Friday, April 10, 2009


Chu visits Los Alamos National Laboratory

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) -- He's the U.S. energy secretary and the new boss, but Steven Chu was all scientist as he launched a two-day visit to New Mexico with a stop at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Chu chatted informally with lab scientists about their ongoing research into climate modeling, hydrogen storage, nanotechnology, HIV and other issues on Thursday. In a large hall in the lab's computing center, he scrutinized displays of the programs, listened intently to explanations, then peppered lab employees with questions that made it clear he was a fellow scientist.

"He knew a lot about our field - which was dazzling," said Bette Korber, a theoretical biologist who is researching HIV. (Extra! Extra! Read all about it




Energy secretary assessing labs

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (KRQE) - Energy Secretary Steven Chu toured Los Alamos National Laboratory Thursday and is scheduled to visit Sandia National Laboratories on Friday.

His department oversees both facilities. After working in Washington Chu jetted across the country and at 5 p.m. was hustled into LANL for a whirlwind three-hour tour.

The Los Alamos agenda showed Chu the lab does a lot more than just weapons work, for example using computers in the war on HIV/AIDS. (Enjoy the story on your own computer!)




Energy secretary visits Los Alamos

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AJ) -- The visit was an opportunity for Los Alamos to display what a few of its 2,200 some Ph.D.'s have been up to, with large posters specially made for the visit describing research in fields as diverse as climate change and cybersecurity.

“We wanted to give him a chance to see the breadth” of LANL's work, said Terry Wallace, a principal associate director. (Subscription required to read this story.)





Energy Secretary visits LANL

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu will continue his two-day visit to New Mexico's national laboratories with a stop at Sandia Friday. Thursday, he chatted with scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory and was briefed on the lab's nuclear weapons program. (Watch this!)






Nanoscale changes rise to macro importance in a key electronics material

The new study of silver niobate not only opens the door to engineering improved electronic components for smaller, higher performance wireless devices, but also serves as an example of understanding how subtle nanoscale features of a material can give rise to major changes in its physical properties. The study required measurements at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory and the Lujan Neutron Center at Los Alamos National Laboratory. (Expand your mind with the whole story here





Editorial: As WIPP proves safe, should role expand?

And the record has been a good one, give or take a dozen or so non-threatening delivery-truck mishaps and a couple of misdirected deliveries; more than 7,000 loads have been carried there - from Los Alamos National Laboratory, from the now-closed Rocky Flats weapons plant and from nuclear installations coast to coast. (Full story)




The Curious Capitalist: Still no great depression

Sebastian Dartevelle, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and an occasional reader of this blog, devised a simple way to correct 1929 farm employment statistics: He came up with rough estimates of the total number of people who could work in 1929 (those 14 and older) and in 2007 (those 16 and over), and divided the change in non-farm employment in each downturn by the appropriate labor-force number. (Don't be depressed, read the whole story.)


_______________________________________
To subscribe to Los Alamos Report, please send an email here and include the words "subscribe losalamosreport" in the body of the email message; to unsubscribe, include "unsubscribe losalamosreport".


Please visit us at www.lanl.gov