Los Alamos Report: News from Los Alamos National Laboratory

2012-01-27T11:24:00.015-07:00

Los Alamos un-crackable cyber technology close to commercialization

Quantum cryptography is not a household term — but very soon it could change the way your smartphone, your ID card and other electronics are protected from hackers.

Los Alamos National Laboratory has been working on this technology for the past 18 years and is working on a patent.

Current cybersecurity technology has relied on “hard math problems,” said Jane Nordholt, a technical staff member in Applied Modern Physics at Los Alamos (full story).

A similar story appeared in Government Security News

Biofuels expert to share vision

Sayre’s experience in the field includes his current position as director of the Biofuels Project at the New Mexico Consortium, working in conjunction with Los Alamos National Laboratory, and a former member of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center where he served as director of the Enterprise Rent-A-Car Institute for Renewable Fuels between 2008 and 2011 (full story).

Carbon nanotubes offer prospects for novel thin-film solar cells

A research group from the Los Alamos National Laboratory has shown for the first time that bundles of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) can not only generate electron-hole pairs (excitons) when exposed to light but also separate these charge carriers.

This latter feature is critical in the PV context, as to create a current, the electrons and holes must be separated in the brief time before they combine and are absorbed back into the material (full story).

LANL posts ‘banner year’

In a year when Los Alamos National Laboratory was closed for more than a week while narrowly escaping the Las Conchas Fire, the laboratory completed its most profitable year yet, earning nearly $84 million in fees (full story).

LANL achieves wastewater milestone

Millions of gallons of industrial wastewater will be recycled at Los Alamos National Laboratory as the result of a long-term strategy to treat wastewater rather than discharging it into the environment.

The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, which issues permits for industrial and sanitary wastewater discharges, recently approved the removal of four more outfalls from the Laboratory’s permit (full story).

Energy plan could boost small reactor research at SRS

A new funding initiative unveiled last week by Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu could accelerate efforts by private companies to build small modular nuclear reactors at Savannah River Site. . . .

“There is no test model yet,” said Forrest Rudin, vice president of business operations for Denver-based Hyperion Power Generation Inc., one of several companies that have expressed interest in using SRS as a research and development site. . . .

But, Rudin said, the pre-conceptual design, aided by research conducted at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, is about 95 percent complete. “So we’re now at the stage where we start true engineering, doing drawings from the Los Alamos design, and actively seeking commercial investment.” (full story)

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2012-01-20T09:44:00.014-07:00

LANL could have role in creating nuclear fuel from old warheads

Glove box operations at TA-55. LANL photo.

The National Nuclear Security Administration is considering Los Alamos as an alternative for disposing of the plutonium pits that once served as primary cores for some 17,000 now-discarded nuclear weapons.

After the Rocky Flats facility in Colorado discontinued nuclear weapons production in 1992, LANL became the only place in the country where plutonium pits can be made. (Full Story)

Nanotube bundles could boost solar cells

Photon hitting a carbon nanotube. From Physics World.

Thin-film solar cells could be made far more efficient with the addition of bundles of carbon nanotubes, so say researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Research shows that the bundles can be used to adeptly perform the two important steps for generating an electric current. It is first time this has been demonstrated in a single thin-film photovoltaic material. (Full Story)

Dawn offers first look at giant asteroid's chemistry

Computer model of Vesta's surface. NASA

The NASA Dawn spacecraft's close-up study of the giant asteroid Vesta is offering researchers their first look at the elemental composition of this ancient protoplanet.

Dawn's Gamma Ray and Neutron Detector (GRaND) -- built by Los Alamos National Laboratory -- will determine the chemical composition of Vesta, providing new information about how Vesta formed and evolved. (Full Story)

Nanotube 'glow sticks' transform science tool kit

Artist's concept of nanotubes on the liquid surface. LANL illustration.

Many physical and chemical processes necessary for biology and chemistry occur at the interface of water and solid surfaces. Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory publishing in Nature Nanotechnology have now shown that semiconducting carbon nanotubes — light emitting cylinders of pure carbon — have the potential to detect and track single molecules in water. (Full Story)

Also from the Monitor this week:

Five honored as LANL Fellows for 2011

Five scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory, Bruce Carlsten, Mike Leitch, Michael MacInnes, RichardMartin, and Amit Misra, have been honored by Laboratory Director Charles McMillan as Laboratory Fellows.

Fellows are honored for their sustained, high-level achievements in programs of importance to the laboratory either a fundamental or important discovery that has led to widespread use or and having become a recognized authority in the field, including outside recognition and an outstanding record of publications. (Full Story)

And:

Eight researchers named APS Fellows

The American Physical Society (APS) has selected eightLANL scientists as 2011 Fellows. The APS is a nonprofit organization working to advance the knowledge of physics. (Full Story)

Finally, from the Monitor:

LANL’s Anderson-Cook honored

Christine Anderson-Cook. LANL photo.

Christine Anderson-Cook of Los Alamos National Laboratory was recently selected as a Fellow of the American Society for Quality, or ASQ.

Anderson-Cook, who works in the Statistical Sciences Group at LANL, was recognized for research in quality in the areas of design of experiments and reliability, for interdisciplinary collaboration and training of statistical thinking and quality ideas, and for dedicated service to the growth and practice of the quality profession. (Full Story)

Enlarged quantum dots could yield light source for biomedical imaging

The study is the result of collaboration between UT Dallas and researchers from the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies and the Center for Advanced Solar Photophysics at Los Alamos National Laboratory. (Full Story)

Killing the killer asteroid with a nuclear bomb: Yes we can

Computer model describes using a nuclear power source to destroy an asteroid. LANL image.

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) scientists say it would be possible to blast away a killer asteroid approaching Earth with a nuclear bomb even with short notice.

As many asteroids are granular in nature and held together by gravity, a one ton nuclear blast would propagate through the asteroid blowing it into much smaller pieces that would pose no danger if they struck earth as meteors. (Full Story)

Chinese supercomputer aids climate scientists

Sunway-Bluelight Supercomputer. CNSC photo.

China finished building the Sunway-Bluelight Supercomputer last September, just one year after the debut of the Tianhe-1A, which was known as the world's fastest computer before beingsurpassed by Japan's K computer in June 2011.

Steve Wallach, a consultant to the DOE ASC program at Los Alamos National Laboratory, said the most impressive part of the computer is the fact that “most of the technology, especially the microprocessors, was homegrown.” (Full Story)

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2012-01-13T11:37:00.018-07:00

Nanotube “glow sticks” transform surface science tool kit

Many physical and chemical processes necessary for biology and chemistry occur at the interface of water and solid surfaces. Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory publishing in Nature Nanotechnology have now shown that semiconducting carbon nanotubes—light emitting cylinders of pure carbon—have the potential to detect and track single molecules in water (full story).

Who’s in the lead? Algae around the world

In New Mexico, Dr. José Olivares, an analytical chemist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, is head of the National Alliance for Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts (NAABB), a consortium funded by the Department of Energy to develop innovative technologies that will help bring algal biofuels to a commercial reality.

Biofuels Digest writer Jonathan Williams sat down recently with Dr. Olivares after he had completed a wide-ranging tour of some of the algal hot spots around the globe (full story).

Quantum dot research named among top ten advancements at Los Alamos

Research by Los Alamos scientists published in the journal Nature documented significant progress in understanding the phenomenon of quantum-dot blinking. The efficiency of the dots is greatly reduced by blinking, but the problem can be controlled and even completely suppressed electrochemically, researchers discovered, as they developed a novel spectro-electrochemical experiment that allowed them to controllably charge and discharge a single quantum dot while monitoring its blinking behavior (full story).

Video: Visualizing the Los Alamos asteroid killer

How do you mitigate a meteor? Our Video Sunday feature continues with this feature describing how LANL scientists used a Cray supercomputer to model effects of nuclear energy source on an Earth-threatening asteroid.

The newest supercomputer at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Cielo, is currently working on classified nuclear weapons physics problems. However, it is sometimes used to do fascinating unclassified science when a computer model is so large that it can’t be run on a smaller platform (full story).

Scientists studying how the brain ‘sees’

Garrett Kenyon, a neurophysicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory who is studying the way the brain processes visual information. “If we could help computers understand what underlies the ‘aha!’ moment when we recognize something, we would be able to communicate better.” (full story)

Researcher's tool maps malware in beautiful 3D models

Security researchers face a tough problem: Computer viruses, unlike their biological counterparts, can’t be seen under a microscope. Even common reverse engineering tools merely render malware as thousands of lines of garbled text more legible to machine than man.

