75 years ago, 'Trinity' test ushered in nuclear age, changed the world

The only color image from the Trinity Test. LANL photo.

The world entered the nuclear age 75 years ago Thursday at a location in the central New Mexico desert where the U.S. government carried out the "Trinity" test. The test was conducted by the U.S. War Department and designed by the newly created Los Alamos National Laboratory as the closing salvo of the "Manhattan Project."

"I'm not sure if as many people care about it now as much as they did during World War II, but one of the many reasons why Trinity remains significant is that it was the birth of an entirely new era in human existence," said Alan Carr, the official historian at Los Alamos National Laboratory. (Full Story)

Nuclear tests have changed, but they never really stopped

The Trinity Test, a few microseconds after detonation, LANL photo.

Mark Chadwick, the chief scientist in the Los Alamos Weapons Physics Directorate, arrived at the national lab in 1990 fresh out of a physics doctoral program at Oxford. At the time, he says, there was a lot of debate among the Los Alamos scientists about the future of the lab, or whether it would have a future at all. “Some thought the labs would really end up struggling to find business and that the nuclear deterrence mission would sort of fade away,” Chadwick recalls. “Overall, the pessimism that the national security mission wouldn’t remain important proved wrong. And fairly quickly, in fact.”

The US conducted its last explosive nuclear test in September, 1992. Today, the nation’s nuclear weapons research is focused on reliability testing and maintenance of the roughly 4,000 active warheads in its arsenal, a program broadly referred to as “stockpile stewardship.”  (Full Story)

U.S. nuclear leader pays tribute to Trinity anniversary at LANL

Lisa E. Gordon-Hagerty at the historic V-Site, LANL photo.

The Trinity test that detonated the first atomic bomb 75 years ago led to great progress in science, national defense and even peacekeeping, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration said Thursday.

“I hope I can impart how it contributed to the betterment of humanity,” said Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, who leads the agency that oversees the nation’s nuclear programs. (Full Story)

NNSA Administrator visits LANL for commemoration of 75th anniversary of Trinity Test

Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, Administrator of the NNSA (center) walks with Nancy Jo Nicholas (left), Los Alamos’ Associate Laboratory director for Global Security. LANL photo.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA) recognized the 75th anniversary of the dawn of the atomic age, which began July 16, 1945, with the “Trinity” test, the world’s first nuclear detonation.

A commemoration of the historic implosion took place Thursday, July 16, at the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s historic V-Site near Los Alamos, New Mexico, where early testing and some assembly of the Trinity device took place. The V-Site is located in a secure area and is not open to the public. (Full Story)

Countdown to a new world (Part 1)

The Trinity "Gadget," LANL photo.

A savage thunderstorm, flinging lightning from cloud to cloud and dumping walls of rain, rolled like a bad omen across the northwestern corner of New Mexico’s Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range at 2 a.m. on July 16, 1945.

The Los Alamos scientific team included Niels Bohr, a Dane; the Italian immigrants Enrico Fermi and Emilio Segré; the Hungarian-born Edward Teller; Hungarian émigré John von Neumann; and German émigré Hans A. Bethe; as well as such American-born geniuses as Oppenheimer and Richard Feynman. (Full Story)

New Mexico and The Bomb (Part 2)

Little Boy, National Archives photo.

New Mexico was vital to the building of the bomb, but the bomb proved as essential to the building of New Mexico. “It had a huge impact on the state,” said Luis Campos, professor of the history of science at the University of New Mexico. 

Both Little Boy and Fat Man had been designed and built at Los Alamos, as had the Gadget, a plutonium bomb tested at Trinity Site, a portion of the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range, 30 miles southeast of Socorro. (Full Story)

The pandemic virus is slowly mutating. But is it getting more dangerous?

A one-base mutation in SARS-CoV-2’s genomewas rare in February but is found in almost every newly sequenced strain today.  From Cell.

The mutation at position 23,403 has drawn the most attention—in part because it changed the virus’ spike, the protein on its surface that attaches to human cells. The mutation changed the amino acid at position 614 of the spike from an aspartic acid (abbreviated D) to a glycine (G), which is why it’s called G614.

In a Cell paper this month, Bette Korber and colleagues at Los Alamos National Laboratory showed that G614 has become more common in almost every nation and region they looked at, whereas D614 is virtually gone (see graphic, below). That might be a sign that it’s outcompeted by G614, but it could also be a coincidence. (Full Story)

Why this coronavirus mutation is not cause for alarm

Transmission electron microscope image shows SARS-CoV-2, NIAID image.

