From the LANL Daily NewsBulletin
Community leaders learn about complex transformation
Breakfast meeting called best so far
Community leaders learned about the proposed of the nation’s nuclear weapons transformation complex and the Laboratory’s proposed role at a regional leaders breakfast Tuesday in Pojoaque. The keynote speaker was Joe Martz of the Lab’s weapons program, who spoke about what he called the “sea of change in our philosophy” that the National Nuclear Security Administration’s proposed complex transformation presents for the Laboratory. (Read the full story here.)
Hecker recounts recent visit to North Korea Former director talks at Lab
Former Laboratory Director and senior Fellow Sig Hecker discussed his recent trip to North Korea during a talk at the Lab this week. Speaking to a full auditorium, Hecker discussed the private trip he made earlier this month with a former State Department representative and a U.S. Senate staff member. Now a professor and co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, Hecker spent four days in North Korea to assess compliance with a six-party agreement addressing the country’s nuclear facilities. (Read all about it.)New Technologies in Flow Cytometry Improve Disease Diagnosis (R&D Magazine)
Accoustic waves, diffraction gratings, and digital data acquisition systems bring about greater throughput, higher sensitivity, and higher resolution cytometry systems.
It’s more compact than a conventional flow cytometer, more powerful than traditional hydrodynamic focusing, and able to bypass fluidics systems in a single bound. The world’s first portable acoustic cytometer (PAC) harnesses acoustic waves to focus cells into a tight, centered stream for analysis. The PAC, developed by researchers Gregory Kaduchak, Steven Graves, Gregory Goddard, John Martin, Robert Habbersett, Mark Naivar, and Michael Ward with the National Flow Cytometry Resource (NFCR) at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), N.M., is the latest of six R&D 100 Awards won by the flow cytometry team at LANL. (Find out more!)N.M. Scientists Explore Laser Uses, Tech Spinoffs (Associated Press)
Nancy McMillan, head of New Mexico State University's geological sciences department, had found herself at a dead end. McMillan now has a chance to further her research thanks to an ultra-short pulse laser that developers, Raydiance, Inc., say will change the way people do things — all while putting New Mexico's intellectual capital to work and spurring economic development in the state. Raydiance has partnered with universities, hospitals and private businesses around the country to develop potential uses for the laser. In New Mexico, the team includes NMSU, New Mexico Tech, the University of New Mexico and Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories. (Full story)
Spotlight on Los Alamos — Louis Rosen: Father of the linear accelerator (Los Alamos Monitor)
Senior Laboratory Fellow Emeritus Louis Rosen led the way at Los Alamos National Laboratory in developing the world’s most powerful linear accelerator, which cemented the laboratory’s leadership role in nuclear physics. The linear accelerator first powered up in summer 1972. When it reached full energy, it generated pulses of 800-million-electron-volt protons at a repetition rate of up to 120 per second and an average current of one milliampere. Rosen’s renowned scientific efforts led to the construction of the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility (LAMPF) at LANL, which is known today as the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE). He served as director of the facility from its inception to 1986. (See the full story via the Los Alamos Monitor archives.)
Scientists looking skyward for fuel
Los Alamos researchers discover way to make gasoline by recycling carbon dioxide in the air (Santa Fe New Mexican)
Carbon dioxide is a rebellious chemical. There's too much of it in the air, where it acts as a greenhouse gas, and not enough of it in the ground, where it's mined and used to make gasoline, said Jeff Martin, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. But Martin and Los Alamos Engineer Bill Kubic have come up with an idea to bring pesky carbon dioxide to task—and mine it from a place its never been mined before: the atmosphere. (Read the rest of reporter Sue Vorenberg's article.)