Now one researcher hopes to show the malware that plagues PCs in all its evil elegance. At the Shmoocon security conference later this month, Danny Quist plans to demo a new three-dimensional version of a tool he’s created called Visualization of Executables for Reversing and Analysis, or VERA, that maps viruses’ and worms’ code into intuitively visible models.

Quist, who teaches government and corporate students the art of reverse engineering at Los Alamos National Labs, says he hopes VERA will make the process of taking apart and understanding malware’s functionality far easier.

Lab outlines priority cleanup goals

Lab officials are calling it the “LANL 3,706 Transuranic Waste Campaign.” Why the 3,706? Their goal is to remove 3,706 cubic meters of TRU waste by June 30, 2014 from Technical Area 54 and Material Disposal Area G.

Dan Cox, the deputy associate director for Environmental Programs at the lab, told the Northern New Mexico Citizens Advisory Board that the waste is classified into three categories. Seventy percent of the waste is in oversized containers, 20 percent are in drums and 10 percent are in standard waste boxes (full story).

Also from the Monitor this week:

Hecker: N. Korea remains shrouded in mystery

Hecker is a former director of Los Alamos National Laboratory who now directs the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University.

He is considered a leading expert on North Korea having made seven annual trips in a row to the isolated country through 2010 (full story).

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2012-01-06T09:36:00.014-07:00

Artificial vision: Image and pattern recognition with lateral neural networking

Garrett Kenyon. LANL photo.

Digital images make a computer’s “eyesight” fantastic, but how well can software, even advanced neural networking programs, actually recognize and identify the contents of a photo? Not very well, currently, but a new paper published in the Public Library of Science may be changing that by modeling neural network functions after human visual abilities.

Decoded Science had the opportunity to ask co-author Garrett T. Kenyon of Los Alamos National Laboratory a few questions about this study. (Full Story)

Career profiles: Breakthrough behind the scenes

Photo from Science.

Kimberly Powers spent a year researching tobacco use prevention and control at the University of New Mexico. Then, at Los Alamos National Laboratory, she studied mathematical models that could explain the behavior of viruses within a host and helped scientists develop new models.

Now a postdoc at UNC, she's trying to clear one of treatment-as-prevention's major hurdles: understanding how HIV is transmitted during its so-called acute stage, which occurs before the infection is recognized. Her most recent findings suggest that targeting those early infections with drugs like HPTN 052 could deliver a serious blow to the HIVepidemic. (Full Story)

Survey of ‘leaders’ gives lab high marks

For the second straight year, the Los Alamos National Laboratory continues to get high marks from community leaders.

According to the latest survey released earlier this month, LANL “has maintained this high level of favorability as 78 percent of the community leaders say they currently have a favorable opinion of the lab. (Full Story)

Also from the Monitor this week:

LANL chief McMillan hit the ground running

McMillan speaks at the post fire "thank you" event at Ashley Pond. Monitor photo.

Los Alamos lab director Charles McMillan had been on the job for about a month when June 26 rolled around. He had just taken over for Mike Anastasio, who retired.

McMillan will never forget where he was on June 26 when the Las Conchas Fire started. He will never forget because it also was his anniversary. (Full Story)

Top 7 ‘breakthrough’ military weapons

Inner configuration of the FEL. LANL image.

#3 The Free Electron Laser. Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have announced that they’ve successfully built and tested a device that can produce the type of electrons needed to generate weapons-grade megawatt laser beams. A Navy ship armed with such a laser would be able to zap a barrage of incoming missiles. (Full Story)

June beetles conscripted into cyborg army

Honeybees are trained to sniff out explosives. LANL photo.

Cybugs can leverage insects’ highly evolved natural capabilities -- their natural sensors and power generation skills -- to provide cheap robot-like capabilities.

Take the honey bee. The Los Alamos National Laboratory has already demonstrated that olfactory training can exploit the bees’ fantastic sense of smell to turn them into effective explosives detectors. (Full Story)

Century of statehood: Making history on the Hill

Santa Fe New Mexican photo.

In her 90 years, Mary Roeschke hasdone a little of it all: working at Los Alamos National Laboratory during the Manhattan Project, taking minutes for the Legislature, driving a school bus and raising two sons, one of whom was among the first children born in Los Alamos.

At Los Alamos Roeschke would catch little glimpses of what was going on in the new, secretive hilltop outpost, as she typed up memos and asked for the signatures of some of science’s biggest names. (Full Story)

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2011-12-23T11:31:00.016-07:00

Los Alamos National Laboratory announces top 10 science stories of 2011

Los Alamos National Laboratory's top 10 science stories of 2011 illustrate the broad variety of scientific excellence that's the hallmark of the Laboratory. This year's stories include alternative energy research, world record magnetic fields, disease tracking, the study of Mars, climate change, fuel cells, solar wind, and magnetic reconnection. (Full Story)

Scientists monitor Santa’s journey

Scientists expect Santa to arrive in Northern New Mexico about midnight on Christmas Eve

Los Alamos National Laboratory trackers will use state-of-the-art technology to mark the course taken by St. Nick and his eight tiny and highly efficient reindeer. Visit LAMonitor.com for a live link beginning at 6 a.m. Dec. 24 to see his whirlwind journey. (Full Story)

Scientists model brain structure to help computers recognize objects

Garrett Kenyon. LANL photo.

A team of scientists are modeling a brain structure to help computers recognize shapes and objects as humans do.

While a humans’ visual performance gets worse when an image is shown for a shorter period of time and when shapes are more complicated, scientists are expecting computers to recognize shapes faster than humans.

After measuring human performance, researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory, Chatham University, and Emory University created a computer model based on human neural structure to recognize shapes. (Full Story)

Seven laboratory scientists honored

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has awarded the distinction of Fellow to seven scientists from LANL for advancing science applications that are deemed scientifically or socially distinguished. (Full Story)

Economy, energy, and entrepreneurship: Los Alamos National Laboratory

David Pesiri. LANL photo.

Los Alamos National Laboratory’s David Pesiri speaks on topics including funding, peer review, entrepreneurship, nanotechnology research, and communicating research missions in a social networking environment.

Los Alamos is a capabilities-based national security science laboratory. For topics that deal with national security, I think the role of the federal program office is central. And, that means that whether it is DOD (Department of Defense), or the intelligence community, or DHS (Department of Homeland Security), or other agencies, what's prescribed andwhat is assigned really has to do with the federal program. (Full Story)

Cutting edge chemistry in 2011

Typical polyaromatic hydrocarbon. From Wikimedia.

Several teams were trying to work out how prebiotic molecules found themselves encased in cells in the first place. James Boncella, at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the US, made primitive vesicles to investigate how the first cell-like structures might have harnessed energy. The team made the vesicles from fatty acids and polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and trapped metal ions in the central void. (Full Story)

Soyuz launch will return ISS to full staff

Former LANL scientist Donald Pettit gestures as he boards the Soyuz TMA-03M spacecraft. From USA Today.

"I told my family it's like going back home, or at least my second home," said Pettit, a 56-year-old married father of two who spent six months on the outpost in late 2002 and early 2003.

It also will mark a key milestone for the chemical engineer who began his career at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico in 1983.

"I was there 13 years," Pettit said. "And I find it interesting that I worked the early part of my career at a nationallaboratory, and now I'm going back into space on the space station, and again, it's a national laboratory asset. (Full Story)

Los Alamos, EMC ink deal to develop new HPC technology

Alan Bishop (PADSTE) and Percy Tzelnic, senior vice president at EMC Corp., sign a supercomputing CRADA on Dec. 1 LANL photo.

Los Alamos National Laboratory today announced the signing of a new Umbrella Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with EMC Corporation. Together, LANL and EMC will enhance, design, build, test, and deploy new cutting-edge technologies in an effort to meet some of the nation’s most difficult information technology challenges. (Full Story)

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2011-12-16T11:31:00.017-07:00

First physics experiments soon to move into former Homestake mine

The Majorana Demonstrator will search for one of the rarest forms of radioactive decays—neutrinoless double-beta decay. Majorana could help determine whether subatomic particles called neutrinos can act as their own anti-particles, a discovery that could help physicists better explain how the universe evolved.

