Unique imaging of a dinosaur’s skull tells evolutionary tale
Using Los Alamos National Laboratory’s unique neutron-imaging and high-energy X-ray capabilities, researchers have exposed the inner structures of the fossil skull of a 74-million-year-old tyrannosauroid dinosaur nicknamed the Bisti Beast in the highest-resolution scan of tyrannosaur skull ever done. The results add a new piece to the puzzle of how these bone-crushing top predators evolved over millions of years. (Full story)
Machine-learning earthquake prediction in lab shows promise
A simulator models the buildup and release of
By listening to the acoustic signal emitted by a laboratory-created earthquake, a computer science approach using machine learning can predict the time remaining before the fault fails.
"At any given instant, the noise coming from the lab fault zone provides quantitative information on when the fault will slip," said Paul Johnson, a Los Alamos National Laboratory fellow and lead investigator on the research, which was published today in Geophysical Research Letters. (Full story)
Computer modeling helps us learn to live with wildland fires
Prescribed burn in the Valles Caldera, Journal photo.
Los Alamos National Laboratory has a long history of bringing its unique capabilities in physics, computational modeling and high-performance computing to just this kind of multidisciplinary problem as part of its national security mission work.
With the U.S. Forest Service, the lab is using a tool called FIRETEC to simulate the fire/atmosphere interaction that controls fire behavior, from low-intensity fires under marginal conditions to catastrophic wildfires – two extremes where our ability to predict fire behavior is least developed. (Full story)
High-impact innovations honored as R&D 100 Award finalists
Carl Gable, left, and Hari Viswanathan discuss R&D 100 finalist selection dfnWorks, LANL photo.
Eight Los Alamos National Laboratory innovations were selected as finalists for the 2017 R&D 100 Awards, which honor the top 100 proven technological advances of the past year as determined by a panel selected by R&D Magazine. The finalists, with projects covering energy, modeling and simulation, health, materials and engineering, demonstrate the continued success of Laboratory researchers in technical innovation for national security science. (Full story)
Also from the Daily Post this week:
Scenes from robotics night at Bradbury museum
Every area of the Bradbury Science Museum was busy, Daily Post photo.
Bradbury Science Museum was buzzing inside and out Friday during Robotics Night. The museum log book shows 795 people signed in for the popular event at which regional school robotics teams, and others, demonstrate their robots to the public.
Visitors had an opportunity to see the robots used by organizations such as Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos County Police Department and the University of New Mexico-Los Alamos. (Full story)
