LANL researcher takes to slopes as one of world’s top freestyle racers
Altmann on the Chamonix winner’s podium. From the New Mexican.
By day, he’s a scientist studying climate change for a nearby top-secret (sort of) government laboratory. On the weekend, he’s leading the kind of hair-on-fire lifestyle that Hollywood movies are made of, the kind of run-all-day/party-all-night life that grown men with burly chest hair raise a toast to while feeling unworthy by comparative masculinity. He’s Garrett Altmann, a budding star on the Freeride World Tour. At Los Alamos he’s studying climate change in the Arctic. (Full Story)
Watch Altmann's run here. It's amazing!
Scientists paving the way for advancements in Doppler technology
Target vessel at the U1a underground test site in Nevada where the MPDV is typically utilized. LANL image.
A team lead by Edward Daykin has been instrumental in developing the type of technology necessary to measure the characteristics of plutonium and other materials used in today’s stockpile.
NSTech’s Daykin, David Holtkamp from Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Ted Strand from LLNL earned a 2012 R&D 100 award for the development of Multiplexed Photonic Doppler Velocimeter (MPDV).
The MPDV is a portable optical velocimetry system that simultaneously measures up to 32 discrete surface velocities onto a single digitizer by multiplexing signals in frequency and time. (Full Story)
Common yet coy, neutrinos are a mystery. But they are important
Book Reviews: The original experiment that Frederick Reines and Clyde Cowan came up with to test the hypothesis was unorthodox. It involved dropping a detector down a shaft within 40 metres of an exploding nuclear bomb, which would act as a source of neutrinos. Though Los Alamos National Laboratory approved the experiment, they eventually chose a more practical approach and buried a detector near a powerful nuclear reactor at Savannah River, South Carolina, instead. (Full Story)
Students build a futuristic city
Española sixth-graders proudly stand behind their scale model of the City of Española. From The Sun.
Future City started in 2001 as a national, project-based learning experience and contest for students who are charged with imagining, designing and building cities of the future. The students must first design a virtual city using Sim City software. The software is provided by Los Alamos National Laboratory, one of the competition's sponsors along with LANS, LLC and Sandia National Laboratories. (Full Story)
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Neutrons used to study model vascular systems
Comparison of endothelial monolayers under static conditions (left) and laminar shear stress (right). LANL image.
In what may be the first use of neutron scattering to study complex bio-medical systems under dynamic conditions, Los Alamos researchers and collaborators mimicked blood flow by engineering a layer of human endothelial cells (the cells that cover the inner surface of blood vessels) and subjecting them to shear stress.
Simultaneously, the team used neutrons at the Lujan Neutron Scattering Center's Surface Profile Analysis Reflectometer (SPEAR) to understand changes in the cell's properties. (Full Story)
27 amazing images from the depths of scientific labs
James Wren servicing LANL’s latest RAPTOR (RAPid Telescopes for Optical Response) telescope. This telescope will capture the first colour cinematography of nature’s largest explosions: gamma-ray bursts.
As an image-driven person, I often find myself deeply lost and buried in the vast online libraries of universities and research centres. Scientists just love to show off all the big and shiny machinery they work on. (Full Story)
Best secret ski towns of North America
Pajarito Mountain Ski Area. From NatGeo.
For years Los Alamos wasn’t just a secret ski town, it was a secret town, period. High on the hidden Pajarito Plateau of the Jemez Mountains, 35 miles northwest of Santa Fe, the Los Alamos National Laboratory was established here by the U.S. government at the height of World War II as a top-secret facility to develop the nuclear bomb. The lab and town that sprung up around it to house scientists wasn’t revealed to the public until 1950. (Full Story)
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Faults may emit earthquake warning signs
USGS earthquake hazard map for the United States.
A study of squeaky glass beads squeezed between powerful pistons offers one explanation for how these earthquake warning signals form. The findings were published online in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
“They are associated with small failures along the fault patch that is going to fail catastrophically,” said Paul Johnson, a geophysicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and lead study author. (Full Story)
Temporary hair tattoo awarded patent
SEM image of a diffraction pattern etched into a polymer coating on a single shaft of brown hair. LANL image.