“We’re pushing very hard so we can hit the ground running when we move into the Transition Cavern,” Majorana spokesperson Steve Elliott of Los Alamos National Laboratory said (full story).

The Higgs boson and the LHC: at last, a clue to the universe?

Neutrinos are particles with almost no mass and no electrical charge (neutrino is Italian for “little neutral one”). They were first detected in the Fifties by Clyde Cowan and Frederick Reines at Los Alamos, New Mexico, in an experiment nicknamed Project Poltergeist because it was trying to detect the undetectable. Neutrinos are sometimes called “ghost particles”, as they hardly ever interact with solid matter. There are billions passing through your body right now (full story).

Seven Los Alamos Scientists Earn AAAS Honors

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has awarded the distinction of Fellow to seven scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory for advancing science applications that are deemed scientifically or socially distinguished. New Fellows will be recognized in February at the AAAS Fellows Forum during the 2012 AAAS Annual Meeting in Vancouver, B.C., Canada (full story).

Scientists report first solar cell producing more electrons in photocurrent than solar photons entering cell

Researchers from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have reported the first solar cell that produces a photocurrent that has an external quantum efficiency greater than 100 percent when photoexcited with photons from the high energy region of the solar spectrum. . . .

The mechanism for producing a quantum efficiency above 100 percent with solar photons is based on a process called Multiple Exciton Generation (MEG), whereby a single absorbed photon of appropriately high energy can produce more than one electron-hole pair per absorbed photon. . . .

MEG, also referred to as Carrier Multiplication (CM), was first demonstrated experimentally in colloidal solutions of quantum dots in 2004 by Richard Schaller and Victor Klimov of the DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory (full story).

At Los Alamos Lab, mobile security gets picky

Large government agencies with many internal organizations face a conundrum when they plan to deploy new mobile systems or upgrade existing ones.

The steps the Los Alamos National Laboratory took to deploy wireless in its complex and highly security conscious environs show how a big organization picks and chooses systems and services to meet the requirements of different user groups.

Research at Los Alamos covers a range of areas, from basic science to highly sensitive nuclear weapons work. Because of its broad range of research and a large population at varying security levels, the lab wanted to develop a more flexible and secure wireless capability, according to Anil Karmel, a solutions architect at Los Alamos.

There are currently some 20,000 wireless devices running on Los Alamo’s existing network. For very secure applications, the lab issued BlackBerry 160 Bold devices to selected personnel, Karmel said (full story).

Guest Column: Ten ways to fool the masses when giving performance results on GPUs

The performance potential of Graphics Processing Unit or GPU computing has produced significant excitement in the HPC community. However, as was the case with the advent of parallel computing decades ago, the nascent technology does not equally benefit all applications, says Scott Pakin of Los Alamos National Laboratory (full story).

LANL holiday drive a hit

More than 1,100 children and seniors will have more gifts under their tree this year because of a holiday gift drive at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

“More than 1,000 children and seniors from around Northern New Mexico will have a brighter holiday because LANL employees enthusiastically participated in the holiday gift tag program,” said Tim Martinez of LANL’s Community Programs Office. “I’m so proud to be part of such a worthwhile program.” (full story)

Also from the Monitor this week:

LANL employees make record number of pledges

Los Alamos National Laboratory employees have pledged a record $1.81 million to United Way and other eligible nonprofit programs. Los Alamos National Security, LLC, which manages and operates the laboratory for the National Nuclear Security Administration, plans to prorate its $1 million match among the selected nonprofit organizations, bringing the total donation to $2.81 million.

“Our Los Alamos employees can take pride in this accomplishment,” said Carolyn Zerkle, LANL’s associate director for Information Technology and this year’s campaign champion (full story).

Staying Power

Like cities, academic medical centers appear destined to last

The modern academic medical center . . . resembles another of mankind's oldest organizations — a city. . . .

In the September 2011 issue of Scientific American, West and Luis M.A. Bettencourt, both theoretical physicists at the Santa Fe Institute and Los Alamos National Laboratory, observed that, rather than "unnatural human conglomerations blighted by pathologies[,] … cities do more with less … because they concentrate, accelerate and diversify social and economic activity." (full story)

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2011-12-09T09:02:00.010-07:00

Proton beam experiments open new areas of research

Ph.D. student Despina Milathianak, performs experiments at the TRIDENT Laser Facility. LANL photo.

By focusing proton beams using high-intensity lasers, a team of scientists have discovered a new way to heat material and create new states of matter in the laboratory.

Using the Trident sub-picosecond laser at Los Alamos, the team generated and focused a proton beam using a cone-shaped target. The protons were found to have unexpectedly curved trajectories due to the large electric fields in the beam. (Full Story)

e2v imaging sensors launched into space on NASA mission to Mars

Launch of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission. NASA image.

The Mars Science Laboratory is a long-term robotic exploration to assess if Mars is, or ever has been, an environment that can support life. It will be the biggest, most capable robot to ever land on another planet.

e2v imaging sensors equip both the rover’s Chemistry and Mineralogy instrument (CheMin) which was developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the Chemistry & Camera instrument (ChemCam) which was developed by the Los Alamos National Lab under an agreement with NASA’s JPL.

CheMin will identify and measure the minerals on the planet using sophisticated x-ray detection techniques. The ChemCam instrument consists of a laser, which will be used to vaporise rock samples, and a camera which will then use Laser Induced Breakdown (LIB) spectroscopy to analyse the material produced. (Full Story)

National science award for Taos’ David Chávez

David Chávez. Photo by Dorie Hagler.

Taos Municipal School Board member and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) scientist David Chávez has been awarded the prestigious Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award.

“Just to have been nominated by the Lab as their person to put forward — that was an honor in itself for me,” Chávez said. “I didn’t have any expectations at all to make it past any kind of competitive application process.” (Full Story)

MIIS student transforms nuclear intelligence

Frank Pabian. LANL Photo.

A Monterey graduate student is adding another dimension to nuclear intelligence and attracting the interest of high-ranking defense officials.

“It’s seeing nuclear infrastructure in a different way, that is more real to people,” said Frank Pabian, a visiting lecturer at MIIS and senior geospatial information analyst at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. (Full Story)

Former colleagues remember Manhattan Project scientist

Lawrence H. Johnston during his time at Tinian Island. LANL photo.

In 2006, Lawrence Johnston visited Los Alamos to speak about his wartime experiences. Johnston flew on the first mission for the Trinity test and then both missions that dropped Little Boy and Fat Man.

Alan B. Carr, laboratory historian, revealed that no copy of the talk exists, but he still remembers it vividly. “The auditorium filled up, so approximately 30 people listened from the foyer.” (Full Story)

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2011-12-02T10:51:00.024-07:00

Why does Mars Curiosity rover have a laser raygun?

Yes, NASA's Mars rover has a laser gun. But there are no plans for Curiosity to zap Martians. This cool little laser – and it is tiny – is known as the "ChemCam."

The idea for putting a laser on a Mars rover is traced by NASA back to 1997. At the time, Roger Wiens was a geochemist with the US Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory, and was working on an idea for using lasers to investigate the moon (full story).

Los Alamos instrument to shine light on Mars habitability

With the successful launch of the Mars Science Laboratory on Saturday, Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers and scientists from the French space institute IRAP are poised to begin focusing the energy of a million light bulbs on the surface of the Red Planet to help determine whether Mars was or is habitable.

The international team of space explorers that launched the Mars Science Laboratory last week is relying in part on an instrument originally developed at Los Alamos called ChemCam, which will use blasts of laser energy to remotely probe Mars’s surface. The robust ChemCam system is one of 10 instruments mounted on the mission’s rover vehicle, named Curiosity (full story).

The same writeup appeared here.

LIBS spectrometer from LANL to seek life on Mars

Los Alamos, NM--On the successful November 26 NASA launch of the Mars Science Laboratory, the car-sized Curiosity rover was equipped with a remote-detection instrument originally developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) called ChemCam that will use blasts of laser energy to remotely probe Mars’s surface, determining whether Mars is or was habitable.

The LANL researchers and scientists from the French space institute IRAP will analyze data from a telescope that views the flash of glowing plasma created by vaporized material from the laser and record the colors of light contained within it for spectroscopic analyses.

The Curiosity rover is expected to land on Mars in August 2012 after traveling nearly 354 million miles and roam the surface of Mars for about 98 weeks, the period of one Martian year (full story).

