also honored for his service with NASA's space astronomy program and leadership of the National Research Council's Decadal Survey. He performed groundbreaking work in the 1960s toward explaining the scientific mysteries of the sun; later, he partnered with astronomers Lyman Spitzer and George Field to develop the bold concept that became the Hubble. Bahcall was a professor of astrophysics in the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., and a guest lecturer at Princeton University. He also served as president of the American Astronomical Society and president-elect of the American Physical Society. He received the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal in 1002 and the National Medal of Science in 1998. . . . Rob Robbins was appointed machine-vision sales manager at Schott North America. He formerly held sales and management positions at Kodak, Videk and Machine Vision International. Schott North America's fiber optics business unit, in Auburn, N.Y., manufactures and supplies fiber optic and LED illumination and imaging solutions for machine vision, industrial OEM, microscopy, forensic and medical applications. . . . Teledyne Printed Circuit Technology of Hudson, N.H., has placed an order for two drilling and routing machines from Schmoll Maschinen of Germany: an MX-1 single-station machine with a high-speed drilling spindle and a conventional driller/router spindle, with an intelligent vision system for inner layer registration work, and an LRM4-125 dedicated router. Schmoll, located near Frankfurt, is part of the FabFour Machinery Alliance, comprised of Burkle Lamination and Coating Systems, Posalux high-volume drilling and routing systems and Bacher Systems GmbH registration and exposure systems.