How Surprisingly Potent Hepatitis C Drug Works Revealed By Computer Modeling

A study by researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory and a multinational team reveals how daclatasvir, a direct-acting antiviral agent in development for the treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV), targets one of its proteins and causes the fastest viral decline ever seen with anti-HCV drugs - within 12 hours of treatment (full story).

This story also appeared in Health News Digest and the LA Daily Post

Securing the grid with quantum cryptography

US law enforcement officials have long warned against the possibility of foreign terrorists or hostile hackers attacking the nationalelectrical infrastructure.

The clear and presentdanger recently prompted a Los Alamos National Laboratory quantum cryptography (QC) team to successfully complete the first-ever demonstration of securingcontrol data for electric grids using quantum cryptography (full story).

This story also appeared in Electric Energy Online

New 'Slow Light' Technology Could Bring Ultra-Fast Terahertz Wireless Communications and Optical Computing

Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) have demonstrated switching on and off “slow light” at a very fast rate in special metamaterials at room temperature. The ability to perform this task opens new possibilities for increasing the speed of wireless telecommunications and all-optical computing. It will be possible to design new chip-scale ultrafast devices with terahertz capability (full story).

A clarion call for science

Harvard President Drew Faust called for members of the scientific community to “raise our voices” in an effort to prevent the U.S. Congress from becoming “an American Association for the Retreat of Science,” when she addressed a gathering of educators, engineers, science leaders, and policymakers in Boston on Thursday.

According to American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) President William H. Press—who served as deputy director for science and technology at Los Alamos National Laboratory—sequestration would dramatically affect every field of scientific research. “If the sequester kicks in on March 1, there’s immediately going to be $54 billion over five years in cuts to federal support of science,” said Press. “If the sequester is avoided … it’s important that we make the case that science should be on the investment side of the ledger.” (Full story)

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FDA approves first bionic eye for the blind

The implanted detector.  Image from Second Sight Medical Products.

The U.S. Department of Energy announced today that its support for a decade of revolutionary research has contributed to the creation of the first ever retinal prosthesis – or bionic eye – to be approved in the United States by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for blind individuals with end-stage retinitis pigmentosa. The $75.2 million project involved researchers from five DOE National Laboratories including Los Alamos. (Full Story)

Quantum cryptography put to work for electric grid security

The miniature transmitter communicates with a trusted authority to generate random cryptographic keys to encode and decode information. LANL image.

A Los Alamos National Laboratory quantum cryptography (QC) team successfully completed the first-ever demonstration of securing control data for electric grids using quantum cryptography.

The demonstration was performed in the electric grid test bed that is part of the Trustworthy Cyber Infrastructure for the Power Grid (TCIPG) project at the University  of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.  (Full Story)

Simple computer models unravel genetic stress reactions in cells

Molecular structure depicts a yeast transfer ribonucleic acid.   

Brian Munsky, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Center for Nonlinear Studies, is adept at untangling biology. Munsky and colleagues report their combined experimental and modeling prediction methods in the Feb. 1, 2013 edition of Science.

These methods integrate single-cell experiments and discrete stochastic analysis to predict complex gene expression and signaling behaviors in Saccharomyces cerevisiae—or yeast, a scientific-lab standard since yeast and human cells share many genes. (Full Story)

New process speeds conversion of biomass to fuels

Artist’s conception of the process. LANL image.              

Scientists took a major step forward recently toward transforming biomass-derived molecules into fuels. The team led by Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers elucidated the chemical mechanism of the critical steps, which can be performed under relatively mild, energy-efficient conditions. (Full Story)

This story also appeared in PhysOrg

Metamaterials provide active control of slow-light devices

Schematic of active optical control of terahertz waves in electromagnetically induced transparency metamaterials. LANL image.     

Wireless communications and optical computing could soon get a significant boost in speed, thanks to “slow light” and specialized metamaterials through which it travels.

Researchers have made the first demonstration of rapidly switching on and off “slow light” in specially designed materials at room temperature. This work opens the possibility to design novel, chip-scale, ultrafast devices for applications in terahertz wireless communications and all-optical computing. (Full Story)

DOE Scientific Computing Center gives awards for HPC science studies

Tanmoy Das.  IOP photo.