ChemCam to probe Martian surface for habitability clues

When Curiosity rover lands on the red planet next year, one of the 10 instruments onboard that form the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) will start zapping the surface to help determine whether Mars is or was habitable.

Known as ChemCam, it will focus the energy of more than 1 million light bulbs in powerful laser pulses lasting five-billionths of a second that can vaporize an area the size of a pinhead, reaching up to 23 feet (7 meters) away from Curiosity (full story).

N.M. aids Mars trip

Solar panels manufactured by the Emcore Corp. will be powering instruments aboard the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft during its cruise stage to the Red Planet.

New Mexico’s other connections include the rover’s ChemCam laser, developed by Los Alamos National Laboratory, that is to be remotely operated by scientists at the University of New Mexico. There also is a rock from Socorro inside the rover to serve as a geologic sample to ensure a second instrument managed by a UNM-based team is working properly (full story).

Two LANL scientists win E.O. Lawrence Awards

U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced Monday that Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists Mark Chadwick and David Chavez are winners of 2011 Ernest Orlando Lawrence Awards. The award recognizes their outstanding contributions in research and development supporting the Department of Energy and its missions.

"We could not be prouder of Mark and David for achieving this tremendous honor," said Charlie McMillan, LANL director. "Their contributions help us not only understand today’s national security challenges but prepare us for those of tomorrow. This Laboratory would not be what it is today without people like Mark and David." (full story)

Also in the Monitor:

LANL names new head of weapons programs

Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Charlie McMillan announced the selection of Bret Knapp as the new principal associate director for Weapons Programs Thursday. Knapp has been acting in that position since June 2011 when McMillan left the post to become Laboratory director.

As the head of LANL’s Weapons Programs, Knapp is responsible for the leadership, development, and execution of the Laboratory’s primary mission: ensuring the safety, security, and effectiveness of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The programs have a $1.5 billion annual budget that is split between two directorates with a workforce of more than 1,400 (full story).

Christmas Burst Reveals Neutron Star Collision

A strangely powerful, long-lasting gamma-ray burst on Christmas Day, 2010 has finally been analyzed to the satisfaction of a multinational research team. Called the Christmas Burst, GRB 101225A was freakishly lengthy and it produced radiation at unusually varying wavelengths. But by matching the data with a model developed in 1998, the team was able to characterize the star explosion as a neutron star spiraling into the heart of its companion star.

The paper, "The unusual gamma-ray burst GRB 101225A from a helium star/neutron star merger at redshift 0.33," appears in a recent issue of the journal Nature. Christina Thöne of Spain's Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía is the lead author, and Los Alamos computational scientist Chris Fryer is a contributor.

Fryer, of the Lab's Computer, Computational, and Statistical Sciences Division, realized that the peculiar evolution of the thermal emission (first showing X-rays with a characteristic radius of ~1011 cm followed by optical and infra-red emission at ~1014 cm) could be naturally explained by a model he and Stan Woosley of the University of California at Santa Cruz had developed in 1998 (full story).

Why quantum dots blink

Random fluctuations in light emission from semiconductor nanocrystals, also known as quantum dots, are driven by two photoluminescence mechanisms, according to researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The findings, which were revealed by a new spectro-electrochemical technique, uncover the causes of the “blinking,” a well-known phenomenon that limits the stability of quantum dot-based devices such as solar cells and light-emitting diodes (full story).

Is sustainability science really a science?

The idea that one can create a field of science out of thin air—just because of societal and policy need—is a bold concept. But for the emerging field of sustainability science, sorting among theoretical and applied scientific disciplines, making sense of potentially divergent theory, practice, and policy, the gamble has paid off.

In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory, Santa Fe Institute, and Indiana University analyzed the field’s temporal evolution, geographic distribution, disciplinary composition, and collaboration structure.

"We don't know if sustainability science will solve the essential problems it seeks to address, but there is a legitimate scientific practice in place now," says Luís Bettencourt of Los Alamos National Laboratory and Santa Fe Institute, first author on the paper, "Evolution and structure of sustainability science.” (full story)

How Did Martian Polar Gullies Form?

Gullies on Mars have been pointed to as evidence for the presence of flowing liquid water. However, gullies also exist in Mars' polar regions, where temperatures are too low to support liquid water.

Other processes have been proposed to explain the origin of gullies but have not been confirmed. For instance, sediment lying on top of a seasonal accumulation of carbon dioxide frost could flow like a fluid if the frost sublimes (turns to gas directly from the solid stage) sufficiently quickly. This fluidized sediment could form gullies.

To determine whether conditions are suitable for such fluidization to occur in Mars' polar regions, Cedillo-Flores et al. calculated the carbon dioxide sublimation rate needed to fluidize sand and dust lying on top of the carbon dioxide frost.

They then used a thermal model of Mars' surface and subsurface to determine whether buried carbon dioxide frost could potentially sublimate at that rate. The researchers confirm that sediment fluidization could indeed occur in Mars' polar regions, and thus, Martian gullies can form without the presence of liquid water (full stories: Mars Today and Geophysical Research Letters).

Q&A: A few minutes with Willie Padilla

After earning your doctorate at the University of California San Diego, you were selected for a Director’s Fellowship for post-doctoral study at Los Alamos National Laboratory. How did that experience influence your work?

The Director’s Fellowship allows you not only to do post-doctoral work with Los Alamos scientists, but also gives you the chance to conduct independent research. I took that opportunity to work on what was then the emerging field of metamaterials (full story).

NSTecs' new president a veteran in field

A veteran of the nation's weapons labs who currently is head of nuclear engineering at Texas A&M University will take over the reins for running the Nevada National Security Site.

Previously, Raymond J. Juzaitis served as an associate director at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico (full story).

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2011-11-28T09:57:00.017-07:00

Super-size Mars rover blasts off

NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity rover lifts off from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral.

Surrounded by 50 American and French members of his team, Los Alamos National Laboratory's Roger Wiens, a planetary scientist in charge of Curiosity's laser blaster, called ChemCam, shouted, "Go, Go, Go!" as the rocket soared into a cloudy sky.

The 1-ton Curiosity — as large as a car — is a mobile, nuclear-powered laboratory holding 10 science instruments that will sample Martian soil and rocks, and analyze them right on the spot. There’s a drill as well as the laser-zapping device. (Full Story)

The most capable robot geologist ever built now heads to Mars

Curiosity rover. NASA illustration.

From a distance of nearly 25 feet, the ChemCam laser zaps material from the surface of a rock, dusting it off and ablating weatherized surfaces, creating a plasma that can be analyzed using the instrument’s telescope. For just five nanoseconds, the laser directs the energy of a million light bulbs into the area the size of a pinhead, said Roger Wiens, the instrument’s principal investigator, based at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

“ChemCam is supposed to be a workhorse for the rover in identifying unique samples for the other instruments to spend more time on,” he said. “The ability to reach out and touch the rock from almost 25 feet away is a real advantage.” (Full Story)

From New Mexico to Mars

ChemCam laser investigates Mars geology. NASA illustration.

The ChemCam laser, developed by researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory and put into use by scientists at the University of New Mexico, is one of several connections between the car-size rover named Curiosity and the Land of Enchantment.

The ChemCam laser will maximize the efficiency of the other instruments by working like a long-range tentacle to study the chemistry of surrounding areas and help the scientists determine where to send the slow-moving rover, traveling at a top speed of 10 feet per minute, said Los Alamos scientist Roger Wiens, ChemCam’s principal investigator. (Full Story)

After 25 years, sustainability is a growing science that's here to stay

Luís M. A. Bettencourt. LANL photo.

Sustainability has not only become a science in the past 25 years, but it is one that continues to be fast-growing, according to new research from Los Alamos National Laboratory and Indiana University.

The findings, recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, were assembled from a review of 20,000 academic papers written by 37,000 distinct authors representing 174 countries and over 2,200 cities. Authors of the paper are Los Alamos research scientist Luís M. A. Bettencourt and Jasleen Kaur, a Ph.D. student in Indiana University. (Full Story)

McMillan: PF-4 safer than home

Don Cook and Charlie McMillan at the DNFSB hearing. LANL photo.

McMillan was so confident in the upgrades that he remarked “I must stress that PF-4 even without its recent upgrades is among the most robust structures in the region if not the state. In the event of a major earthquake, I believe I would rather be in PF-4 than in my own home. (Full Story)

Also from the Monitor this week:

Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff visits LANL

Adm. Winnefield is greeted at LANL by Bret Knapp, Principal Associate Director for Nuclear Weapons. LANL photo.

