Does quantum cryptology offer hack-proof security?
Quantum Key Encryption device developed at LANL, LANL image.
Whitewood Encryption Systems and Los Alamos National Laboratory are also collaborating on another area of quantum cryptology research and development: the Entropy Engine, which is a random number generator (RNG) that harvests entropy from a quantum field. LANL claims the RNG is so efficient, it can fit on a USB key drive at an exceptionally low cost. (Full Story)
DHS moves another security technology to the commercial market
According to DHS, the PathScan technology is an anomaly detection tool developed by the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and has been licensed to Ernst & Young as part of the agency’s Transition to Practice program.
PathScan uses statistical models to screen network behavior and quickly detects the movement of hackers after they breach a network, allowing operational teams to defend sensitive information. (Full Story)
LANL, private firm partner on cybersecurity
Los Alamos National Laboratory has formed a partnership with multinational professional services firm Ernst & Young LLP to bring an advanced cybersecurity tool to the commercial market. Both have announced that LANL is licensing its PathScan technology to Ernst & Young for use in the private sector. (Full Story)
Carbon nanotubes open new path toward quantum information technologies
Oxygen (red) attached to a nanotube produces a single photon, LANL illustration.
In optical communication, critical information ranging from a credit card number to national security data is transmitted in streams of laser pulses.
By demonstrating that incorporation of pristine single-walled carbon nanotubes into a silicon dioxide (SiO2) matrix could lead to creation of solitary oxygen dopant state capable of fluctuation-free, room-temperature single photon emission, Los Alamos researchers revealed a new path toward on-demand single photon generation. Nature Nanotechnology published their findings. (Full Story)
Perovskite quantum dots emit single photons
Perovskite quantum dots of many colors, LANL image.
Individual perovskite quantum dots can operate as efficient room-temperature single-photon sources (or quantum emitters) that emit photons one by one, according to new work by researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of New Mexico.
“Our research group specializes in the development and spectroscopic study of nanoscale semiconductor particles, known as nanocrystals or quantum dots,” says team leader Victor Klimov of Los Alamos. (Full Story)
Experiments illuminate supersonic radiation flow
Pleiades target installed on a NIF target, LLNL photo.
A multi-institutional team of scientists fired the 26th and final shot of the Pleiades experimental campaign at the National Ignition Facility last month. The campaign has created a new scientific foundation for the study of supersonic radiation flow in astrophysical phenomena and in inertial confinement fusion physics.
Begun in 2011, the campaign was fielded by Los Alamos National Laboratory in collaboration with the U.K.’s Atomic Weapons Establishment and supported by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. (Full Story)
Descartes lab shows shrinking U.S. corn crop
Corn field deviation in 2014, from Descartes Labs.
From an analysis of more than 1 million corn fields daily, Descartes Labs’ infrared satellite images showed U.S. production is 2.8 percent smaller than the government estimates.
The firm started as a project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2007. Brumby said the labs are developing programs to forecast all major crops in the U.S. and plan to make projections for global crops. New satellite images available next year will enhance the view from space. (Full Story)
RLUOB team gets award from DOE
The DOE Secretary’s Achievement Award is presented to the RLUOB Transfer Team. LANL photo.
The Radiological Laboratory Utility Office Building (RLUOB) Transition Team at Los Alamos National Laboratory received the U.S. Department of Energy Secretary’s Achievement Award for its teamwork and performance. LANL made an announcement of the award Tuesday.
“What the National Nuclear Security Administration achieved with its contract partner on the RLUOB/REI Project is our goal — safe, high-quality, state-of-the-art facilities that provide a great value to the taxpayer,” said NNSA Associate Administrator for Acquisition and Project Management Bob Raines. (Full Story)
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DOE to crank out new plutonium-238 in 2019
Heated Pu-238 glows, DOE image.
DOE refines the artificial element plutonium-238 at Oak Ridge. The fuel is pressed into pellets that can fit into MMRTGs at the department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Los Alamos will test the sample batch of plutonium-238 DOE hopes to produce next year.
There are still 35 kilograms of useable plutonium-238 left in the U.S. stockpile for civil space missions, although only 17 kilograms of the material meet DoE’s minimum energy requirements for space. (Full Story)
Behavioral cyber tools going commercial
Los Alamos National Laboratory has signed a strategic alliance with Ernst & Young LLP to commercialize advanced behavioral cybersecurity tools.
