Lab brings $2.9 billion to area

Demolition projects means hiring subcontractors, stimulating the local economy. LANL photo.

Los Alamos National Laboratory is the sixth-largest employer in New Mexico and contributes nearly 24,000 jobs to the state, according to a University of New Mexico study based on 2009 numbers.

The study by UNM’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research pegs LANL’s impact on the state’s economy at $2.9 billion. (Full Story)


LANL helping Japan, economy of NM

Scientists in New Mexico are helping those in Japan dealing with their recent nuclear disaster.

KOAT-TV talks with Tom D'Agostino, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration at this week's community leaders breakfast about how the administration is assisting Japan and the economic impact that Los Alamos National Laboratory has in New Mexico. (Full Story)


Governor visits Los Alamos

New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez. LANL photo

Gov. Susana Martinez spent the morning at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, attending a leadership breakfast Wednesday. Martinez addressed the gathering as did lab director Michael Anastasio and NNSA head Thomas D'Agostino.

"I look forward to continuing our partnership with the lab," Martinez told those in attendance. And she also commended Anastasio, who is scheduled to retire June 1. "Dr. Anastasio, I want to thank you for the contributions you have made to our national security and the state of New Mexico." (Full Story)


Discovery could make fuel cells much cheaper

Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers Gang Wu, left, and Piotr Zelenay examine a new non- precious-metal catalyst. LANL photo.

Fuel cells use a lot of platinum, which is frightfully expensive and one reason we’ll pay $50,000 or so for the hydrogen cars automakers say we’ll see in 2015.

Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory have developed a platinum-free catalyst in the cathode of a hydrogen fuel cell that uses carbon, iron and cobalt. That could make the catalysts "two to three orders of magnitude cheaper." (Full Story)
Also covered by Green Economy


Cell phones, microwaves and the human health threat

The microwaves that cell phones emit can interact with human tissue in an entirely new way, says theoretical biologist at a government lab.

If there's one topic likely to generate spit-flecked ire, it is the controversy over the potential health threat posed by cell phone signals.

That debate is likely to flare following the publication today of some new ideas on this topic from Bill Bruno, a theoretical biologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. (Full Story)


Recreating life? High school students chat with protocell physicist from LANL

Recently a group of high school students enrolled in the Lincoln Interactive Cutting Edge Science (CES) program participated in a videoconference with Hans Ziock, a physicist at LANL. (Full Story)


NNSA announces new space debris modeling

Space junk illustrated. From the European Space Agency.

Scientists at LLNL, using NNSA supercomputers to better understand the impact of space debris, are working in collaboration with Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories, to develop a set of tools known as the Testbed for Space Situational Awareness (TESSA). (Full Story)


A hundred minutes of JFK artifacts

Los Alamos National Laboratory is displaying its collection of memorabilia from President John F. Kennedy's visit to Los Alamos nearly 50 years ago.

The collection will be on exhibit through August at the Bradbury Science Museum in Los Alamos. Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson visited the lab's Chemistry and Metallurgy Research facility in 1962. They spent 100 minutes at the lab as part of a tour of U.S. defense installations. (Full Story)


LANL reaches settlement

Environmental and community groups and Los Alamos National Laboratory announced Wednesday that they had reached a settlement agreement resolving a three-year legal dispute over stormwater runoff from the lab. (Full Story)


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Say hello to cheaper hydrogen fuel cells

Gang Wu and Piotr Zelenay examine fuel cell energy production data. LANL photo.

Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists have developed a way to avoid the use of expensive platinum in hydrogen fuel cells, the environmentally friendly devices that might replace current power sources in everything from personal data devices to automobiles.

In a paper published Science, Los Alamos researchers Gang Wu, Christina Johnston,

and Piotr Zelenay, joined by researcher Karren More of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, describe the use of a platinum-free catalyst in the cathode of a hydrogen fuel cell. (Full Story)

New technology improves fuel cells

U.S. researchers say they've developed an inexpensive substitute for expensive platinum that's been a stumbling block to widespread use of hydrogen fuel cells.

Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists say eliminating the need for platinum -- currently costing almost $1,800 an ounce -- in fuel cells that convert hydrogen and oxygen into electricity could bring the price down for the environmentally friendly devices that might replace current power sources in everything from personal data devices to automobiles. (Full Story)

Los Alamos scientists propose new theory for development of turbulent magnetic reconnection

New LANL 3-D model shows the formation of "flux ropes" in a thin boundary layer of a magnetic field. LANL image.

