HIV Glycans: Shield shifters and spike stabilizers
Illustration shows how glycans create a shield that helps HIV hide from the immune system. From GEN.
In the fight against infectious diseases, the most daunting foes include viruses that use glycans to fend off antibodies. These glycans form on the outermost spike proteins of HIV and many other viruses, including influenza, Ebola, Lassa, and coronaviruses.
Cryo-EM has been combined with other analytical techniques to visualize HIV’s glycan shield. This work, recently accomplished by scientists at Scripps Research and Los Alamos National Laboratory, captured details that were never seen before, including vulnerabilities that could be exploited by new vaccines. (Full Story)
Also from Drug Target Review
Study reveals robust performance in aged detonator explosive
LANL researchers in the firing control room, LANL photo.
In a large, statistically significant, one-of-a-kind study, researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory have confirmed that the explosive called PETN (Pentaerythritol tetranitrate), stabilized with a polysaccharide coating, is resistant to changes in particle shape, size, and structure that can degrade detonator performance over time. The benefits of polysaccharide coating have long been known and studied by Los Alamos energetic material scientists.
"PETN is a common initiating explosive used extensively in commercial detonators and in the U.S. nuclear stockpile, but batch-to-batch variability has made it difficult for us to definitively show how it responds to aging," said Virginia Manner, an energetic materials chemist at Los Alamos and the project lead for the study. (Full Story)
Also from Newswise
Los Alamos scientists find a way to quickly test rust on graphene-protected cars, planes, ships
Oxygen gas molecules (non-glowing red spheres) being bounced off by graphene (gray spheres). LANL graphic
Trace amounts of graphene could create a decades-long protective barrier against oxygen corrosion for cars, aircrafts, and ships--but evaluating its effectiveness has been a challenge, until now. Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists report a possible solution in the latest issue of The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.
“It’s about creating and using extra-corrosive air and observing its accelerated effect on the graphene-protected materials. Simply by imparting oxygen gas molecules with a slight kinetic energy, we could extract information about decades-worth of corrosion in a minute,” said Hisato Yamaguchi, a lead Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist for this research. “We create a portion of air artificially, including oxygen with a physics-defined energy distribution, and expose that to graphene-protected metals.” (Full Story)
Breakthrough quantum-dot transistors create a flexible alternative to conventional electronics
Gold and Indium contacts put two types of quantum dot transistors on the same substrate, LANL graphic.
Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory and their collaborators from the University of California, Irvine have created fundamental electronic building blocks out of tiny structures known as quantum dots and used them to assemble functional logic circuits. The innovation promises a cheaper and manufacturing-friendly approach to complex electronic devices that can be fabricated in a chemistry laboratory via simple, solution-based techniques, and offer long-sought components for a host of innovative devices. (Full Story)
Also from Science Daily this week:
Sensors driven by machine learning sniff-out gas leaks fast
ALFaLDS is deployed during blind tests at the model oil and gas test facility at Fort Collins, Colorado, LANL photo.
Anew study confirms the success of a natural-gas leak-detection tool pioneered by Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists that uses sensors and machine learning to locate leak points at oil and gas fields, promising new automatic, affordable sampling across vast natural gas infrastructure.
"Our automated leak location system finds gas leaks fast, including small ones from failing infrastructure, and lowers cost as current methods to fix gas leaks are labor intensive, expensive and slow," said Manvendra Dubey, the lead Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist and coauthor of the new study. (Full Story)
Nuclear physicists work to unravel strange mystery of the neutron lifetime
Illustration from SciTechDaily
The neutron is one of the building blocks of matter, the neutral counterpart to the positive proton. Like many other subatomic particles, the neutron doesn’t last long outside of the nucleus.
“The neutron lifetime is one of the least well-known fundamental parameters in the Standard Model,” said Zhaowen Tang, a physicist at DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).
Some theorists proposed that neutrons are breaking up into gamma rays and mysterious dark matter. To test this theory, a group of scientists at LANL did a version of the bottle experiment where they measured both neutrons and gamma rays. But the proposed gamma rays didn’t materialize, leaving scientists with no evidence for dark matter from neutrons. (Full Story)
CMRR Plutonium Facility Upgrades Receive Praise From NNSA
Bob Raines, NNSA Associate Administrator for Acquisition and Project Management (center, red lanyard) during a 2019 visit to PF-4, LANL photo.
The CMRR Plutonium Facility (PF-4) equipment installation, phase 1 work within the operating facility that was recently completed at Los Alamos National Laboratory received high marks from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). When the project team completed transition to operation scope and turned over the analytical chemistry equipment to the end-users in August 2020, they did so 10 months early and several million dollars under budget. For a federally funded project with a multi-million-dollar price tag – that’s a big deal. (Full Story)
Also from the LA Reporter this week:
Mentoring gives most joy to renowned local scientist Harshini Mukundan’s job
Mukundan, LANL photo.
Harshini Mukundan says it’s always difficult to speak about yourself positively, without trying to sound a little boastful.
“I always find that women struggle with it a lot more than men do, and maybe it’s something we all need to learn to do effectively so that we can communicate what we’ve been able to accomplish?” she told the virtual fall meeting of the American Association of University Women in Los Alamos.
AAUW is a non-profit organization founded in 1881 that advances equity for women and girls through advocacy, education and research. Mukundan was selected last year as one of 125 American Association for the Advancement of Science IF/THEN Ambassadors to help further women in science, technology, engineering and math. (Full Story)
New mentor-protégé program grooms native businesses for successful contracting
In FY2019, the Laboratory spent $289 million to small businesses in NM. LANL photo.
Anew mentor-protégé program between Triad National Security and Pueblo Alliance, LLC will groom Pueblo businesses for success in landing contracts with Los Alamos National Laboratory and other U.S. Department of Energy entities.
“Doing business with our neighbors makes sense,” LANL Director Thom Mason said. “In FY 2019, the Laboratory spent $396 million in contracts with New Mexico businesses. Of that, $289 million went to contracts with small businesses. We also increased our contracts with businesses categorized as disadvantaged, women-owned, and HUB-zone located, and intend to continue this upward trend.” (Full Story)
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