There’s no telling what hair trends will be in the future, but if one day you see someone with the Declaration of Independence etched into their locks, it’s a pretty good bet that scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory had something to do with it.
Product developers at LANL and Procter and Gamble were recently awarded a U.S. Patent for a hair treatment process that would potentially allow someone to exhibit an image in their hair through light diffraction. (Full Story)
NM labs and bases fare well in budget plan
Sen. Tom Udall.
New Mexico’s national laboratories would get $537 million to extend the life of the nation’s B61 nuclear bombs and the labs will see increased spending in some areas under a new federal budget proposal, Sen. Tom Udall said.
“My top priority in the U.S. Senate is to fight for policies and funding that will grow our economy and support high-quality jobs in New Mexico,” Udall said. “I’m pleased I was able to secure increased funding for the safety and security of the nation’s nuclear deterrent, along with cleanup at the national labs and at WIPP." (Full Story)
LANL employees fund offering scholarships
Northern New Mexico students aiming to pursue four-year college degrees are eligible for tuition help ranging from$1,000 to $30,000 from the Los Alamos Employees’ Scholarship Fund. (Full Story)
Brown Bag Lecture focuses on ancient stone calendars of the Southwest
Ron Barber of Mechanical Design Engineering (AOT-MDE) will talk about the Stone Calendar Research Project in a Brown Bag Lecture noon-1 p.m., Jan. 22 at the Bradbury Science Museum. (Full Story)
Hemanext banks on taking oxygen out of stored blood to make it last longer
Image from Hemanext.
New Health Sciences has been quietly developing a system based on work done at Los Alamos National Laboratory to improve the quality of transfused blood and potentially extend its shelf life.
The Los Alamos researchers hypothesized that some of that deterioration resulted from oxidative stress that red blood cells experienced as they were exposed to oxygen throughout the collection and storage process. (Full Story)
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Optimize carbon dioxide sequestration, enhance oil recovery
Schematic of a water-alternating-with-gas flood for carbon dioxide sequestration and enhanced oil recovery. LANL graphic.
Los Alamos researchers and collaborators from the University of Utah have created a generic integrated framework simulation to optimize carbon dioxide (CO2) sequestration and enhance oil recovery (CO2-EOR) based on known parameter distributions for a depleted oil reservoir in Texas.
CO2-EOR is a technique in use for over 40 years to produce oil from depleted reservoirs by injecting CO2 along with water. Because a large portion of the injected CO2 remains in place, CO2-EOR is an option for permanently sequestering CO2. (Full Story)
Also from PhysOrg this week
CeCoIn5 reveals new secrets about how superconductivity and magnetism can be related
Swiss scientist Simon Gerber. Courtesy Scherrer Institute.
Superconducting materials exhibit unexpected behaviors when subjected to magnetic fields or high pressures according to two studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory with collaborators in Switzerland and South Korea.
Superconductivity in Cerium-Colbalt-Indium5, discovered nearly a decade ago at Los Alamos, may be the Rosetta Stone that many of us have been looking for" says Joe Thompson, a collaborator in both studies. (Full Story)
New coalition defends U.S. nuclear complex
The Strategic Deterrent Coalition’s inception comes at a time of tight federal budgets that threaten to crimp nuclear weapons spending at Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories in New Mexico.
The Strategic Deterrent Coalition bills itself as nonprofit and non-partisan and funded by donations. Nearly two dozen politicians and ex-military and nuclear weapons officials, including Linton Brooks, a former director of the National Nuclear Security Administration, and former U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, have endorsed the organization. (Full Story)
Researchers make predictions on how climate shifts will affect the planet
Tree ring data. LANL image.
The amount of moisture in the air during the warm months of the year and rain and snowfall in the winter accounts for 82 percent of droughts, according to a tree-ring study by Park Williams, with Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and presented at a recent conference in Flagstaff. The researchers studied a massive set of tree ring records that showed rainfall patterns for the past 1,000 years. (Full Story)
NASA’s Swift catches X-ray action at Milky Way’s center
The SWIFT spacecraft. NASA image.
