Using cosmic radiation to peer inside Fukushima's damaged reactors.png)
IAEA
inspectors at the Fukushima Plant. From IAEA.
A team from the Los Alamos National Laboratories (LANL) is
attempting to actually image the innermost reaches of Fukushima by flanking its
reactors with two enormous cosmic ray detectors. If successful, the team will
be able to tell cleanup crews where each of the melted down nuclear samples has
ended up, and how to best approach one of the worst environmental disasters in
recent memory.
The
cosmic rays in question are called muons—elementary particles so powerful that
not even the fusion reaction at the heart of a star nor the explosion of a
nuclear bomb can create them.
Boosting
light-water reactor research.png)
Volume
fraction of a bubble phase in a
fuel
rod bundle. LANL image.
Los Alamos National Laboratory as part of the Consortium for the
Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL) will now be deployed to
industry and academia under a new inter-institutional agreement for
intellectual property.
“This
agreement streamlines access to the reactor simulation research tools,” said
Kathleen McDonald, software business development executive for the Laboratory,
“and with a single contact through UT-Battelle, we have a more transparent
release process, the culmination of a lengthy effort on the part of all the
code authors,” she said.
Tracking,
mapping epidemics in order to limit their spread.png)
A team of scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)
in New Mexico are using the new Biosurveillance Gateway Web site to map
epidemics in order better to understand and prevent deadly diseases.
The
gateway will track outbreaks of ebola, measles, and other diseases, beginning
with patient zero. It is the latest development in the field of
biosurvelliance, the study of how the emergence and spread of diseases can be
plotted, understood, and stopped.
Is iron
rain the reason why Earth and the moon are so different?
.png)
Artist’s
concept of the moon-forming collision. NASA image.
Experiments indicate that the velocity of the iron rain droplets
will have been greater than the escape velocity on the moon, but below that of
Earth. Earth would therefore have captured the metal cores of colliding
asteroids, while the moon will have failed to. William Anderson of Los Alamos
National Laboratory, US, said: "The moon may have received, but not retained,
a significant portion of the late veneer."
How small
but frequent grants are Shaping education
in New Mexico
The Española-based LANL Foundation has an Educational Outreach
Small Grants program that closely ties the Los Alamos National Laboratory
(LANL) to communities in northern New Mexico.
The
LANL Foundation announced $48,000 in new education grant awards for 2014, which
might not sound like a lot, but it’s sure impacting a lot of different local
nonprofits.
Six regional
businesses receive
Native American Venture Acceleration Fund grants
.png)
Phoebe
Suina of High Water Mark,
Cochiti
Pueblo. LANL photo.
Six Northern New Mexico Native American-owned and operated
businesses received a total of $60,000 in grants through a Native American
Venture Acceleration Fund created by Los Alamos National Security, LLC (LANS)
and the Regional Development Corporation.
The
grants are designed to help the recipients create jobs, increase their revenue
base and help diversify the area economy.
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