Los Alamos’ PathScan anomaly detection tool, which had been used exclusively by federal agencies, will be the first tool that will be made available through the alliance.
According to Los Alamos, PathScan will be one of most advanced cybersecurity tools available to the private sector based on its behavioral analysis approach to detecting threats. (Full Story)
Also from Homeland Security Today
Evaluating a new approach to CO2 capture and storage
Carbon capture system, LANL illustration.
Los Alamos researchers helped examine a new approach that could potentially overcome many barriers to deployment and jumpstart CO2 capture and storage on a commercial scale.
At present, 68 percent of the electricity generated in the United States results from burning fossil fuels, more than half of which uses coal — the most CO2 -intensive source — as the primary energy source. (Full Story)
Gene regulation tool makes medical and biofuel advances possible
Molecular “dimmer,” LANL image.
Recent work by Los Alamos National Laboratory experimental and theoretical biologists describes a new method of controlling gene expression. The key is a tunable switch made from a small non-coding RNA molecule that could have value for medical and even biofuel production purposes.
“Living cells have multiple mechanisms to control and regulate processes—many of which involve regulating the expression of genes,” said lead project scientist Clifford Unkefer of the Laboratory’s Bioscience division. (Full Story)
Also from the Post this week:
Capture sunlight with your window
Quantum dots under ultraviolet light, LANL image.
A luminescent solar concentrator is an emerging sunlight harvesting technology that has the potential to disrupt the way we think about energy; It could turn any window into a daytime power source.
“In these devices, a fraction of light transmitted through the window is absorbed by nanosized particles (semiconductor quantum dots) dispersed in a glass window, re-emitted at the infrared wavelength invisible to the human eye, and wave-guided to a solar cell at the edge of the window,” said Victor Klimov. (Full Story)
A clearer outlook for quantum dot-enabled solar windows
A small sample of quantum dot solar window material, LANL image.
Quantum dots have been knocking on the door of photovoltaics for a while now. But it turns out that maybe they should have been tapping on the window instead.
In joint research between the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the University of Milan-Bicocca (UNIMIB) in Italy, researchers have spent the last 16 months perfecting a technique that makes it possible to embed quantum dots into windows so that the window itself becomes a solar panel. (Full Story)
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Particles from the edge of space shine a light on Fukushima
Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, from NPR.
Los Alamos physicist and Laboratory Fellow Christopher Morris and other researchers think a subatomic particle called a muon can help answer the question of what happened to the nuclear fuel inside the Fukushima plant.
If muons can penetrate a subway tunnel, they can certainly pass through a nuclear reactor. That's why Morris thinks they can help at Fukushima.
"You can make something that looks like an X-ray, so you can take a picture of what's inside the reactor," he says. (Full Story)
Consultants seek to bridge ‘Valley of Death’ to stop hacking
For the first time, cybersecurity technology developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico will be made available to private companies by the New York consulting firm Ernst & Young LLP.
The relationship between Los Alamos and EY is unique in that cybersecurity technology being developed and used at the lab hasn’t easily reached the private sector.
The U.S. spends about $1 billion a year on unclassified cybersecurity research. However, it often goes unnoticed in the private sector because federal researchers don’t have expertise in marketing and communicating to companies. (Full Story)
Quantum dot solar windows go non-toxic, colorless, with record efficiency
The luminescent solar concentrator could turn any window into a daytime power source, LANL illustration.
A luminescent solar concentrator is an emerging sunlight harvesting technology that has the potential to disrupt the way we think about energy; It could turn any window into a daytime power source.
"In these devices, a fraction of light transmitted through the window is absorbed by nanosized particles (semiconductor quantum dots) dispersed in a glass window, re-emitted at the infrared wavelength invisible to the human eye, and wave-guided to a solar cell at the edge of the window," said Victor Klimov. (Full Story)
Also from International Solar Magazine
Entrepreneurs, Los Alamos scientist seek fusion of another sort
David Fox, a LANL biochemist, with jars of “SCOBY," Journal photo.