Recent observations by NASA’s Swift spacecraft have provided scientists a unique glimpse into the activity at the center of our galaxy. The Swift collaboration includes NASA Goddard, Los Alamos National Laboratory and others.
Scientists presented their research into images captured by Swift, explaining how these images will help decipher the physical nature of X-ray flares and enabled their discovery of a rare subclass of neutron star. (Full Story)
Tuition aid for northern students
Northern New Mexico students aiming to pursue four-year college degrees are eligible for tuition help ranging from $1,000 to $30,000 from the Los Alamos Employees’ Scholarship Fund.
The fund, which has awarded $3.7 million since 1998, is administered by the Los Alamos National Laboratory Foundation. (Full Story)
iShop project wins award from LANL CPO
Vangie Trujillo, center, of Los Alamos National Laboratory Community Programs Office presents a $500 check to members of the winning crowdfunding project iShop during final project presentations at UNM-LA in December.
From left, project member Katy Korkos, Professor Nick Seet, Trujillo, Yoko Suzuki and Brandon Cordova. iShop is an initiative to promote local shopping. Photo by Carol A. Clark. (Photo Album)
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DNA evidence sentences nuclear waste to billion-year prison term
High-activity nuclear bomb waste is being shipped to the deep geologic repository at WIPP. DOE photo.
250 million-year-old DNA has been recovered intact from a nuclear waste disposal site in New Mexico and provides ample evidence that the waste will be imprisoned for life, but likely prison time will top a billion years.
Forensic teams of scientists at UNC, Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico State University and others, carefully culled the evidence from original fluid inclusions in the massive salt rock at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad. (Full Story)
Effect of ocean temperature on southwestern US climate analyzed
NOAA image depicts sea surface temperatures around Greenland from October 2010.
Petr Chylek of LANL's Space and Remote Sensing group led the scientists to perform multiple linear regression analysis of surface air temperature and precipitation records provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Climate Data Center.
The analysis assumed historical radiative forcing and natural variability as predictors for temperature and precipitation trends. The archived data reveal a general trend toward a warmer climate but with a nearly unchanged rate of precipitation over the past 118 years. (Full Story)
LANL research helps improve solar cells
Schematic of the quantum dot sensitized solar cell (QDSSC) architecture. LANL image.
Solar cells made with low-cost, non-toxic copper-based quantum dots can achieve unprecedented longevity and efficiency, according to a study by Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sharp Corporation.
“For the first time, we have certified the performance of a quantum dot sensitized solar cell at greater than 5 percent, which is among the highest reported for any quantum dot solar cell,” said Hunter McDaniel, a Los Alamos postdoctoral researcher. (Full Story)
Also from the Monitor this week
Nearly $2 million pledged in LANL 2014 campaign
Nearly $2 million has been pledged by Los Alamos National Laboratory employees to United Way and other eligible nonprofit programs during the laboratory’s 2014 Employee Giving Campaign. Los Alamos National Security, LLC plans to prorate its $1 million match among the selected nonprofit organizations, bringing the total donation to nearly $3 million. (Full Story)
NNSA says it needs New Mexico's labs
In its 2013 wrap-up, the National Nuclear Security Administration, which runs both Sandia National Laboratories and Los Alamos National Laboratory, said the two labs were critical to the agency meeting several of its goals.
NNSA also recognized New Mexico researchers who garnered four of “Popular Science” magazine’s 100 best innovations from 2013, which came from LANL and Sandia. (Full Story)
Top 10 things you didn’t know about Los Alamos National Laboratory
Technicians check out ChemCam, a LANL instrument aboard Mars Curiosity rover. LANL photo.
Known only as site Y when it opened in 1943, Los Alamos National Laboratory had just one original mission: to build an atomic bomb. In the years since, the Lab’s mission has expanded to include a range of energy security, nonproliferation and other scientific research, though national security science remains core to the Lab’s mission. (Full Story)
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