Los Alamos Lab tackles surveillance, space protection issues

Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists are evaluating novel approaches to satellite situational awareness, including lowering the cost of space surveillance radars and optically monitoring the growing spread of orbital debris. (Full story)





Time-traveling browsers navigate the web's past

Finding old versions of web pages could become far simpler thanks to a "time-traveling" web browsing technology being pioneered at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

Another story about the “time-traveling” Web browser also appeared in Popular Science. Read it here!


Using CO2 to extract geothermal energy

As part of developing new energy resources that don't emit carbon dioxide, the DOE is funding 9 trials that use supercritical CO2 to extract more geothermal energy.

The idea started in 2000 at Los Alamos National Laboratory; when physicist Donald Brown thought of pumping geothermal fluid using supercritical CO2 - a pressurized form that is part gas, part liquid; instead of water. (Full story)


HPC Advisory Council announces world's fastest 120Gb/s networking demonstration

The following HPC Council member organizations have contributed and are participating in the 120Gb/s InfiniBand SCinet demonstration: AMD, Avago, Colfax Intl, Dell, HP, IBM, InfiniBand Trade Association, Koi Computers, LSI, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and others. (Full story)


What happens when materials break up?

Because of the Roadrunner supercomputer’s unique capability, scientists are for the first time attempting to create atomic-scale models that describe how voids are created in materials, mostly metals, how they grow, and merge; how the materials may swell or shrink under stress; and how once broken bonds might reattach. . . . (Full story)





Lab gains in community perceptions; results of leaders survey released

Los Alamos National Laboratory has made significant improvements in the all important “favorable impression” category of an annual opinion survey.

The tracking study by Albuquerque-based Research & Polling, Inc. continues an annual program measuring the laboratory’s perceived performance and relationships with the communities of Northern New Mexico.

Also this week in the Los Alamos Monitor:

Environmental work begins in Pueblo Canyon

Los Alamos National Laboratory is beginning to repair a degraded channel in Pueblo Canyon on the northwest side of the White Rock interchange with NM 502. While the work will have some short term impacts, the laboratory expects the job of stabilizing the wetland in the area to have positive results for the long term.



Researchers make hydrogen fuel progress

While previous research has shown that hydrogen can be harvested from ammonia borane for use in a fuel cell, the process leaves behind spent fuel. But researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of Alabama have shown that the byproduct can be efficiently converted back into usable fuel through a series of chemical reactions. (Full story)


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Computer scores against HIV

A small section of the HIV phylogenetic tree modeled on Roadrunner. LANL image.

More than idle genetic curiosity, the work is part of en effort to develop an effective vaccine against the deadly disease, said Bette Korber, a Los Alamos National Laboratory biologist and one of the world's leading AIDS geneticists. Full Story - subscription or viewing an ad is required.




Mother Nature aids LANL

Los Alamos National Laboratory and its downstream neighbors may have dodged a chromium bullet. If the latest analysis of the contaminant found in the regional aquifer is sustained, the chromium problem appears to be taking care of itself by natural geochemical processes. Full Story.



Structures and spectral variations of the outer heliosphere

The sky map was produced with data that two detectors on the spacecraft collected during six months of observations. NASA image.

The Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) has obtained all-sky images of energetic neutral atoms emitted from the heliosheath, located between the solar wind termination shock and the local interstellar medium. Full Story.




LANL project to control sediment

Los Alamos National Laboratory is trying to reduce sediments flowing down two canyons toward the Rio Grande. The lab broke ground last week on one of two planned "grade control" structures aimed at trapping sediments in Pueblo and DP canyons. Full Story.




Boosting math and science education

On Tuesday, Los Alamos National Laboratory Foundation devoted much of its annual conference on education to the state's evolving version of Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM), known as New Mexico Project 2012. Full Story.


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Laser-particle acceleration advances modern cancer radiotherapy

An international team of physicists at Los Alamos National Laboratory has succeeded in using intense laser light to accelerate protons to energies never before achieved.

Physicists around the world are examining laser particle acceleration and laser produced radiation for potential future uses in cancer treatment. (More)


LANL Roadrunner simulates nanoscale material failure

How mechanical properties change at the nanoscale is of fundamental interest and may have implications for a variety of nanostructures and nanodevices. (More)







LANL Roadrunner models nonlinear physics of high-power lasers

Los Alamos scientists Lin Yin and Brian Albright of Applied Science and Method Development, along with Los Alamos guest scientist Kevin Bowers, are using an adapted version of VPIC, a particle-in-cell plasma physics code, on Roadrunner to model the nonlinear physics of laser backscatter energy transfer and plasma instabilities. (More)





Roadrunner used to explore magnetic reconnection According to LANL

According to physicist Bill Daughton of the Plasma Theory and Applications group, understanding the three-dimensional evolution of magnetic reconnection at the most basic level remains an exceptionally challenging problem. (More)








AIDS researcher: Finding common ground generates uncommon solutions

Bette Korber wants to see a vaccine for AIDS in her lifetime, and she just might be part of it. She's a laboratory fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where she has co-led a global HIV sequence and immunology database that she hopes will unlock the clues to the vaccine. "It's an international resource for people all over the globe," she says. (More)

Zerkle honored with Gov's award

Carolyn E. Zerkle is currently directing LANL's multiple responses to the Department of Energy's stimulus opportunities under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. (More)







Also this week in the Los Alamos Monitor:

On the shoulders of giants; nuclear workers honored

Los Alamos has had many days of commemoration for fallen patriots and veterans of foreign wars, but Friday the community celebrated a day of remembrance dedicated to its own workers.

NM Gov. Bill Richardson was the first of a series of speakers in the program Friday that paid tribute to past, present and future nuclear weapons employees. (More)


Los Alamos National Laboratory names six scientists as 2009 Fellows

The title of Fellow is bestowed on only about 2 percent of the Laboratory's current technical staff. The new Fellows come from myriad scientific disciplines and have sustained high-level achievement important to the Laboratory, become recognized authorities in their fields, and made important discoveries used or cited by peers inside and outside the Laboratory. (More)

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