In this week's Nature Physics, Los Alamos physicist Bill Daughton and a team of scientists present a new theory of how magnetic reconnection proceeds in high-temperature plasmas.

Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental process in physics, the continuous breaking and rearrangement of magnetic field lines in a plasma-a hot ionized gas. Understanding reconnection phenomena has broad implications in how Earth's magnetosphere functions, how solar flares and coronal mass ejections work-and how they might affect our planet. (Full Story)

LANL studies Earth's magnetosphere

3-D supercomputer model presents a new theory of how magnetic reconnection works in high-temperature plasmas. This Los Alamos National Laboratory research supports an upcoming NASA mission to study Earth's magnetosphere in greater detail than ever. (See the video here!)

The botnets that won't die

Stephan Eidenbenz of Los Alamos National Laboratory and colleagues designed and simulated a botnet (Robot Network) that could prove much more resilient. They describe it in an upcoming paper in Computer Networks.

Their hypothetical botnet would randomly configure itself into a hierarchy, with peers accepting commands only from computers higher up in the hierarchy. Any computer taken over by an outsider would thus be less likely to be able to disrupt the network. (Full Story)

LANL statistician receives Governor's Award

Christine Anderson-Cook.

The New Mexico Commission on the Status of Women selected Los Alamos National Laboratory research statistician Christine Anderson-Cook as one of 20 women to receive the 26th Annual Governor’s Award for Outstanding New Mexico Women. (Full Story)

Biomagnetics and LANL agreement produce validated assay for tuberculosis biomarker

LANL has constructed a new bench-top type waveguide based biosensor system, developed a validated assay for a Tuberculosis biomarker, evaluated multiple assays developed using the bench top system specifically built for Biomagnetics, and is working on re-optimizing the proximity based assay for the cholera toxin on the newly constructed system. (Full Story)

Expanded hydropower plant powers up

Los Alamos County and federal officials fired up the Abiquiú hydropower plant Thursday, the first completed hydroelectric project in the nation funded by federal economic-stimulus money.

The 3-megawatt, low-flow hydropower turbine increases energy generation capacity at the existing facility by 22 percent to 16.8 megawatts and can power 1,100 homes a year. The Abiquiú facility serves homes in Los Alamos County and Los Alamos National Laboratory. (Full Story)

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WWII nuclear dump yields old truck

Excavator operator Kevin Miller looks at the rusting hulk. LANL photo

Officials can't be sure if the truck they found was actually present during the Trinity test blast, deSousa said. It might simply have collected radioactive trash from Manhattan Project labs -- making it the world's first nuclear garbage truck. (Full Story)


LANL improves path to producing uranium compounds

Advances made by researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) could enhance the ability of scientists to develop advanced nuclear fuels in a safer, simpler manner. (Full Story)


Nano-scale metamaterials developed from acoustical wave force

A Los Alamos National Lab (LANL) team of researchers has developed a bench-top method using acoustical wave force in order to develop multiple three-dimensional designs that will enable metamaterials. (Full Story)


Another record for LANL Laces

Beverly Concha of Taos Day School hugs her new shoes. LANL photo.

"It's another record," said Tim Martinez of the Community Programs Office (CPO), which manages LANL Laces. Los Alamos National Security, LLC partner company URS again donated several thousand dollars to the program, Martinez noted. (Full Story)


Scientist to discuss hacking in future filled with higher-tech computers

Early research included this vacuum chamber used for trapped ion quantum computing experiments at Los Alamos. LANL photo.

Locally, quantum-mechanic researcher Seth Lloyd of the Santa Fe Institute, Ivan H. Deutsch at UNM, and scientists at Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories are working on quantum computers. (Full Story)


LANL selects businesses for water monitoring

TerranearPMC LLC and Eberline Services Inc. will compete for up to $80 million in well drilling and groundwater monitoring work for Los Alamos National Laboratory. (Full Story)


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Group's virtual 3-D tour simulates nuke plant walk-through for new inspectors

Thanks to a team of scientists and graphic artists at Los Alamos National Laboratory, nuclear-facility inspectors for the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency can test-drive their inspection with a virtual tour of the nuclear facility before they ever set foot in the place.