With help from a Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist, three young Santa Fe entrepreneurs are trying to brew a better beer – one that combines the professed health effects of kombucha fermented tea with the enjoyment derived from drinking an ice-cold adult beverage.
“It’s going to be a new class of beers,” said David Fox, a biochemist at LANL. “It’s still being defined, but what I think you’ll see in the end is a unique classification of beers … one you’re really going to like.” (Full Story)
Riboregulator controls gene expression
Molecular "dimmer" switch to control cellular metabolism, LANL image.
Recent work by Los Alamos National Laboratory experimental and theoretical biologists describes a new method of controlling gene expression. The key is a tunable switch made from a small non-coding RNA molecule that could have value for medical and even biofuel production purposes.
"Living cells have multiple mechanisms to control and regulate processes—many of which involve regulating the expression of genes," said lead project scientist Clifford Unkefer of the Laboratory's Bioscience division. (Full Story)
Also from PhysOrg
The race for the unbreakable password is almost over
QkarD and engineered at Los Alamos National Laboratory. LANL image.
The bandwidth issue could take years to fix. Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico are not only working on ways around it, but on how to reinforce our current data security with quantum mechanics. Last autumn, Los Alamos struck the biggest deal in its history with Richard Moulds’ parent company Allied Minds to commercialize these products.
Earlier this month, it unveiled a quantum-based generator that creates random numbers — the same random numbers that fuel passwords and other current forms of digital security. (Full Story)
Red Fireworks Might Not Contain Carcinogens
Red fireworks over Moscow, from Smithsonian.
“Training areas get fallout [from flares] over and over again,” David E. Chavez, a chemist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, tells Everts. “It can be an issue for environmental clean-up.”
But making a less-toxic firework is one thing; getting manufacturers to change how they make their explosives is another. “It’s very challenging to go from something that works on the bench to something that works on a large-scale,” Chavez tells Everts. (Full Story)
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Methane rules could have big impact in New Mexico
The Four Corners methane hot spot, LANL image.
Northwestern New Mexico’s San Juan Basin, a major natural gas and coal production area, could be a chief target of a proposed federal regulation aimed at dramatically cutting methane gas emissions.
A team of scientists recently found a methane hot spot half the size of Connecticut in the Four Corners area, The hot spot “accounted for 10 percent of all oil- and gas-related methane emissions from the U.S.,” said Manvendra Dubey, one of the Los Alamos climate scientists involved in the study. (Full Story)
A surprisingly elegant formula for molecular aggregates
Molecular aggregate system, from Asian Scientist.
Joint research by the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) and the Los Alamos National Laboratory has discovered a way to predict the emerging structures and bulk properties of molecular aggregations. Their discovery has significant technological implications in manufacturing new functional materials.
In real life bulk systems, it is the degree of molecular aggregation that defines the resulting material’s eventual properties. The OIST researchers ran 2D simulations involving tens of thousands of particles. (Full Story)
DOE selects Los Alamos for carbon storage research
DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory has selected Los Alamos National Security, LLC to receive funding to research new CO2 storage technologies devoted to intelligent monitoring systems and advanced well integrity and mitigation approaches through DOE’s Carbon Storage Program.
Los Alamos National Security LLC (Los Alamos, NM) will research technology to identify, characterize, and monitor leakage pathways using acoustic probes that use 3-D scanning of barrier systems to identify fracture defects in wellbore cement. (Full Story)
Also from the Daily Post this week:
Young, Jupiter-like planet discovered
Jupiter-like planet, LANL image.
“The exploration of very young planetary systems that will evolve to look like our own has just begun,” said Didier Saumon of Los Alamos National Laboratory, whose role was theoretical modeling and data analysis for the project. “The Gemini Planet Imager is amazing new technology that has quickly discovered the first extrasolar analog of Jupiter, but much younger,” Saumon said. (Full Story)
Descartes Labs is now off and running
Steven Brumby.
The story of startup tech company Descartes Labs reads like something from the heyday of Silicon Valley. A group of Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists strike out on their own. They leap bureaucratic hurdles to acquire licensing for technology developed at the lab and manage to secure venture capital.
“The fact that a group of scientists from Los Alamos could start their own company and within seven months of opening have a first product to start to sell to industry is an unusual thing,” said co-founder and Chief Technical Officer Steven Brumby. (Full Story)
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