Los Alamos Press Highlights

Cray to Develop New Supercomputer to Manage Nuclear Stockpile

Illustration from Cray Inc.

Cray Inc will develop a supercomputer for the National Nuclear Security Administration. The deal, worth $174 million, is one of the largest contracts in Cray’s history.

The supercomputer, named Trinity, is projected to be one of the fastest in the world when it’s built at the Los Alamos National Laboratories. The NNSA, part of the Department of Energy, manages the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile, a responsibility that includes running virtual simulations testing the stockpile’s safety, security, reliability and performance. (full story)

This story also appeared in ABC News, PC World, HPC Wire, US News, Albuquerque Journal and many other outlets

 
Imaging the Fukushima Daiichi reactors with cosmic-ray muons

Reactor building at Fukushima plant.

Los Alamos National Laboratory, in New Mexico, US, will team up with Toshiba Corporation to use muon tomography to safely peer inside the cores of the Fukushima Daiichi reactors. The initiative could reduce the time required to clean up the disabled complex by at least a decade, and greatly reduce plant personnel exposure to radiation. (full story)

 
Earth-crushing pressure? This electron spin doesn’t care

Magnetic diffraction in a high-pressure
diamond anvil cell.  From PhysOrg

To fully understand something, it is often instructive to view it at its extremes. How do materials behave when their bits are forced much closer together than is comfortable? How do electrons accommodate proximity? What normal behaviors break down?

The researchers in this study, from Argonne; The University of Chicago; Los Alamos National Laboratory; the NSF; the University of Tennessee; and Oak Ridge calculated the ranges of energy that an electron may assume. (full story)


A new TV series highlights the legends of the “Manhattan Project”

Los Alamos office at 109 E. Palace Ave, Santa Fe.
From KOAT.

It was the 1940s, and people on the outside could only wonder what was going on “up on the hill.” What was the top-secret mission? “The Manhattan Project was arguably history’s largest, most secret scientific effort.”

Only the best and brightest scientists knew the magnitude of the assignment in the remote desert, today's Los Alamos.  Los Alamos was really the ideal location.  That's where the world's first atomic bomb was developed, ending world war two.

 
LAPD competes in Robot Rodeo

Robots Rodeo, LANL photo.

Even though the title has as the word “rodeo” in it, it was all business at the 2014 Western National Robot Rodeo. The event took place June 23-27 inside the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Technical Area 49.

This year, five bomb squads from New Mexico and their bomb-diffusing robots participated, as well as two teams from Colorado and one team from the United Kingdom. (full story)



Los Alamos National Security gives grants to local businesses

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) employees pledged a record $327,000 during the recently completed scholarship fund drive. More employees donated to the fund this year than in past years.

“Our employees know first-hand that education can unlock opportunity for these talented students who hold the promise to be future leaders in government, industry, or the nonprofit sector,” said Los Alamos’ Environmental Programs Director Jeff Mousseau. (full story)

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