Incredible image of Antarctica's swirling currents
Antarctic ocean currents, colors show speed; white is fast and blue is slow. LANL image.Unbroken by major landmasses, Antarctica's ocean currents race around the icy continent with powerful force. Now, a new image from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico reveals in amazing detail the turbulent rush of swirling eddies and currents in the Southern Ocean.
The scene is from a high-resolution, supercomputer replica of the Southern Ocean that is part of a Department of Energy project to create better climate models. (Full Story)
Harshini Mukundan on YouTube, LANL image.A new detection approach originally developed for tuberculosis diagnostics is being adapted as a tool for determining traumatic brain injury, one of the challenges facing the medical community as it works to treat military and sports figures with head injuries.
Minute chemical alterations in the body, called biomarkers, are the key. “The goal of this project is to not only detect traumatic brain injuries, but eventually to guide treatment as well,” said lead researcher Harshini Mukundan of Los Alamos National Laboratory. ( Full Story) See Mukundan on video
Ultralow-field MRI comes out of the lab
A practical, portable ultralow-field MRI system has been unveiled by researchers from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the US. With its low power requirements and lightweight construction, the researchers hope that their prototype design can soon be deployed for use in medical centres in developing countries as well as in military field hospitals.
"Standard MRI machines just can't go everywhere," explains project leader Michelle Espy, a physicist at Los Alamos. "Soldiers wounded in battle usually have to be flown in to a large hospital – and people in emerging nations just don't have access to MRI at all." (Full Story) Watch the video
ULF-NMR and neutron imaging experiment, LANL image. Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers have made the first simultaneous measurements of Ultra-Low-Field Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (ULF-NMR) and neutron imaging to visualize the movement of water in trees.
Water use by trees is a key part of the hydrological process linking soil to climate and local weather. Despite decades of research and method development, non-destructive, in vivo measurements of water uptake and flow in trees are unavailable for field-based measurement. (Full Story)
Lee gets Early Career award
Christopher Lee, LANL photo.Los Alamos National Laboratory researcher Christopher Lee is a recipient of the 2015 Early Career Research Program awards from the Department of Energy Office of Science.
“This prestigious award is recognition of Christopher Lee’s outstanding work in nuclear and particle physics, which is a vital part of the laboratory’s national security science mission,” said Alan Bishop, principal associate director for Science, Technology and Engineering. (Full story)
To subscribe to Los Alamos Report, please e-mail listmanager@lanl.gov and include the words subscribe losalamosreport in the body of your email message; to unsubscribe, include unsubscribe losalamosreport.
Please visit us at www.lanl.gov
