More grapes, less wrath: hybrid antimicrobial protein protects grapevines from pathogen
A team of researchers has found a way to ensure that your evening glass of wine will continue to be available, despite the potential attack of Xylella fastidiosa (Xf), a bacterium that causes Pierce’s Disease and poses a significant threat to the California wine industry’s valuable grapevines.
Researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Univ. of California at Davis (UCD) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service have created specially engineered grapevines that produce a hybrid antimicrobial protein that can block Xf infection (full story).
Nuclear reactors not needed to make the most common medical isotope
"This is wonderful for Canada," says Robert Atcher, director of the National Isotope Development Center at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. But Atcher questions whether the approach will work in the United States.
For starters, he says, most Canadians live in metropolitan centers near large hospitals that have cyclotrons. By contrast, the U.S. population is more diffuse, and many outlying hospitals don't have access to a cyclotron (full story).
Hyperion founders launch IX Power LLC
The new company created by Hyperion’s founders, pronounced “Nine Power,” will focus on commercializing energy and water technology from LANL, said John “Grizz” Deal, former Hyperion president and now CEO of IX Power.
Deal said he and his four partners left Hyperion last summer because of disagreements with Altira, which specializes in energy-related investments (full story).
No tritium found in Santa Fe wells
Alex Puglisi is the environmental compliance officer with the City of Santa Fe. And he knows there are people that don’t always buy the Los Alamos National Laboratory¹s story.
Puglisi, though, is confident the lab is right on this one.
Back in March of last year, samples at three of the wells at Santa Fe Buckman Water Supply Wells came back positive for tritium, which is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen (full story).
Los Alamos plans to step up security
Los Alamos National Laboratory announced Thursday that it is implementing several changes to its security procedures — including random vehicle inspections with bomb-sniffing dogs — as the result of a recent security assessment by the Department of Defense and Department of Energy.
The assessment team gave the lab a set of security enhancement recommendations, including expansion of random inspections of vehicles crossing the lab on West and East Jemez Roads and roadways leading to the main administrative area, Technical Area 3.
The lab will start the random vehicle inspections next month (full story).
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