The authors of the Cell study, led by biologist Bette Korber of Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, cut and pasted the coronavirus’s spike protein—either the mutant version, called G614, or the original—onto a completely unrelated germ called a lentivirus.

The resulting “pseudoviruses” are a safe and reproducible way to work with and compare different viral spikes, Korber explains.  In this artificial, lab-based scenario, the researchers found the mutated spike to be more infectious. Coupled with the fact that the G614 mutation had risen to dominance in a matter of months, it sounded like an already scary virus might be getting better at jumping from person to person. Media reports exploded. (Full Story)

Essential Science: Is SARS-CoV-2 becoming more infectious?

A Covid-19 patient in Panama, from Digital Journal.

The research comes from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and it shows that an identified change in the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus virus genome, which was earlier linked with increased viral transmission and the spread of COVID-19, has been shown to be more infectious in cell culture. The activity in cell culture, however, does not necessarily mean that the same elevated infectivity will occur in people.

Readers need not be too alarmed about the term ‘mutation’. All viruses mutate, especially RNA viruses (of the SARS-CoV-2 type). Mutations occur due to activities within the virus, such as replication enzymes.  (Full Story)

A new coronavirus mutation is taking over the world. Here's what that means

Coronavirus uses its spike protein (dark blue) to infiltrate host cells, from Live Science.

The mutation piqued interest because it seemed to take over even in areas were the D variation had initially held sway, said Bette Korber, the lead author of the new Cell paper and a computational biologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. She and her colleagues at Duke University and the La Jolla Institute of Immunology in California inserted the G mutation and D mutations into pseudoviruses, which are viruses engineered to display the surface proteins of other viruses. Pseudoviruses are useful, Korber told Live Science, because they can't spread disease and because they contain molecular tags that researchers can use to track their movement into cells. (Full Story)

Global COVID-19 cases now dominated by new, more infectious strain

Covid-19 illustration from SciTech Daily.

The D614G variant of Covid-19 quickly took over as the dominant strain soon after it first appeared, with geographic samples showing a significant shift in viral population from the original, to the new strain of the virus.

Researchers from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and Duke University in North Carolina, partnered with the University of Sheffield’s Covid-19 Genomics UK research group to analyse genome samples published on GISAID, an international resource for sharing genome sequences among researchers worldwide. (Full Story)

Mars rover equipped with instrument from LANL

Los Alamos National Lab scientists are part of the new Mars Rover mission.

The rover, which launches in late July, will do something its never done before. "That is to collect samples of soil but especially rock samples that will tell us about Mars past history and look for life in ways that we could never do before," said Roger Weins, supercam principal investigator on the Perserverance Rover.

One of the instruments on the rover is called "supercam," a project headed up by Wiens. It was hailed by NASA as a kind of Swiss army knife-type of instrument. Supercam can study the chemistry or rocks and soils around the rover anywhere from 25 feet away. It also studies the mineralogy of the rocks or gems or whatever it finds.   (Full Story)

Shock-dissipating fractal cubes could forge high-tech armor

Fractal structures of increasing complexity dissipate energy from shockwaves, LANL image.

Tiny, 3D printed cubes of plastic, with intricate fractal voids built into them, have proven to be effective at dissipating shockwaves, potentially leading to new types of lightweight armor and structural materials effective against explosions and impacts.

"The goal of the work is to manipulate the wave interactions resulting from a shockwave," said Dana Dattelbaum, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and lead author on a paper to appear in the journal AIP Advances.  (Full Story)

Less impact from wildfire smoke on climate

New research revealed that tiny, sunlight-absorbing particles in wildfire smoke may have less impact on climate than widely hypothesized because reactions as the plume mixes with clean air reduce its absorbing power and climate-warming effect.

"These observations may be useful for those trying to represent organic light absorbing aerosols, or brown carbon, in climate models by identifying how they age, as well as understanding processes affecting how strongly they absorb light and cause warming," said James Lee, lead author on a paper released in JGR: Atmospheres this week and a Los Alamos postdoctoral researcher. (Full Story)

Also from AP

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Opinion: Herd immunity may be closer than you think

Blood sample for a Covid-19 antibody test, from the WSJ.

So why didn’t a Covid-19 outbreak occur outside Wuhan for months without social distancing and lockdowns? New studies suggest mutations might have made it more virulent. A Los Alamos National Laboratory study found that a single-letter mutation in the 614 gene, which appears to have emerged in Europe before March, altered the shape of the spike on the virus, enabling it to attach to cells more easily.