Admiral James A. Winnefield, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff visited Los Alamos National Laboratory Thursday. Winnefield is a four star Navy Admiral, and as Vice Chairman is the second highest-ranking U.S. military officer.
Winnefield was at Los Alamos to receive a wide variety of classified briefings that covered the broad spectrum of national security science at Los Alamos. (Full Story)

All structures strong and small

Bryce Tappan. LANL image.

“These materials are unique in that they achieve aerogel-like densities with highly regular structures,” comments Bryce C. Tappan, an expert in lightweight metal foams at Los Alamos National Laboratory. (Full Story)

Light pulled out of empty space

Getting something from nothing. Illustration from NewScientist.

"This is a significant breakthrough," says Diego Dalvit, a physicist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The energy of virtual photons is cosmologists' best guess of what lies behind the dark energy that is causing the universe's expansion to accelerate. (Full Story)

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2011-11-18T10:53:00.015-07:00

Fusion energy is the future; but the future might be quite a long ways off

It’s hard not to get excited listening to Wurden explain the process they’re using at Los Alamos called Magnetized Target Fusion. Wurden and his team are working with an Air Force research lab in nearby Albuquerque.

“We built a plasma injector, and they built a can-crusher, and you put the plasma into that aluminum canister, and then you crush the aluminum can, with the huge current produced by the capacitor bank,” Wurden began.

"You put 11 million amps of current, and that produces a big magnetic field on the outside; that crushes the can very smoothly and uniformly (full story)."

Researchers unravel mystery of quantum-dot blinking

Research by Los Alamos scientists developed a novel spectro-electrochemical experiment that allowed them to controllably charge and discharge a single quantum dot while monitoring its blinking behavior. These experiments facilitated the discovery of two distinct blinking mechanisms.

"Our work is an important step in the development of nanostructures with stable, blinking-free properties for applications from light-emitting diodes and single-photon sources to solar cells," said Victor Klimov (full story).

Also from the Monitor this week:

LANL works on ultra-low field MRI

LANL researchers are developing a system to make ultra-low field magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) commercially viable for medical applications. The researchers have been working on an ultra-low field MRI system using low temperature SQUIDS (supercomputing quantum interference devices).

Ultra-low field MRI with low temperature SQUIDs in a shielded room has many potential advantages for medical imaging, such as convenience, enhanced contrast, and open design (full story).

Vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff visits LANL

Admiral James A. Winnefield, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff visited Los Alamos National Laboratory Thursday. Winnefield is a four star Navy Admiral, and as Vice Chairman is the second highest-ranking U.S. military officer.

Winnefield was at Los Alamos to receive a wide variety of classified briefings that covered the broad spectrum of national security science at Los Alamos. The Vice Chairman was briefed by the laboratory’s senior leadership including director Charlie McMillan, and Principal Associate Directors Bret Knapp and Terry Wallace. The briefings included details of the laboratory’s Nuclear Weapons Program and Global Security portfolio (full story).

NASA sets MSL/ATLAS V launch coverage events

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft with the Curiosity rover is set to launch to the planet Mars aboard an Atlas V rocket on Nov. 25, 2011 from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

Curiosity Mission Science Briefing: This briefing will immediately follow the prelaunch news conference. Participating in the briefing will be: Roger Wiens, principal investigator for Chemistry and Camera investigation on Curiosity Los Alamos National Laboratory (full story).

Fujitsu, Cray, HP, IBM dominate list of top 10 fastest supercomputers

Cielo was built by Cray using its XE6 systems and leverages AMD’s eight-core Opteron 6136 chips for a performance level of 1.11 petaflops.

Roadrunner, an IBM-built supercomputer, is a cluster of BladeCenter systems powered by Big Blue’s 3.2GHz PowerXCell 8i and AMD’s dual-core Opteron chips. Its performance is listed at 1.04 petaflops (full story).

Los Alamos tagged New Mexico's 'brainiest' mid-sized city

The home to Los Alamos National Laboratory came in at No. 48 among 3,012 communities in the category. Almost 38 percent of its residents have earned a graduate and/or professional degree (full story).

And, from Los Alamos, on YouTube . . .

How DARHT works

The Dual Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test (DARHT) facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory is an essential scientific tool that supports Stockpile Stewardship at the Laboratory. The World's most powerful x-ray machine, it's used to take high-speed images of mock nuclear devices - data that is used to confirm and modify advanced computer codes in assuring the safety, security, and effectiveness of the U.S. nuclear deterrent (full-size video here).

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2011-11-10T14:03:00.008-07:00

Los Alamos researchers unravel the mystery of quantum dot blinking

Artists conception of how solving the problem of quantum blinking may lead to applications in areas such as solid state lighting. LANL illustration.

Research by Los Alamos scientists published today in the journal Nature documents significant progress in understanding the phenomenon of quantum-dot blinking.

Their findings should enhance the ability of biologists to track single particles, enable technologists to create novel light-emitting diodes and single-photon sources, and boost efforts of energy researchers to develop new types of highly efficient solar cells. (Full Story)

Collaborative smart grid demonstration project breaks ground in LA

Officials at the groundbreaking includes Duncan McBranch (far left) deputy principal assoc. director for Science, Technology & Engineering. Monitor photo.

Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) broke ground today for the construction of a two megawatt solar array on the Los Alamos capped landfill. This is the first phase of the larger New Mexico/Japan Smart Grid Collaborative Demonstration Project in Los Alamos.

NEDO is teaming with Los Alamos County’s Department of Public Utilities, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory for the Los Alamos project. (Full Story)

Retired physicist teaches hands-on science at Moffat County elementary schools

Retired physicist John McConnell, left, helps teach science to Ridgeview Elementary School fourth-graders. Daily Press photo.

Physicist John McConnell worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory before he retired and began working with children. He travels and helps students learn about math and science through hands-on experiments.

Give retired physicist John McConnell a piece of PVC pipe and an empty pop can, and he can show you a way to teach young children about static electricity. (Full Story)

LANL to unveil new research journal

A new research journal in the burgeoning field of algae science will begin publication in 2012, steered by editors-in-chief José Olivares and Richard Sayre of Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Algal Research is an international journal that will cover all areas of emerging technologies in algal biology, biomass production, cultivation, harvesting, extraction, bioproducts, and econometrics. The journal publishes original scientific research papers, review articles, and invited commentaries. (Full Story)

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2011-11-04T11:01:00.018-06:00

What are you working on today, Roadrunner?

Roadrunner belongs to the Department of Energy via Los Alamos National Lab. That means it often spends its processing time on rather ominous problems like nuclear weapons modeling and simulation to “assure the safety, security, and effectiveness of the U.S. nuclear deterrent.” In other words, Roadrunner’s work is super top-secret classified.

But Roadrunner was willing to tell us--whilst glancing over both shoulders and dropping its voice slightly--that “models and simulations could include hydrodynamic mixing and turbulence of exotic materials under extreme conditions - temperatures at the core of the sun, time scales in the microseconds, and velocities of millions of miles per hour (full story).”

Secret security supercomputer Cielo, what are you working on today?

Maintaining America's nuclear deterrent is a 24x7 job, but Cielo isn't complaining

Installed this year, Cielo is Los Alamos National Labs’ newest nuclear weapons modeling and simulation platform. As such, specifics on what it’s working on at any given time are closely held. Cielo works for three national laboratories: Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Like its sister system Roadrunner, it performs advanced physics and predictive simulations to assure the safety, security, and effectiveness of the U.S. nuclear deterrent (full story).

Also in Popular Science:

Advanced supercomputer models supplant real-world nuclear weapons tests

After live nuclear testing ended in 1992, supercomputers supplanted explosions so scientists could continue studying how they work. The nation’s stockpile stewardship program, run by the NNSA at three national laboratories, checks the nation’s nukes for any problems.

Supercomputers at Los Alamos, Sandia and Lawrence Livermore national labs conduct tests that can in some ways go beyond the detail of any live explosion (full story).

Supercomputers offer tools for nuclear testing — and solving nuclear mysteries

The simulation of the B-83, a device designed and developed by Livermore in the late years of the Cold War, marked the first time such a major fault in a nuclear weapon was detected largely by computer simulation, Goodwin said. “We have a more fundamental understanding of how these weapons work today than we ever imagined when we were blowing them up,” he added (full story).