As virtual inspectors, they can walk through the facility and familiarize themselves with every inch — the ceiling, the floor, the nooks and crannies, and the placards on doors. (Full Story)

Watch a LANL YouTube video about this work

Force of acoustical waves tapped for metamaterial

These images show microcomputed x-ray tomography renderings of an acoustically engineered nanocomposite

metamaterial. LANL image.

By creating an inexpensive bench-top technique, as described in the American Institute of Physics' journal Review of Scientific Instruments, Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers are making these highly desirable metamaterials more accessible.

Their technique harnesses an acoustical wave force, which causes nano-sized particles to cluster in periodic patterns in a host fluid that is later solidified, explains Farid Mitri, a Director's Fellow, and member of the Sensors & Electrochemical Devices, Acoustics & Sensors Technology Team, at LANL. (Full Story)

LANL researchers make nuclear fuels advance

Illustration showing structures of UI4(1,4-dioxane)2 (left) and the UI3(1,4-dioxane)1.5 complexes. LANL image.

Advances made by researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory could enhance the ability of scientists to develop advanced nuclear fuels in a safer, simpler manner.

Uranium chemistry research relies heavily on a variety of uranium “starting materials”—solids and solutions—that are precursors to uranium compounds of oxygen, nitrogen, halogen, carbon, fluorine, and other elements, all of which are candidates for advanced nuclear fuels. (Full Story)

Would an underground nuclear plant be safer for Israel?

LANL’s Wes Myers. Haaretz Newspaper photo.

Wes Myers, a veteran scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the U.S., analyzes the various options for reactors built deep under the surface of the earth, as well as underground facilities for the treatment of nuclear waste. (Full Story)

Duo earn national urban rescue ranking

Maez and her Labrador Coalby ride a

zipline. Monitor photo.

Debbi Maez works in the Security Services Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory by day and has spent her evenings and weekends training Coalby for last month's grueling certification testing.

Jack Killeen, Security Services Division Leader at LANL, wanted the community to know of Maez’ and Coalby’s accomplishment. (Full Story)

Also from the Monitor this week:

Crews complete restoration at DP East

The spot where the old TSTA facility once stood.

Photo from the Monitor.

Crews have completed grading and site restoration at the former site of a cluster of buildings on the east end of Technical Area 21. LANL and subcontractor crews demolished 10 structures during the past year. (Full Story)

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Is an HIV vaccine imminent?
Scientists to begin trials of breakthrough drug 'next year'

An electron scan shows the HIV-1 virus budding (in green) from a white blood cell in a laboratory, LANL image.

An HIV vaccine that could outwit the deadly virus could undergo human trials in as little as a year's time, scientists say. The 'mosaic vaccine', which is being designed by an international team of investigators, works by being able to adapt to the virus as it mutates.

Bette Korber from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, is one of the scientists who has worked on the project for 20 years. She said: 'We're in the evolutionary fast lane studying HIV.’ (Full Story)


Understanding radiation

The Bradbury Science Museum in Los Alamos, New Mexico contains a bunch of exhibits about the history of Los Alamos National Laboratory and its science and research work.

And with alarm bells continuing to sound around the world in light of Japan’s troubled efforts to contain a nuclear contamination crisis at its Fukushima Daiichi plant, I found myself drawn to the “Understanding Radiation” display during a recent visit to the museum. (Full Story)


Tepco workers threatened by heat bursts; sea radiation rises

From Bloomberg - Nuclear experts call such reactions "localized criticality." They consist of a burst of heat, radiation and sometimes an "ethereal blue flash," according to a Los Alamos National Laboratory website. (Full Story)


Smart Grid project on track despite Japan disaster

Despite the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster that has gripped its nation the past two weeks, Japan's New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) remains on track with the Smart Grid project. (Full Story)


Innovative geothermal startup puts carbon dioxide to good use

The idea originally emerged several years ago from the work of geoscientist Donald Brown at the Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Lab. Karsten Preuss and others at the Department's Lawrence Berkeley National Lab have since advanced the theory. (Full Story)


Biomagnetics' updates on commercialization of the IOBS unit

Biomagnetics is currently in collaboration with Los Alamos National Laboratory to develop the world's first integrated optical biosensor in a portable, handheld technology format designed to substantially lower unit costs. (Full Story)


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