Los Alamos scientist trying to determine source of methane hot spot

Manvendra Dubey, a climate change scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, said, “Methane is about 25 times more potent a greenhouse gas on a 100-year horizon than CO2.”

Kathleen McCleery: Los Alamos atmospheric scientist Manvendra Dubey was measuring carbon dioxide, not methane, last year when NASA released satellite images, including this one showing a 2,500-square-mile hot spot centered over the Four Corners area, where New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Arizona meet.

Manvendra Dubey: They showed that, over Four Corners, methane was enhanced. It was the — kind of the hottest methane spot in the whole of continental U.S. (Full Story)

Hunting for meteorites in Antarctica

Lanza training in Iceland.  

Nina Lanza, of Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Space and Remote Sensing group, was selected as one of eight members for the 2015-2016 field campaign of the Antarctica Search for Meteorites (ANSMET) program, which is supported by NASA.

"These meteorites can help us understand the formation and evolution of our solar system," said Lanza. "They come from planets, their moons and asteroids. Few of these solar system bodies will be visited by NASA in our lifetimes and this is a superb opportunity to collect material from across the solar system without having to leave the Earth." (Full Story)

Also in Albuquerque Business First

New study reports principle for tailored thermal expansion of alloys

A new study by researchers in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University and Los Alamos National Laboratory has led to a new principle to control macroscopic thermal expansion response of bulk materials, including obtaining zero thermal expansion metals.

Currently, researchers rely on manipulation of either the materials' composition and/or complex fabrication of composites to reduce thermal expansion to obtain tailored thermal expansion. (Full Story)

Researchers uncover new origins of radiation-tolerant materials

Scientists study how materials fall apart under irradiation, LANL graphic.

A new report from Los Alamos National Laboratory in Nature Communications provides new insight into what, exactly, makes some complex materials radiation tolerant.

The goal of such projects is to understand at a fundamental level just how materials respond to being irradiated, and how that response depends on fundamental properties of the material, such as its crystal structure and crystal chemistry. (Full Story)

MicroBooNE sees first accelerator-born neutrinos

The MicroBooNE chamber, FermiLab image.

MicroBooNE, a neutrino detector saw its first neutrinos, known as the ghost particles, Oct. 15 in a multi-laboratory experiment at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, near Chicago.

“This is a great day for MicroBooNE, and it brings us closer to addressing the question of sterile neutrinos and short-baseline neutrino oscillations,” said Los Alamos National Laboratory staff member Richard Van de Water, a longtime member of the team. (Full Story)

Northern NM businesses selected for awards

The Regional Development Corp. of Española is adding to its growing list of businesses it considers likely to add jobs and dynamism to the region’s economy by 2020.

RDC’s partners in this effort include Los Alamos National Security, the company that operates Los Alamos National Laboratory, and other organizations that provide low-cost business services in the Northern New Mexico. (Full Story)


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Targeted therapy for gastric cancer possible

New research shows that stomach cancer
can be treated with platinum drugs and/or

molecular inhibitors. LANL image.

Gastric cancer, otherwise known as stomach cancer, does not respond well to existing treatments and it is currently the third leading cause of cancer death in the world (after lung and liver cancer). Researchers have discovered that certain drugs, currently used to treat breast, ovarian and pancreatic cancers, could also be used to treat certain gastric cancers with a particular pattern of mutations (genomic molecular fingerprint).

(Full story)

What do you get when two neutron stars merge?

Illustration of a binary neutron star system

in the process of merging, NASA image.

Led by Chris Fryer of the University of Arizona and the Los Alamos National Laboratory, a group of researchers undertook a highly collaborative study to better understand the fates of neutron star mergers.

The merger of two neutron stars (a NS–NS merger) is suspected to be the most likely source of short-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) — powerful explosions that can be seen from billions of light-years away. But whether a GRB is launched is dependent on what remnant is created by the merging NSs. Do they form another NS? Or a black hole (BH)?

(Full story)

Tiny magnets could work in sensors, information encoding

Researchers have created a nanoscale, artificial

magnet, LANL image.

Scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory and collaborators have realized a nanoscale, artificial magnet by arranging an array of magnetic nano-islands along a geometry that is not found in natural magnets.

"Each nano-island is similar to a refrigerator magnet, with a north and a south pole at its tips," said Los Alamos physicist Cristiano Nisoli. "Unlike a refrigerator magnet, however, it can change its magnetization by flipping north and south, through use of either applied fields or thermal fluctuations.

(Full story)

UNM, LANL researchers team up to beef up fuel cell performance

An artist’s rendering of a nanogold cluster. ACS image.

Better batteries and more efficient fuel cells are two holy grails of energy development.  Fuel cells convert hydrogen or biogas into electricity while emitting only heat and water, making them the darlings of a new energy economy that seeks to reduce pollutants from petroleum-fed cars.

Scientists from The University of New Mexico and Los Alamos National Laboratory have combined their research expertise to create a micro sandwich of gold, DNA and carbon tubes that they think could eventually beef up fuel cell performance.

(Full story)

 

LANL team receives NNSA awards for exceptional work

Lt. Gen. Frank Klotz (ret.), center, presents team leader Ward Hawkins, second from left, with the NNSA Silver Award for Distinguished Service, and team members Richard Kelley, far left, and Aviva Sussman, second from right, with the NNSA Bronze Award for Excellent Service. Liz Miller, far right, is a member of the IFE14 team.

National Nuclear Security Administrator Lt. Gen. (retired) Frank G. Klotz presented five Los Alamos National Laboratory members awards for their exceptional work in a large-scale, on-site field exercise held in Jordan to evaluate progress in the development of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.

(Full story)

How do you find plutonium? Go to nuclear inspector school

TA-66, LANL photo.