Scientist: Global warming 'is real'

Los Alamos National Laboratory senior scientist Manvendra Dubey expressed similar sentiments Tuesday. "The uncertainties are big enough that I don't think we should be talking catastrophe," said Dubey, a co-chairman of this week’s Global and Regional Climate Change conference in Santa Fe (full story).

Also in the Journal this week:

Los Alamos tops nation in millionaires

Los Alamos has a higher percentage of millionaires than any other city in America, according to a new survey.

But it isn’t exactly “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” up there (full story).

LANL wins grant for antibody research

From the ABQ Journal - Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory will be getting a financial boost as they work to unravel the secrets of how many human genes function. The lab’s bioscience division has been awarded a grant worth more than $4 million from the NIH for the Antibody Library Project.

One way to expose a gene’s function is to take the protein it produces and generate specific antibodies. That’s usually done by vaccinating mice or rabbits (full story).

With improved cybersecurity, Los Alamos moves to cloud, wireless

The Energy Department's Los Alamos National Laboratory has done a yeoman's job in fixing its cybersecurity problems from a decade ago, and now is moving into the cloud and going wireless.

Tom Harper, Los Alamos's chief information officer, said the organization is running an internal virtualized cloud to create an infrastructure-on-demand platform for its applications (full story).

LANL wins cyber security award

The SANS Institute announced Monday that Los Alamos National Laboratory has won the 2011 U.S. National Cybersecurity Innovation Award for their innovative use of vShield and other defense tools that represent a breakthrough model for securing virtual computing and private cloud deployments. As federal agencies and commercial organizations move quickly to take advantage of cloud computing, they are also concerned about the increasing risk of cyber-attacks

(full story).

Also in the Monitor this week:

It’s not if, but when

Rick Aster, the associate department chair and professor of geophysics at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology said "the building design is certainly seismically very, very strong. There is no doubt that the lab and DOE are taking this remote but nonzero probability of a large earthquake very seriously (full story)."

NNSA honors LANL's emergency operations team

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Defense Programs today announced the recipients of the Defense Programs’ Employee of the Quarter Awards.

The Emergency Operations Team at Los Alamos National Laboratory was recognized for “outstanding performance in the operations of the Emergency Operations Center and field response throughout the Los Conchas Fire, the largest wildfire in state history (full story).

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2011-10-28T09:53:00.017-06:00

Phonons in a stellar crust

The crust of a neutron star is extremely dense. Penn State Illustration

Vincenzo Cirigliano and colleagues at Los Alamos National Laboratory present a theoretical description of phonon interactions in the exotic phases of matter found in neutron stars, which play a role in the stars’ physical properties. (Full Story)

Scientists claim global warming made NM's fires worse

Scientists think global warming isonly going to make the situation worse, and drought will still be a fact oflife in the Southwest. "We expect we're still gonna get drought," said Dr. Todd Ringler, a climate modeling expert at Los Alamos National Laboratory." (Full Story)

Cartographers of the infectious world

Antigenic map of influenza viruses: each virus strain appears as a small coloured blob, each antiserum as an unfilled blob. Cambridge University image.

One analysis that is transforming how scientists track changes in the virus is antigenic cartography. Developed by Professor Smith with Dr Alan Lapedes (Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico) and Professor Ron Fouchier (Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam), and first published in Science in 2004, the technique is useful not only for tracking the past evolution of the virus but also holds promise for predicting what comes next. (Full Story)

Magnetic algae make biofuels sticky

The trick involved transferring to algae a gene from soil bacteria that align themselves with Earth's magnetic field, explained Pulak Nath at the Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory. (Full Story)

A tool to touch the sun

Solar Probe Plus shown with solar array panels in stowed position. NASA image.

The project, Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons (SWEAP), is backed by a consortium of institutions, including the CfA, NASA, the University of California, Berkeley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Alabama Huntsville, and Los Alamos National Laboratory. (Full Story)

Lab officials speak out on CMRR

NNSA LASO head Kevin Smith (left) and LANL Director Charlie McMillan answer questions during a community leaders breakfast at the lab Tuesday. Monitor photo.

The Chemistry Metallurgy Research Replacement facility was a hot topic of conversation Tuesday morning as the Los Alamos National Laboratory hosted a community leaders breakfast.

Then McMillan answered his own question when he said, “what do we need (the CMRR) for? “We need it for research,” McMillan said. “Plutonium has been around for 60 years and it is a very complicated material. We need a place where we can do more research on it. (Full Story)

Also from the Monitor this week:

Technology returns home to LA

Project Director Steve Huebner with the heat pipes powering the Justice Center’s new solar thermal domestic hot water system. Monitor photo.

In 1963, local resident George Erickson made the first working model of a heat pipe at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), based on a concept by George Grover.

That technology has traveled to the outer limits – providing thermal control for spaceships and satellites orbiting thousands of miles above the earth – and has now returned home to provide solar thermal domestic hot water (DHW) to the Justice Center and animal shelter. (Full Story)

More from the Monitor:

Bandelier says thanks

Bandelier National Monument Superintendent Jason Lott presents framed artwork of the park to Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Charlie McMillan and NNSA Los Alamos Site Office head Kevin Smith during a community leaders breakfast this morning. (Full Story)

Weird science — and other scary Halloween opportunities

Elizabeth Martineau, of the Bradbury Science Museum, frightens Mark Christy, 4, and his mother, Miriam, with a wolf skull as the museum prepares for High-Tech Halloween. New Mexican photo.

Instead of giving out candy, the Bradbury Science Museum in Los Alamos is giving out science for Halloween. Included on the menu are chattering skulls (when people manipulate the skulls, that is) of both man and beast, a gyro bicycle that twirls you round and round like a mad scientist's experiment and a lightning tube that responds to touch. (Full Story)

Photo of the day: Nuclear explosion simulation

Photograph by Lynn Johnson, National Geographic
This Month in Photo of the Day: Photos From New National Geographic Books

Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory study nuclear explosions by using 3-D simulations. They follow a long tradition of nuclear research that led to the creation of the atomic and hydrogen bombs. From the National Geographic book Visions of Earth. (See the photo here)

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2011-10-21T11:08:00.020-06:00

Genetically modified algae are magnetic, for ease of manipulation

Proving that there’s always a different way to approach a problem, researchers at Los Alamos National Lab have devised a pretty clever method of algae harvesting that could take a major chunk out of the cost of algae-based biofuel production. And all they had to do was create a magnetic organism.

Scientists at LANL have genetically engineered a new kind of algae that is magnetic, which could lead to new and simple ways of both extracting genetically engineered biofuel-producing algae from water and extracting the lipids that contain the hydrocarbons from the algae (full story).

This story also appeared in PhysOrg.

NASA: One-third of gamma ray sources are complete mysteries

The Fermi Space Telescope has detected 1,873 gamma ray sources in space, and nearly 600 are complete mysteries, NASA wrote today on its website.

NASA's Fermi team has recently released the second catalog of gamma ray sources from its satellite's Large Area Telescope and have no idea where nearly one-third of gamma rays originated.

Fermi sees gamma rays coming from directions in the sky where there are no obvious objects likely to produce gamma rays," said David Thompson, Fermi deputy project scientist, of Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

[NASA: Another instrument onboard, the Fermi Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor, is monitoring gamma-ray bursts at lower energies. The GBM is a collaboration among scientists at the Marshall Space Flight Center, the University of Alabama in Huntsville, the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory (full story).]

Valuable heavy isotopes recycled to research labs as security facility is decommissioned

National nuclear security, energy and research agencies completed transfer of a rare nuclear material among research laboratories to stretch its use and secure it as a nuclear security research facility is decommissioned.

The National Nuclear Security Administration and the Department of Energy’s Office of Science and Office of Nuclear Energy completed transfer of 40 grams of the special isotope curium-244 from Los Alamos National Laboratory to Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Idaho National Laboratory (full story).

LANL celebrates International Year of Chemistry

In order to bring attention to and celebrate the achievements of chemistry and its contributions to civilization, the General Assembly of the United Nations passed a resolution declaring 2011 as the International Year of Chemistry.

"Our goal, which is consonant with the

greater goal of the United Nations and

IUPAC, is to educate concerning the

discipline of chemistry and share some of

our excitement concerning the wonders of chemistry," said chemistry division leader Carol Burns (full story).