The Department of Energy's National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) Award for High Impact Scientific Achievement — Early Career — Tanmoy Das, Postdoctoral Researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Das was nominated for his computational work to understand fundamental materials aspects in three different areas: Fermi surface anisotropy, spin-orbit ordering effects,  and self-consistent spin-fluctuation theory. (Full Story)

Q&A: North Korea not a nuclear threat to U.S. yet, scientist says

Sig Hecker.  From the LA Times.

The country is years away from being able to hit the U.S. despite its recent test, says Siegfried Hecker, who has visited its facilities.

Hecker is a former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and a professor at Stanford. But his knowledge of the North Korean nuclear program is not purely academic. (Full Story)

Los Alamos Venture Acceleration Fund Accepting 2013 Applications

The Venture Acceleration Fund (VAF) of Los Alamos National Security, LLC (LANS), the company that manages and operates Los Alamos National Laboratory for the National Nuclear Security Administration, is accepting applications for the2013 calendar year. Companies selected will receive awards that can range from $10,000 to $100,000 in order to commercialize technology and take it to market faster. (Full Story)

Generosity marks YMCA’s 2013 Red and Black Ball

Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Charlie McMillan with, from left, YMCA Executive Director Linda Daly, wife Janet McMillan and Los Alamos County Clerk Sharon Stover as the Y’s annual Red and Black Ball gets underway.

During the evening's live auction, a $750 winning bid to have lunch with the Laboratory director was won by Roger Waterman of TRK and Steve Girrens of LANL. (Full Story)


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Laser based generation of high energy neutrons

A high-flux source of energetic neutrons has been built by physicists in Germany and the US. The new laser-based device has the potential to be cheaper and more convenient than the large neutron facilities currently used by physicists and other scientists.     

Markus Roth of Darmstadt University and colleagues at Los Alamos and Sandia directed extremely powerful and well-defined pulses from the Los Alamos TRIDENT laser onto a 400-nm-thick plastic target doped with deuterium (full story).

Comprehensive look at the fundamentals of mostdesirable nanotubes

 

The new work led by Rice University's Junichiro Kono and Robert Hauge, a distinguished faculty fellow in chemistry at Rice, along with scientists at NIST and Los Alamos National Laboratory, looks beyond the armchair's established electrical properties to further detail their potential for electronic, sensing, optical and photonic devices (full story).

 

Mag Lab to receive $168 million at ceremony

The National Science Foundation will present the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory with a five-year renewal grant of more than $168 million. The NHMFL is operated by Florida State, the University of Florida and Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The high-powered magnets at the laboratory are used byscientists from around the world for scientific research and academic study. The Mag Lab also receives funding from the state of Florida (full story).

CERN set to study sterile neutrinos

An oscillation phenomenon means that neutrinos cannot be entirely massless, has been confirmed by many differentexperiments. But one such experiment produced results at odds with the rest. That was the Liquid Scintillator Neutrino Detector (LSND) at the Los AlamosNational Laboratory in New Mexico, which in data acquired between 1993 and 1998 showed muon antineutrinos to be oscillating into electron antineutrinos farmore readily than expected (full story).

Los Alamos fund seeks investment opportunities

The Venture Acceleration Fund (VAF) is looking for companies that would commercialize technology and take it to market quicker.

Los Alamos National Security, which runs the lab for the National Nuclear Security Administration, invests annually in economic development, and the VAF is designed to invest between $10,000 and $100,000 in companies that can bring its technology to market (full story).

Salazar earns LANL lifetime achievement award

Members of the House of Representative applaud the honor bestowed to Rep. Nick Salazar (D-Colfax, Mora, Rio Arriba, San Miguel) by Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Rep. Salazar received the highest honor recognizing his profound and significant contributions during his 63 years of service whichinclude expanding opportunities for research and development, small business and minority business development, transfer of technology initiatives, math and science programs, job training and development while advocating for stringent environmental protection regulations (full story).

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LANL announces live pathogens detection breakthrough

Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers have developed a technique for quick detection of live pathogens in the field.

