Mining Wikipedia data to track disease
Sarah Del Valle. LANL photo.
When people get sick, they often start looking online for information about their symptoms and illness.
Sara Del Valle, a scientist and applied mathematician at Los Alamos National Laboratory, says that by training a computer model to analyze the specific health-related pages that users access on Wikipedia, public health experts may be able to identify—and even forecast—outbreaks of diseases such as influenza and Dengue fever. (Listen Here)
Also in the Times of India
“Does one big earthquake lead to another?”
Geologist Paul Johnson. From KSFR radio. Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist Paul Johnson discusses his Frontiers in Science lecture on Santa Fe Radio Cafe. While large earthquakes have occurred throughout the Earth's history, their number has dramatically increased in the last ten to fifteen years. What is it that makes the earth move under our feet? How is it that earthquakes can cause other earthquakes? Can human activities, such as ʽfrackingʼ, also trigger earthquakes? (Full Story)
Frigid matter powers first quantum circuits
Move over, electrons – circuits could one day be powered by frigid quantum matter. . . Changhyun Ryu and Malcolm Boshier of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico have found a way to do it. Their circuits are built from two laser beams, one that creates a horizontal sheet of light to act as a circuit board, and another vertical laser that traces out the path of the circuit.
The condensate, which is made from around 4000 cooled rubidium atoms, is trapped inside the beams by the same forces used to create optical tweezers, which can manipulate particles on a small scale. (Full Story)
Also in Gizmodo
Efficient method developed to measure residual stress in 3-D printed parts
In order to validate their results from DIC, the team collaborated with Los Alamos National Laboratory to perform residual stress tests using a method known as neutron diffraction. This technique, performed by LANL researcher Donald Brown, measures residual stresses deep within a material by detecting the diffraction of an incident neutron beam. The diffracted beam of neutrons enables the detection of changes in atomic lattice spacing due to stress.
Although it’s highly accurate, ND is rarely used to measure residual stress because there are only three federal research labs in the U.S.—LANL being one of them—that have the high-energy neutron source required for this analysis. (Full Story)
Deploying 100 supercomputers over 60 years in support of national security
Roadrunner, first to the petaflop. LANL image. From the 1952 MANIAC to Bonanza deployed just this month, Los Alamos National Laboratory has deployed 100 supercomputers in the last sixty years — a showcase of high-performance computing history.
The Los Alamos computers deployed along the way include the MANIAC II, which started its nearly 20-year service life with over 5,000 vacuum tubes, all of which were replaced over time with circuit boards. Other deployed systems include Stretch, a technological stretch built in collaboration between Los Alamos and IBM, Serial Number 1 of the iconic Cray-1, and a Thinking Machines CM-5, with its lightning bolt footprint and fat-tree interconnect. By 2008 there came Roadrunner, the world’s first petaflop supercomputer. (Full Story)
Venture Acceleration Fund helps Native-owned businesses
Native-owned businesses in Northern New Mexico are eligible for grants of up to $25,000 to spend on specialized services that will help them increase revenues and create jobs.
Los Alamos National Security LLC, the company that manages Los Alamos National Laboratory, in partnership with the New Mexico Indian Affairs Department, created the Native American Venture Acceleration Fund. (Full Story)
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