Gene sequenced by Harmon students

Students at J.C Harmon High School have determined the DNA sequence for the common sunflower. The gene was mixed with sequencing chemicals and sent to the Joint Genome Institute at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico where the sequencing reaction was run (full story).

Appro notches up another Los Alamos super deal

Supercomputer maker Appro International has lassoed itself another supercomputer win at the US Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Los Alamos has five other clusters that are part of its non-classified computing capacity, which is collectively called Turquoise and which have nearly 300 teraflops of aggregate computing capacity. This includes a baby version of the Opteron-Cell hybrid called "Roadrunner" which was built for Los Alamos by IBM (full story).

Homemade explosives school begins fourth year

In 2012 the Lab will begin its fourth year of offering the Homemade Explosives (HME) School to select members of the U.S. Military. A new video on the LANL YouTube channel shows how the course has expanded to include a mock Afghan village.

The school is sponsored by the Department of Defense Joint IED Defeat Organization and is taught by LANL personnel from the Weapons Experiments division and the Lab's Hazardous Devices Team (watch video).

ChemCam for Mars Science Laboratory rover, undergoing pre-flight testing

Los Alamos National Laboratory and partners developed a laser instrument, ChemCam, that will ride on the elevated mast of the Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity.

The system will allow Curiosity to “zap” rocks from a distance, reading their chemical composition through spectroscopic analysis (watch video).

Officials cite no damage from 3.8 magnitude earthquake

"We hear experimental explosions from the lab," Romero said of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. "We hear sonic booms and crashes on [N.M.] 503. But this was totally different."

At Los Alamos National Laboratory, the only noticeable effect was on the lab's seismologists, said spokesperson Nancy Ambrosiano (full story).

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2011-10-14T11:37:00.020-06:00

LANL deploys Appro Xtreme-X™ supercomputer

Technicians work to install the last sections of Mustang. LANL photo.

This deployment represents approximately $10 Million in production computing capability. The Xtreme-X™ Supercomputer will be used to address LANL's HPC needs for unclassified scientific computing.

Named "Mustang" by the LANL Institutional Computing Program it will provide high performance computing resources to a variety of activities at Los Alamos including ocean, wildfire, plasma physics, materials and nuclear energy. The Climate, Ocean, and Sea Ice Modeling (COSIM) project, a part of the climate modeling program in the DOE's Office of Science, is a partner with Institutional Computing in this acquisition. (Full Story)

An additional story also appeared in HPC Wir e

Multibillion-dollar nuke lab advances

Phase three of the CMRR project - the Nuclear Facility – will be built next door to the Radiological Laboratory Utility Office Buliding, or RLUOB shown here. LANL photo.

Project a decade in making, decade from opening - Los Alamos National Laboratory is moving forward with plans to build a controversial $5.8 billion nuclear lab.

The National Nuclear Security Administration Thursday issued the formal orders needed to begin taking bids for final design and construction of the lab, called the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility. (Full Story)

Sellers to become LANL deputy director

Elizabeth Sellers.

Elizabeth (Beth) Sellers has been named the new deputy director of Los Alamos National Laboratory and is scheduled to start December 5. Current Deputy Director Ike Richardson will be taking an overseas project leadership position with Bechtel. (Full Story)

Also from the Monitor this week:

Sayre joins LANL for plant research

Richard Sayre. LANL photo.

Richard Sayre, one of the nation's top specialists in algae and energy-producing plant research, has joined the Bioscience Division of Los Alamos National Laboratory to help boost cutting-edge research in this area.

Cited by Nature magazine as “one of five crop researchers who could change the world,” Sayre brings a crew of postdoctoral researchers and a range of funding to LANL. (Full Story)

More from the Monitor:

LANL raises breast cancer awareness

"As a breast cancer survivor, I know how a diagnosis of breast cancer can impact not only the person receiving the diagnosis, but their family members, friends and coworkers," said Wynona Holton of LANL's System Integration Group. (Full Story)

ASM International names 26 new Fellows

Robert D. Field. LANL photo.

Robert D. Field, Los Alamos, N.M.: Scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. For applied research of superalloys, intermetallic compounds, and beryllium alloys, dislocation and deformation analysis, and characterization of deformation mechanisms. (Full Story)

Nuclear weapons pits converted into plutonium oxide

NNSA's technologies are designed to disassemble nuclear weapons pits and convert the plutonium metal into plutonium oxide suitable for feed for the MOX facility, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory is expected to convert at least two metric tons of plutonium by 2018.

The goal of the plutonium oxide shipments from Los Alamos is that they will be blended with depleted uranium and turned into MOX fuel for use in domestic nuclear reactors. (Full Story)

ApocalypsEV-1: The Electric Car for the End of the World

The ApocalypseEV-1. Image from Michael and Kenny Ham.

Your neighborhood is in flames, the roads destroyed and there are least a dozen hungry zombies gnawing their way through your back door. You need a getaway car, and Michael and Kenny Ham might have just the machine for you.

"We came up with the concept for the ApocalypsEV-1 around the time Harold Camping was predicting the rapture," Michael Ham says. Ham is a physicist in computer vision research at New Mexico’s Los Alamos National Laboratory. (Full Story)

Raman reveals danger inside plastic bottles

Raman spectroscopy can give detailed information about chemicals behind a barrier, says Freek Ariese of VU University, in Amsterdam.

David Moore of Los Alamos National Laboratory thinks the use of Raman spectroscopy is an "interesting experiment" but questions its applicability in the real world. The method won't work, he says, if the explosives are hidden in metal or cardboard. (Full Story)

LANL completes razing of building

Demolition activities ended in early summer. LANL photo.

"After we removed all regulated, hazardous materials such as asbestos, our team was able to recycle about 95 percent of the building," Darrik Stafford, LANL's project director for the demolition, said in a news release. (Full Story)

The birth of America’s best cheeseburger

J. Robert Oppenheimer and Army General Leslie Groves visit ground zero following the Trinity test. Chances are they probably stopped at the Owl Cafe in San Antonio NM for green chile cheesburgers on the way back to Los Alamos. LANL photo.

Let me tell you a story about the history of America. About drunken physicists, the atom bomb and the greatest cheeseburger in the world.

At 5:30 a.m., July the 16th, 1945, the United States detonated the world’s first implosion-design plutonium bomb. (Full Story)

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2011-10-07T13:52:00.019-06:00

A first use of oil- and gas-produced water as a medium for algae

Researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory and Eldorado Biofuels, both members of NAABB, have located and analyzed potential locations in New Mexico and Texas that are viable sources of produced water.

Future work includes bench-scale testing at LANL and Texas Agrilife to be followed by a second pilot-scale test this fall. The treatment methods will be adjusted to improve algal growth, total biomass produced and oil yields (full story).

Potential key found for unlocking biomass energy

Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center have found a potential key for unlocking the energy potential from non-edible biomass materials such as corn leaves and stalks, or switch grass (full story).

Los Alamos researchers engineer magnetic algae

Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) have genetically engineered “magnetic” algae to investigate alternative, more efficient harvesting and lipid extraction methods for biofuels. The researchers seek to reduce the cost of algae-based biofuel production.

By inducing paramagnetic properties in algae, a permanent magnet-based separation could provide a low-cost alternative to current technologies, the researchers suggest (full story).

Antineutrino detectors can spot the destruction of weapons grade plutonium

One of the problems in dismantling nuclear weapons is what to do with the leftover weapons grade plutonium.

The issue of verification keeps nuclear proliferation experts awake at night. So they've been busy looking for a way for observers to tell what a reactor really is burning.

Anna Hayes and friends at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico say they've come up with just such a technique: the trick, they say, is to look for the antineutrinos that the reactor produces (full story).

LANL sets waste hauling record

Los Alamos National Laboratory has set a new LANL record for the amount of transuranic (TRU) waste from past nuclear operations shipped in a single year to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, NM. In fact, the lab has shipped record numbers of transuranic waste each of the past three years (full story).

Also from the Monitor this week:

LANL announces fund recipients

"Our Venture Acceleration Fund program provides much-needed capital to these promising companies, reducing their risk without the strings typically attached to equity investments," said David Pesiri, the Laboratory's Technology Transfer Division leader (full story).

NNSA disassembles nuclear weapons pits

LANL: Initial feedback for MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility is completed

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced this week that it had successfully disassembled nuclear weapons “pits” and converted them into more than 240 kg of plutonium oxide, an initial step in permanent plutonium disposition.