Genetic sequencing of virus samples shows that the G614 strain, which swept through Europe and New York in March, seeded most U.S. infections. The D614 strain, which doesn’t have this mutation, showed up on the West Coast earlier in the winter. The G614 variant overtook the D614 strain in most places even though it arrived later—suggesting it may be more infectious. (Full Story)

Scientists are learning more about the virus that causes COVID-19 by sequencing its genomes

Genome analytics tracks new US cases by each county daily. LANL image.

Tracking changes helps ensure diagnostic testing keeps pace. That’s one of the objectives for a new website launched by Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Bioscience Division. The COVID-19 Genome Analytics site (covid19.edgebioinformatics.org) screens current COVID-19 assays (basically tests that determine the accuracy of the tests) against the sequences to determine the most reliable ones for diagnosing the disease itself as the virus’ genetics shift.

The diagnostic angle "is extremely important," LANL scientist Patrick Chain says. "The virus mutates over time; it's not very fast, but some of those mutations are what allows researchers to track its progress and advancement along a geographic map. We were evaluating the mutations to see whether or not they effect the particular regions of the virus that are being targeted" by the testing re-agents used in the diagnostic tests. (Full Story)

Coronavirus crisis: New variant more contagious than the original

Scanning Electron Micrograph of the Covid-19 virus, from NIH.

A mutation of Sars-CoV-2 has reportedly established itself worldwide and can infect human cells more easily than the original virus. Published in the journal Cell, the study found the mutation with the code D614G could be more contagious. This mutated strand was found to be more common among virus samples from Europe and North America.

Scientists from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, Duke University in California and the University of Sheffield teamed up to analyse genome sequences. They found the mutated variant forms more functioning spike proteins meaning it infects more cells. (Full Story)

Fractal void cubes could make for better shock-dissipating armor

Simulated images show how the cubes with more intricate fractal void patterns dissipate shock waves more effectively, LANL image.

The microscopic structure of a material plays a huge role in how well it absorbs impacts, and now researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory have hit upon a structure that works particularly well. The team 3D-printed cubes with fractal voids inside them, which could be a useful structure for new materials in helmets, armor and other protective items.

Materials that need to be shock-resistant are usually structured with gaps to help dissipate the shock waves. But the exact shape of these structures is still being experimented with, as researchers test “nanofoam”, herringbone, honeycomb, and microlattice patterns, among many others. (Full Story)

Graphene could enable better electron sources

Layer of graphene allows photocathode substrates to be cleaned and reused, LANL image.

Photocathodes that produce electron beams for electron microscopes and advanced accelerators can be refreshed and rebuilt repeatedly without opening the devices that rely on them, provided the electron emitting materials are deposited on graphene.

“The machines that rely on these electron emitters typically operate under high vacuum,” said Los Alamos National Laboratory physicist Hisato Yamaguchi. “By choosing graphene over materials like silicon or molybdenum, which tend to degrade during use, we can clean the substrate and redeposit electron-emitting materials without opening the vacuum. This can dramatically reduce downtime and labor involved in replacing photocathodes.” (Full Story)

Study finds less impact from wildfire smoke on climate

Research reveals that wildfire smoke plumes contribute less to warming temperatures than previously thought. Photo from the LA Reporter.

New research revealed that tiny, sunlight-absorbing particles in wildfire smoke may have less impact on climate than widely hypothesized because reactions as the plume mixes with clean air reduce its absorbing power and climate-warming effect. In a unique megafire study, a Los Alamos National Laboratory-led research team studied the properties of smoke from Arizona’s massive Woodbury Fire last summer using a powerful set of observing techniques.

“These observations may be useful for those trying to represent organic light absorbing aerosols, or brown carbon, in climate models by identifying how they age, as well as understanding processes affecting how strongly they absorb light and cause warming,” said James Lee, lead author on a paper released in JGR: Atmospheres this week and a Los Alamos postdoctoral researcher. (Full Story)

Also from the Reporter this week:

Matthew Hoffman wins DOE Early Career Research Award

Matthew Hoffman, LANL photo.

Matthew Hoffman of the Los Alamos National Laboratory Fluid Dynamics and Solid Mechanics group has received a highly valued Early Career Research Program funding award from the US Department of Energy’s Office of Science. This is the 11th year DOE has provided the awards, designed to bolster the nation’s scientific workforce with support to exceptional researchers during their early careers.