The advance could prove to be a game-changer of being able to rapidly identify the source of food-borne illnesses such as E. coli.

LANL's new method eliminates the need for laboratory culture and speeds the process. The technique relies on bacteria being critically dependent upon the key nutrient iron. (Full Story)

Scientists develop detection technique for live pathogens

Colorized scanning electron micrograph of E. coli. CDC image.
                
Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers have developed a technique for quick detection of live pathogens in the field. The advance could prove to be a game-changer in terms of being able to rapidly identify the source of food-borne illnesses such as E. coli. Identification of bacteria in a complex environment is currently scientifically challenging. (Full Story)

Neutrons on a lab bench

Image from PhysOrg.

A new compact high-flux source of energetic neutrons has been built by physicists in Germany and the US. The new laser-based device has the potential to be cheaper and more convenient than the large neutron facilities currently used      

Markus Roth’s team directed extremely powerful and well defined pulses from the Los Alamos TRIDENT laser onto a 400-nm-thick plastic target doped with deuterium atoms. This was positioned just 5 mm in front of a secondary target made from beryllium. (Full Story)

3D meets safety at Los Alamos National Laboratory

Glove box operations at TA-55.  LANL photo.

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), one of the largest science and technology institutions in the world, happens to be one of the most prolific users of nuclear gloveboxes.

Los Alamos is able to model glovebox operators and the environments where they work with a high degree of precision, but at a fraction of the time and cost typically required for assembling and assessing the prototype. (Full Story)

Dark-matter search gets started deep in Sanford Lab

The Majorana Demonstrator.  PNNL image.

The Majorana Demonstrator is testing its first detectors. Germanium-76 is both the source and detector for neutrinoless double beta decay, and the experiment hinges on reducing the background.

“We will either see or place a limit on the rate of double beta decay,” says Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Steven Elliott, spokesman for  Majorana. “But what DOE has mandated us to do is to measure the background in the relevant energy region”—a 4-keV spread around 2039 keV. (Full Story)

Physicists find new order in quantum electronic material

Two Rutgers physics professors have proposed an explanation for a new type of order, or symmetry, in an exotic material made with uranium – a theory that may one day lead to enhanced computer displays and data storage systems 

Recent experiments at the National High Magnetic FieldLaboratory at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico provided the three physicists with data to refine their discovery. (Full Story)

Nuclear test could open window on North Korea

Sig Hecker.

A [North Korean nuclear] test could give [analysts] their first real view in years into whether the North has made significant progress toward a weapon that could threaten the United States or its allies.          

Siegfried S. Hecker, former director of Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Frank V. Pabian, a senior adviser on nuclear nonproliferation at Los Alamos, reanalyzed the data and concluded that Western observers had underestimated the power of the blasts. (Full Story)

Why trees die in drought

Nathan McDowell.  LANL photo.

Nathan McDowell, a plant scientist at the government's Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, actually puts trees under plastic to see how they deal with less water and more heat. He says trees are adaptable, up to a point.

"Now we're changing that climate range really fast," he notes, "faster than any of the living plants here have experienced. So can they change fast enough to adapt to that? You know, the preponderance of evidence right now is saying that [at] lots of locations around the world, they're not adapting fast enough." (Full Story)

One in, two out: Simulating more efficient solar cells

When a light particle (blue wave on left) hits a crystal of a high-pressure form of silicon, it releases two electron-hole pairs (red circles/green rings). UC Davis image.

Nanoparticle properties are different from bulk materials. In particular, the probability of generating more than one electron-hole pair is much enhanced, driven by an effect called "quantum confinement."

Experiments to explore this paradigm are being pursued by researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., as well as at UC Davis. (Full Story)

Sellers named to board

Beth Sellers.  LANL photo.

The Girl Scouts of New Mexico Trails, the state’s largest nonprofit serving girls, elected Los Alamos National Lab Deputy Laboratory Director Elizabeth (Beth) Sellers to serve on the Board of Directors.

Sellers has been a resident of Los Alamos since 2011. Prior to coming to Los Alamos, she was responsible for strategic development and business development in Bethesda, Md.; and also worked in Abu Dhabi, UAE. (Full Story)


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