New SARS-CoV-2 variants have changed the pandemic. What will the virus do next?
GISAID graphic.
Bette Korber at Los Alamos National Laboratory and her colleagues first suggested that D614G, the early mutation, was taking over because it made the virus better at spreading. She says skepticism about the virus’ ability to evolve was common in the early days of the pandemic, with some researchers saying D614G’s apparent advantage might be sheer luck. “There was extraordinary resistance in the scientific community to the idea this virus could evolve as the pandemic grew in seriousness in spring of 2020,” Korber says. (Full Story’)
For a healthier world, start with biodiversity
Loss of biodiversity can have far-reaching consequences. Biodiversity—the measure of variability of life in a habitat or ecosystem—impacts livelihoods, food security and productivity in a variety of economic sectors, including tourism and agriculture.
These are the kinds of problems that the Ecological Health Security Lab at Los Alamos National Laboratory works to address, where we approach this problem in line with the One Health Concept. One Health is a collaborative, multidisciplinary approach—working at the local, regional, national, and global levels—with the goal of achieving optimal health outcomes by recognizing the interconnection between people, animals, plants, and their shared environment. (Full Story)
Los Alamos National Lab introduces new robotic team member
Los Alamos National Lab is welcoming a new robotic member to its emergency hazmat team. With mechanical arms that can reach out and grab hazardous materials ranging from chemical, energetic, radiological, toxic or biological – it can do it all. "There's no other robot on the market that can do what this robot can do," said Charles Gibson, a LANL hazmat specialist.
"The challenge comes from depth perception. You're looking through a camera, and you're approaching something, so sometimes robot operators will go in for the grab so to speak, and they'll just be short. Completely miss it and open back up," said Dan McDonald, a LANL hazmat specialist. (Full Story)
Progress in algorithms makes small, noisy quantum computers viable
Los Alamos National Laboratory and other leading institutions have developed hybrid classical/quantum algorithms to extract the most performance -- and potentially quantum advantage -- from today's noisy, error-prone hardware.
"Quantum computers have the promise to outperform classical computers for certain tasks, but on currently available quantum hardware they can't run long algorithms. They have too much noise as they interact with environment, which corrupts the information being processed," said Marco Cerezo, a physicist specializing in quantum computing, quantum machine learning, and quantum information at Los Alamos and a lead author of the paper. (Full Story)
Also from AZO Quantum
National Ignition Facility heralds ‘significant step’ towards fusion break-even target
Thomas Mason, director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, says that the work is the culmination of decades of scientific and technological work stretching across nearly 50 years. “This [result] enables experiments that will check theory and simulation in the high energy density regime more rigorously than ever possible before and will enable fundamental achievements in applied science and engineering,” adds Mason. (Full Story)
Effect of 'eddy killing' in oceans is no longer a matter of guesswork
Eddies are circular currents of water, shown here as green and light blue swirling patterns, NASA image.
In a paper in Science Advances, researchers from the University of Rochester and Los Alamos National Laboratory document for the first time how the wind, which propels larger currents, has the opposite effect on eddies less than 260 kilometers in size—resulting in a phenomenon called "eddy killing."
The team—which also includes Shikhar Rai, a Ph.D. student in Aluie's Turbulence and Complex Flow Group, and Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists Matthew Hecht and Matthew Maltrud—applied a coarse-graining approach to satellite imagery. Doing so allowed them to separate the complex, multiscale structures of ocean currents and eddies embedded within each other. (Full Story)
Northern New Mexico math teachers in Los Alamos, Abiquiu, Cuba and Pojoaque earn new specialty degree
Leaders from the Laboratory and New Mexico Highlands University recognized six graduates of Master’s Degrees, LANL photo.
This week, six Northern New Mexico teachers are returning to their classrooms and raising the bar for K–8 math teaching at public schools in Los Alamos, Abiquiu, Cuba and Pojoaque. Richard Armentrout, Travis Gibson, April Grant–Torrez, Brett Hawkins, Daniela Romero and Beth Ziomek comprise the first-ever cohort to graduate with the new Master’s Degree in Educational Leadership with an Emphasis in K-8 Mathematics Teacher Leadership from New Mexico Highlands University.
The degree is a collaboration between the teachers, the University, and the Math & Science Academy at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), a professional-development program supporting the teaching of math and science in the region. (Full Story)
Also from the Daily Post this week
On the job in Los Alamos: Workers on Omega Bridge
One of the last handrails is lowered into place as part of the Omega Bridge Project. LANL photo.
Work continues on the west side of the Omega Bridge. Crews are painting the handrails and preparing to add a fence to increase pedestrian safety. They will then be installing gutters to capture rainwater to increase the safety of the bridge. The work is being performed by the Logisticts group, a LANL internet workforce.
The estimated duration for work to be completed on the west side of the bridge is three weeks, and the overall project is scheduled to take 6-8 weeks, weather and schedule dependent. (Full Story)
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