Science
can help ease local wildfire threats
Las Conchas fire in 2011, USFS photo.
As drought and wildfires continue to devastate forests in Northern New Mexico and across the Western United States, it’s natural to wonder if we’re doing enough to keep our communities and lands safe. Smoky summer skies over Los Alamos and other surrounding communities provide yet another reminder that danger is just a spark away.
With that in mind, Los Alamos National Laboratory is taking
measures to prevent wildfires and the dangers they present by carrying out
unique firefighting strategies across its 42 remote square miles. The
laboratory has a long history of using advanced science to analyze wildfires
and expose hidden risks associated with fire-related air quality issues
resulting from smoke and soot. (Full story)
How do Geiger counters work?
Modern Geiger counter, photo from Howstuffworks.
The Geiger counter — which in the scientific and engineering world is known as the Geiger-Muller counter — is an actual device that's still frequently used to detect radiation in various settings.
"GMs are used ... when a low cost solution that doesn't require distinguishing radiation type or energy is desired," the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) explains in an email.
Geiger counters have limitations. "A GM counter is
inherently unable to discern what type of particle triggered the pulse or even
the energy of a particle," LANL writes. "Because every interaction
produces the same pulse strength – think of a set mousetrap; when sprung it
produces the same response regardless if a mouse or human foot is responsible,
though the consequences may be much different." (Full story)
Los Alamos National Lab ‘supercomputer’ used to study impacts of COVID-19
LANL simulation.
Scientists across the globe are working to try and gain a better understanding of COVID-19, including potential long-term effects, and how to treat the virus. Some of that key research is being done in New Mexico, at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
As the COVID-19 virus makes its way through communities, scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory are spearheading the fight against it with innovative research and development.
“Right now there is a lot of unknowns, and we need to do as much research as we can to figure out some of these more complicated issues,” explained Dr. Karissa Sanbonmatsu, Structural Biologist with Los Alamos National Laboratory. (Full story)
Can Google search terms predict COVID-19 hotspots?
Google Trends is a feature in Google that lets you see what people are searching for. You can discover which queries are most popular on Google over a period of time, and you can also explore popular keywords being used in a particular geographic area.
“Google Trends offers a normalized value that represents how popular a particular query is, based off a sample of Google searches,” explains Ashlynn Daughton, PhD, an information scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, NM. (Full story)
New Los Alamos spin-off aims to put nuclear reactors in space
Full assembly of the Kilopower Reactor Using
Stirling Technology (KRUSTY) experiment in 2018, LANL photo.
A new agreement hopes to speed along a nuclear reactor technology that could be used to fuel deep-space exploration and possibly power human habitats on the Moon or Mars. Los Alamos National Laboratory has signed an agreement to license the “Kilopower” space reactor technology to Space Nuclear Power Corporation (SpaceNukes), also based in Los Alamos, NM.
“We developed this technology at the Laboratory in partnership with NASA and the National Nuclear Security Administration,” said Patrick McClure, who served as project lead for Kilopower at Los Alamos and is now a partner in SpaceNukes. “By creating our own company, we’re hoping to be able to reach potential new sponsors who will want to take this technology to the next level and put it into space.” (Full story).
Breakthrough quantum-dot transistors open the door to a host of innovative electronics
Two crucial types of quantum dot transistors
on the same substrate, LANL graphic.
“Potential applications of the new approach to electronic devices based on non-toxic quantum dots include printable circuits, flexible displays, lab-on-a-chip diagnostics, wearable devices, medical testing, smart implants, and biometrics,” said Victor Klimov, a physicist specializing in semiconductor nanocrystals at Los Alamos and lead author on a paper announcing the new results in the October 19, 2020, issue of Nature Communications.
For decades, microelectronics has relied on extra-high purity silicon processed in a specially created clean-room environment. Recently, silicon-based microelectronics has been challenged by several alternative technologies that allow for fabricating complex electronic circuits outside a clean room, via inexpensive, readily accessible chemical techniques. (Full story)
Also from Next Big Future
Los Alamos scientists find a way to quickly test rust on graphene-protected surfaces
Oxygen gas molecules (non-glowing red
spheres) being bounced off by graphene (gray spheres), LANL image.
“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)
Experimenting and Encouraging
As a staff
scientist and team leader at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Dr. Harshini
Mukundan has focused her research on developing rapid diagnostics for a number
of diseases including sepsis, tuberculosis and COVID-19. In addition, she
mentors and inspires up-and-coming and future scientists as an AAAS IF/THEN®
ambassador. IF/THEN®'s mission is to advance women in STEM fields by "by
empowering current innovators and inspiring the next generation of
pioneers." Dr. Mukundan shares with us her experiences as an Asian woman
scientist. (Full story)