The certified oxide is an initial source of feed for NNSA’s Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility, which is currently under construction at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The disassembly, conversion and certification, which were completed at Los Alamos National Laboratory, is a significant accomplishment in an ongoing effort to safely dispose of surplus weapon-grade plutonium (full story).

Report: Water safe to drink despite ash from fire

Study says contamination from Las Conchas Fire rarely hit hazardous levels

Filter-clogging ash washing down in stormwater from the Jemez Mountains after the Las Conchas Fire prompted Santa Fe water managers to stop diverting from the Rio Grande a half-dozen times this summer.

But overall, the levels of contaminants in the water were rarely above drinking-water standards after the fire, according to a report on toxins in Rio Grande water to the Buckman Direct Diversion project board Thursday. The board consists of representatives from Santa Fe city and county, which jointly oversee the river diversion project, which began treating river water for the municipal drinking water system in January.

Radionuclides, polychlorinated biphenyl, cyanide and other compounds were found in the sediment that swirled in flood water down into the Rio Grande, but only rarely at levels that exceeded drinking water standards, according to city, state and Los Alamos National Laboratory officials. Naturally occurring uranium also was found in the sediment (full story).

Laser uranium enrichment returns from the dead

The Los Alamos National Laboratory first developed molecular enrichment in the 1970s, seeking a more energy-efficient process to produce nuclear-reactor fuel.

It used a 16-μm laser source to selectively excite uranium hexafluoride (UF6) molecules containing fissionable U-235 (full story).

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2011-09-30T09:27:00.018-06:00

President Obama honors outstanding early-career scientists

Presidential Early Career Award recipient Evgenya Simakov. LANL photo.

President Obama today named 94 researchers as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers, including Dr. Evgenya I. Simakov of Los Alamos National Laboratory.

"It is inspiring to see the innovative work being done by these scientists and engineers as they ramp up their careers—careers that I know will be not only personally rewarding but also invaluable to the Nation," President Obama said. (White House News Release)

This news also appeared on the PhysOrg website and in the Los Alamos Monitor

What about the nuclear option for spaceflight?

Artist's concept of a nuclear rocket. NASA image.

"Nuclear propulsion should be included when considering deep-space travel," said Princeton physicist Gene H. McCall, retired chief scientist for the Air Force Space Command and a senior scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

"The engines could also be used for years as a power source for establishing a base on the moon or Mars, or any long-term base where gathering power from the sun would be difficult.” (Full Story)

Experts offer measures to save lives after nuclear explosion

Air Force personnel don protective equipment in a nuclear attack drill. USAF photo.

Local governments and communities today are not well equipped to deliver preparedness knowledge before or after an incident, according to Schoch-Spana, a member of the Nuclear Resilience Expert Advisory Group that prepared the document.

"The bottom line is the only way for us to be prepared is to know what to do in advance," Tammy Taylor, head of the Nonproliferation Division at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and member of the advisory group, told the audience. (Full Story)

Mars rover to sport UNM-made devices

ChemCam is tested at JPL. JPL photo.

Among the many tools on the "Curiosity" is the brand new ChemCam instrument, developed by a joint US-French team led by Dr. Roger Wiens of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and included UNM professors and students from the Institute of Meteoritics (IOM). (Full Story)

Biosensor to help detect disease

Los Alamos National Laboratory successfully completed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with Biomagnetics Diagnostics, Inc., in June 2011.

The CRADA was created to continue work on developing a commercial product that could detect a specific biomarker in urine that could aid in the diagnosis of tuberculosis infection. However, a commercially available product has not yet been built or clinically tested. (Full Story)

Building a microgrid

Construction of the Microgrid is underway. ABQ Journal photo.

The project is being carried out by NEDO, a quasi-government agency from Japan, along with the state, Mesa del Sol, Public Service Company of New Mexico, Sandia and Los Alamos national labs and Los Alamos County. (Full Story)

The arXiv at 20: a global resource

Cornell professor Ginsparg started arXiv while at LANL. Cornell photo.

As the e-print arXiv of scientific publications celebrates its 20th anniversary, what started as an effort to "level the playing field" for researchers has created a whole new playing field on which the white lines are still not clearly drawn.

"But what I was trying to do was set up a system that eliminated the hierarchy in my field," said Paul Ginsparg. As a physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, "I was receiving preprints long before graduate students further down the food chain." (Full Story)

Seashore to host global climate research

The Cape Cod National Seashore will be a research site for a yearlong global study to improve the forecasting of hurricanes, droughts, smog and other climate events.

Starting in July 2012 at a site near the Highland Center in Truro, researchers will be measuring the amount and composition of tiny dust particles blown this way and out to sea.

The scientists are part of the U.S. Department of Energy's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Climate Research Facility, the largest funded climate change research project in the world. It involves 350 scientists at permanent sites all over the globe, according to project manager Kim Nitschke from the Los Alamos National Laboratory. (Full Story)

Research from Los Alamos National Laboratory provides new data on microbiology

"The importance of soil fungi in complex carbon degradation and the recent identification of genes involved in this process have sparked considerable interest in examining fungal gene expression in situ . Expression of target eukaryotic genes is commonly examined using reverse transcription PCR, during which single-stranded complementary DNA is synthesized from an oligo primer and the gene of interest is subsequently amplified by PCR using gene specific primers," researchers in Los Alamos, New Mexico report. (Full Story)

Can the tree whisperer save our forests?

A Pine beetle and larvae at the Northern Forestry Centre in Edmonton, Alberta. Greg Southam, Edmonton Journal

The dry spell descended on the Southwest in the mid-1990s, after twenty years of wet weather, and didn't let go until 2005. At the Los Alamos National Laboratory, ecologist David Breshears could look out his window at a pinyon study plot the size of a football field and actually watch the trees die.

"I would see the trees go from vibrant green to pale, gasping green to pale brown to dropping all their needles," he remembers. Between 2002 and 2003, the die-off was so extensive that patches of graying trees could be seen from outer space. It extended over 4,600 square miles, an area the size of Germany's Black Forest. (Full Story)

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2011-09-23T11:07:00.016-06:00

Too hard for science? Peter Watts - Fusing brains

“One could always resort to doing these experiments as simulations,” says Peter Watts, science fiction author and one-time marine mammal biologist. For instance, Luis Bettencourt at Los Alamos National Laboratory has discussed the progress that has already been made towards computer simulation of whole brains. “It’s not doable now, but in a decade or two, who knows?” Watts says (full story).

Also in Scientific American, this look back at the “physicist’s physicst” Robert Wilson, who served at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project

Protons and Pistols: Remembering Robert Wilson

One day in 1969, the Congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy convened in Washington, DC, to hear testimony from a number of scientists concerning a proposed multimillion dollar particle accelerator to be built in Batavia, Illinois.

Physics had enjoyed strong government support for two decades in the wake of the Manhattan Project, which helped bring an end to World War II. But many in Congress simply couldn’t see the point of spending all that money on a big machine that didn’t seem to benefit US national interests in quite the same way.

Wilson, to his credit, answered just as bluntly: “No sir, I don’t believe so.”

“Nothing at all?” Pastore asked.

“Nothing at all.”

Pastore pressed further: “It has no value in that respect?”

And then Wilson knocked it out of the park. . . (full story).

Astronomers find extreme weather on an alien world

A University of Toronto-led team of astronomers has observed extreme brightness changes on a nearby brown dwarf that may indicate a storm grander than any seen yet on a planet. Because old brown dwarfs and giant planets have similar atmospheres, this finding could shed new light on weather phenomena of extra-solar planets. Co-authors include Didier Saumon at Los Alamos National Laboratory (full story).

Two exhibits to open at Bradbury

Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Bradbury Science Museum will unveil two exhibits next week and hosts a talk about Manhattan Project physicist Richard Feynman on Sept. 29. The trinitite exhibit uses the famous green glass produced by the first atomic device test at Trinity Site to tell a story about the scientific method (full story).

Lab completes dump site excavation

Los Alamos National Laboratory announced Thursday it has completed excavation of its oldest hazardous waste dump, known as Area B.

The excavation removed about 43,000 cubic yards of toxic debris and soil from the 6-acre site, which was used from 1944-48 during Manhattan Project nuclear research and production. . . .

To protect workers and the public, the excavation was done under special metal structures equipped with special filters and fire and dust suppression systems (full story).

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