Dry lake reveals evidence of southwestern 'megadroughts'
Research conducted at the Valles Caldera. LANL photo.There's an old saying that if you don't like the weather in New Mexico, wait five minutes. Maybe it should be amended to 10,000 years, according to new research.
In a letter published recently in the journal Nature, Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers and an international team of scientists report that the Southwest region of the United States undergoes "megadroughts"—warmer, more arid periods lasting hundreds of years or longer. (Full Story)
3 unique tours through U.S. nuclear history
Advanced computing platforms, like LANL's newest, "Cielo" are mainstays of the Stockpile Stewardship Program. LANL photo.Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico: In 1943, the U.S. established a secret laboratory in northern New Mexico with the goal of producing an atomic weapon to end World War II. Just two years later, researchers actually did it.
The making of the atomic bomb changed the course of the war and history; Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) changed, too. Today LANL also pursues bioscience, chemistry and environmental science, but maintaining nuclear security is still the lab's chief focus. (Full Story)
Researchers create better ways to spot cancer cells
The original SQUID, or superconducting quantum interference device, used in early magnetoencephalography, or MEG, research. LANL photo.Edward Flynn [formerly of] Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and his colleagues are working with nanoparticles to detect breast-cancer cells. The technique involves attaching nanoparticles of iron oxide to certain antibodies, which are then injected into the patient. (Full Story)
Using supercomputers to explore ice sheet dynamics
Los Alamos models predict a rapid decline in average September sea ice. LANL image."Right now we don't know enough to predict the dynamics of the ice sheets," said ORNL scientist Kate Evans, who leads the SEACISM project. Included in the team are other scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, and academia. (Full Story)
Video: Neutron star hides superfluid heart
See a neutron star video. From USA Today."We are very fortunate to have caught this star in its early rapid cooling epoch. It has been known for sometime that the neutrino production rates are sensitive to the existence of neutron superfluidity inside the neutron star," says astrophysicist Sanjay Reddy of the Energy Department's Los Alamos National Lab, commenting on the study. (Full Story)
Intel team steps into the light
For a brief moment last week, the Department of Energy pulled back the curtain – ever so slightly – on a clandestine team that’s used to operating under the radar inside Los Alamos National Laboratory and across the globe. (Full Story) To subscribe to Los Alamos Report, please e-mail listmanager@lanl.gov and include the words subscribe losalamosreport in the body of your email message; to unscubscribe, include unsubscribe losalamosreport.
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