IAEA Inspectors must learn everything about plutonium — the civilian kind, which is used in some power reactors, and also the kind used in nuclear weapons. Los Alamos has plenty of both.   Behind barbed wire and security checkpoints, the eight inspectors are working in an anonymous-looking building known as "Technical Area 66."

Peter Santi, who is heading the training for Los Alamos, takes me across the classroom to pick up some pure plutonium oxide. It’s sealed in a metal container about the size of a paint can. (Full Story)

Big quakes can trigger other shakes thousands of miles sway

Geologic fault system in Utah. From Smithsonian.

On April 11, 2012, an 8.6 magnitude earthquake in the Indian Ocean shook the Sumatran coast. Only a day later—3,900 miles (6,230 km) away—seismologists detected a set of smaller temblors rattling the eastern coast of Japan.

But this was no aftershock, those smaller rumblings that usually occur in the aftermath of an intense seismic event. Yet the two quakes may still have been related, according to a team of researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory.

"In any kind of fault, you have everything from fractured rock to granular material," says Andrew A. Delorey, a geophysicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory who led the recent study. (Full Story)

Researchers find cascading elastic perturbation likely contributed to small earthquakes in Japan

Seismicity in Japan detected with inter-station seismic coherence. By Andrew Delorey.

A team of researchers with members from Los Alamos National Laboratory, MIT and the University of Tokyo, has found evidence that suggests elastic disturbance caused by one earthquake may be one of the causes of another earthquake occurring in a far distant location.

In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the team describes their study of seismic activity in Japan following an earthquake that occurred in the Indian Ocean, just days before. (Full Story)

Also in R&D Magazine

Rings of fire: New explosives provide enhanced safety, high energy

Explosives chemist David Chavez, LANL Photo.

Los Alamos National Laboratory explosives chemist David Chavez has synthesized a pair of novel molecules, one possessing a unique fused three-ring structure. These materials could usher in a new class of explosives that provide high-energy output with enhanced safety.

"There is a general trend that the higher the performance of an energetic material, the more sensitive the material is to insults such as impact, spark and friction," Chavez said. (Full Story)

Also in the Los Alamos Daily Post

Lab directors speak at 20-year stockpile stewardship anniversary event

Oct. 20, LANL Director Charlie McMillan, along with the directors of LLNL and Sandia, spoke at an event marking the 20th anniversary of the nation’s stockpile stewardship program. Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz also gave remarks.

With funding from ASCI, the computer industry has already installed three computer systems, one at Sandia National Laboratories (built by Intel), one at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) (an SGI-Cray computer), and another at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) (an IBM computer), that can sustain more than 1 teraflops on real applications. (Full Story)

Penguin Computing to build 7-9 petaflops of open compute clusters for NNSA

Penguin Tundra server sled, from Inside HPC

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has announced a contract with Penguin Computing for a set of large-scale Open Compute HPC clusters. With 7-to-9 Petaflops of aggregate peak performance, the systems will be installed as part of NNSA’s tri-laboratory Commodity Technology Systems program. Scheduled for installation starting next year, the systems will bolster computing for national security at Los Alamos, Sandia and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories. (Full Story)

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Science on the Hill: Jumpstarting the carbon capture industry

Amount and type of CO2 emissions vary across the
United States. LANL graphic.

Carbon capture, utilization, and storage can provide a crucial bridge between our current global energy economy and a cleaner, more diversified energy future. Researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory, Ohio State University and the National Energy Technology Laboratory have demonstrated that this approach is technically feasible and poised for full-scale roll-out.

Carbon capture involves diverting and compressing byproduct carbon dioxide gas (CO2) at the flue of coal-fired power plants and other emitters and subsequently transporting it in dedicated pipelines for injection into deep geologic reservoirs.

Full story

Los Alamos lab releases new HIV-1 vaccine design insights

Scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory recently developed a computational model to transform how researchers evaluate possibilities for vaccines for HIV-1.

The new mathematical model examines the way that broadly neutralizing antibodies coevolve alongside HIV. The scientists stimulated several viral strains as well as antibody populations into co-evolution to demonstrate how the antibodies develop late after the infection is settled in the body. The late development is because of competition with the highly specific antibody response against the dominant viral species.

Full story

 

NM labs crucial in tech transfer

Jetta Wong, Sen. Martin Heinrich, and Sen.Tom Udall,




listen to Sen. Barbara Mikulski, during a roundtable
 discussion. Journal photo.

The U.S. Department of Energy is markedly stepping up efforts to promote commercialization of new technologies from DOE laboratories nationwide, and New Mexico’s labs are playing a critical role in the process.

Jetta Wong, acting director of the DOE’s new Office of Technology Transitions, was in New Mexico on Wednesday with three senators — Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., and New Mexico Democrats Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich — to participate in meetings and tours at Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories.

Full story

Funding for Native American ventures gains traction — fourth round is launched

Native American businesses and entrepreneurs around New Mexico stand to benefit from the latest round of funding from the Native American Venture Acceleration Fund (NAVAF) — a fund overseen by Los Alamos National Laboratory’s parent company, Los Alamos National Security LLC.

According to Kathy Keith, director of community programs at LANL, applications for the fourth round of funding are being accepted through Nov. 13 and awards will be made in late December and early January 2016.

Full story

'The Martian' might be the most realistic space movie ever made

Drew Goddard, who wrote the screenplay for "The Martian," grew up in Los Alamos, New Mexico — a town that was literally built around Los Alamos National Laboratory and is populated "entirely [by] rocket scientists," according to Goddard. At a panel discussion following a screening of the movie in New York, Goddard spoke about how the book captured the reality of the scientific culture that he recognized from his upbringing.

Full story

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