“We are committed to supporting our early-career scientists at the Laboratory. Their contributions are essential to continuing our proud tradition of excellence.” said Director Thom Mason. “Matthew’s award reflects the important science our young researchers are doing for both the Laboratory, its mission, and the nation.” (Full Story)

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Did a mutation help the coronavirus spread? More evidence, but lingering questions

A scanning electron micrograph of a cell infected with the coronavirus, NIAID image.

For months, scientists have debated whether a variant of the coronavirus that has come to predominate in much of the world did so partly because it is more transmissible than other viruses.

The new report, posted by the journal Cell and led by investigators at Los Alamos National Laboratory, suggested that the variant did have such an advantage. Other researchers said the findings were not yet definitive.

The new paper, led by Bette Korber, a theoretical biologist, presents evidence in the form of lab findings, tests of infected patients and a broad statistical analysis of the pandemic as the D614G variant repeatedly took over in cities, regions and countries.  (Full Story)

New form of coronavirus spreads faster, but doesn't make people sicker

A global study has found clear evidence that a new form of the coronavirus has spread from Europe to the US. The new mutation makes the virus more infectious but does not seem to make people any sicker, an international team of researchers reported Thursday.

“Our global tracking data show that the G614 variant in Spike has spread faster than D614,” theoretical biologist Bette Korber of Los Alamos National Laboratory and colleagues wrote in their report. “We interpret this to mean that the virus is likely to be more infectious,” they add. “Interestingly, we did not find evidence of G614 impact on disease severity.” (Full Story)

This coronavirus mutation has taken over the world. Scientists are trying to understand why

Health-care workers administer coronavirus testing in Tampa. From WaPo.

At least four laboratory experiments suggest that the mutation makes the virus more infectious, although none of that work has been peer-reviewed. Another unpublished study led by scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory asserts that patients with the G variant actually have more virus in their bodies, making them more likely to spread it to others.

So far, the biggest study of transmission has come from Bette Korber, a computational biologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory who built one of the world’s biggest viral genome databases for tracking HIV.  (Full Story)

The coronavirus has changed since it left Wuhan. Is it more infectious?

3-D model of the novel coronavirus shows the spike proteins in red. From the LA Times.

A version of the coronavirus first seen in Italy four months ago has overtaken the original strain from Wuhan and is now dominant around the world, scientists reported Thursday.

The study authors, led by Bette Korber, a computational biologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, posted a preliminary version of the work in May that generated substantial controversy by claiming the mutation in the spike protein made the virus more contagious. Korber and her team also warned that the mutation could undermine efforts to develop desperately needed vaccines and treatments for COVID-19. (Full Story)

World's dominant strain of coronavirus is 10 times more infectious

The newer strain G614 (blue) appeared later in the pandemic but, since then, has dominated, LANL image.

A study done by scientists at the University of Sheffield and Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, found that D614 appeared to have been the virus's original state in humans, and the one found in Wuhan. It made up the vast majority of all Covid-19 infections in China, and Asia as a whole, and also seemed to be the first version of the virus to appear in the countries they studied.

However, the mutated version - G614 - started to appear soon after in Europe and North America in particular, before going on to take over as the dominant virus.  'A clear and consistent pattern was observed in almost every place where adequate sampling was available,' the researchers said. (Full Story)

Also from Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News

Building better electron sources with graphene

Graphene allows photocathode substrates to be cleaned and reused, LANL image.

Photocathodes that produce electron beams for electron microscopes and advanced accelerators can be refreshed and rebuilt repeatedly without opening the devices that rely on them, provided the electron emitting materials are deposited on single-atom-thick layers of carbon known as graphene, according to a new study published in the journal Applied Physics Letters.

“The machines that rely on these electron emitters typically operate under high vacuum,” said Los Alamos National Laboratory physicist Hisato Yamaguchi. “By choosing graphene over materials like silicon or molybdenum, which tend to degrade during use, we can clean the substrate and redeposit electron-emitting materials without opening the vacuum.  (Full Story)

Quantum dot solar cells get greener

SEM image of electrodes infiltrated with quantum dots, LANL image.

Semiconducting nanocrystals called colloidal quantum dots (CQDs) are ideal for applications such as large-panel displays and photovoltaic cells thanks to their high efficiency and colour purity. Their main drawback is their toxicity, since they have traditionally been made from cadmium or other heavy metals, such as lead. 

Researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the US have now engineered cadmium-free QD solar cells that reach efficiencies on par with those of their environmentally-unfriendly counterparts. The key to the new devices’ high performance is their tolerance to defects, they say. (Full Story)

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