New SARS-CoV-2 variants have changed the pandemic. What will the virus do next?

 

GISAID graphic.

 

Bette Korber at Los Alamos National Laboratory and her colleagues first suggested that D614G, the early mutation, was taking over because it made the virus better at spreading. She says skepticism about the virus’ ability to evolve was common in the early days of the pandemic, with some researchers saying D614G’s apparent advantage might be sheer luck. “There was extraordinary resistance in the scientific community to the idea this virus could evolve as the pandemic grew in seriousness in spring of 2020,” Korber says. (Full Story’)

 

For a healthier world, start with biodiversity

 

Loss of biodiversity can have far-reaching consequences. Biodiversity—the measure of variability of life in a habitat or ecosystem—impacts livelihoods, food security and productivity in a variety of economic sectors, including tourism and agriculture. 

 

These are the kinds of problems that the Ecological Health Security Lab at Los Alamos National Laboratory works to address, where we approach this problem in line with the One Health Concept. One Health is a collaborative, multidisciplinary approach—working at the local, regional, national, and global levels—with the goal of achieving optimal health outcomes by recognizing the interconnection between people, animals, plants, and their shared environment. (Full Story)

 

Los Alamos National Lab introduces new robotic team member

 

Los Alamos National Lab is welcoming a new robotic member to its emergency hazmat team. With mechanical arms that can reach out and grab hazardous materials ranging from chemical, energetic, radiological, toxic or biological – it can do it all. "There's no other robot on the market that can do what this robot can do," said Charles Gibson, a LANL hazmat specialist. 

 

"The challenge comes from depth perception. You're looking through a camera, and you're approaching something, so sometimes robot operators will go in for the grab so to speak, and they'll just be short.  Completely miss it and open back up," said Dan McDonald, a LANL hazmat specialist. (Full Story)

  

Progress in algorithms makes small, noisy quantum computers viable

 

Los Alamos National Laboratory and other leading institutions have developed hybrid classical/quantum algorithms to extract the most performance -- and potentially quantum advantage -- from today's noisy, error-prone hardware. 

 

"Quantum computers have the promise to outperform classical computers for certain tasks, but on currently available quantum hardware they can't run long algorithms. They have too much noise as they interact with environment, which corrupts the information being processed," said Marco Cerezo, a physicist specializing in quantum computing, quantum machine learning, and quantum information at Los Alamos and a lead author of the paper. (Full Story)

 

Also from AZO Quantum

 

National Ignition Facility heralds ‘significant step’ towards fusion break-even target

 

Thomas Mason, director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, says that the work is the culmination of decades of scientific and technological work stretching across nearly 50 years. “This [result] enables experiments that will check theory and simulation in the high energy density regime more rigorously than ever possible before and will enable fundamental achievements in applied science and engineering,” adds Mason. (Full Story)

 

Effect of 'eddy killing' in oceans is no longer a matter of guesswork

 

Eddies are circular currents of water, shown here as green and light blue swirling patterns, NASA image.

 

In a paper in Science Advances, researchers from the University of Rochester and Los Alamos National Laboratory document for the first time how the wind, which propels larger currents, has the opposite effect on eddies less than 260 kilometers in size—resulting in a phenomenon called "eddy killing."

 

The team—which also includes Shikhar Rai, a Ph.D. student in Aluie's Turbulence and Complex Flow Group, and Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists Matthew Hecht and Matthew Maltrud—applied a coarse-graining approach to satellite imagery. Doing so allowed them to separate the complex, multiscale structures of ocean currents and eddies embedded within each other. (Full Story)

 

Northern New Mexico math teachers in Los Alamos, Abiquiu, Cuba and Pojoaque earn new specialty degree

 

Leaders from the Laboratory and New Mexico Highlands University recognized six graduates of Master’s Degrees, LANL photo.

 

This week, six Northern New Mexico teachers are returning to their classrooms and raising the bar for K–8 math teaching at public schools in Los Alamos, Abiquiu, Cuba and Pojoaque. Richard Armentrout, Travis Gibson, April Grant–Torrez, Brett Hawkins, Daniela Romero and Beth Ziomek comprise the first-ever cohort to graduate with the new Master’s Degree in Educational Leadership with an Emphasis in K-8 Mathematics Teacher Leadership from New Mexico Highlands University.

 

The degree is a collaboration between the teachers, the University, and the Math & Science Academy at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), a professional-development program supporting the teaching of math and science in the region. (Full Story)

 

Also from the Daily Post this week

 

On the job in Los Alamos: Workers on Omega Bridge

 

One of the last handrails is lowered into place as part of the Omega Bridge Project. LANL photo.

 

Work continues on the west side of the Omega Bridge. Crews are painting the handrails and preparing to add a fence to increase pedestrian safety. They will then be installing gutters to capture rainwater to increase the safety of the bridge. The work is being performed by the Logisticts group, a LANL internet workforce. 

 

The estimated duration for work to be completed on the west side of the bridge is three weeks, and the overall project is scheduled to take 6-8 weeks, weather and schedule dependent. (Full Story)

 

 

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Smoky skies raise health concerns

National smoke map for July 19, 2021, NOAA image.

 

Los Alamos National Laboratory atmospheric scientist Manvendra Dubey scans his computer screen, eyeing a map of wildfire smoke plumes swirling across the U.S. The thick smoke has blanketed northern and central New Mexico for the past several days, making air quality unhealthy and obscuring mountain ranges and city skylines.

 

Dubey studies wildfire smoke chemicals and how the pollution moves. “Urban smog is bad enough, but fire smoke is even more complex,” Dubey said. LANL scientists are part of the emerging field of testing wildfire smoke particles to determine the size and distribution of specific chemicals. (Full Story)

 

 

 

Coating could be the answer for silicon anodes

 

Silicon nanowires grown on a stainless steel disk, LANL image.

 

In silicon-wire lithium-ion batteries, the electrolyte can carve away the silicon, blocking electron pathways and greatly diminishing the charging capacity of these promising devices. Now, in a paper in Nature Nanotechnology, researchers report how their detailed investigations of this process could open up fresh research avenues for finally harnessing the great potential of silicon for revolutionizing high-capacity, long-lasting batteries for everything from cell phones to automobiles.

 

“With this new understanding, we propose to improve silicon nanowire lithium-ion battery performance by developing a coating approach that isolates the silicon from the electrolyte,” said Jinkyoung Yoo, a Los Alamos National Laboratory staff scientist and a corresponding author of the paper. (Full Story)

 

 

 

 

Translation software enables efficient storage of massive amounts of data in DNA molecules

 

DNA illustration from SciTech Daily.

 

In support of a major collaborative project to store massive amounts of data in DNA molecules, a Los Alamos National Laboratory–led team has developed a key enabling technology that translates digital binary files into the four-letter genetic alphabet needed for molecular storage.

 

“Our software, the Adaptive DNA Storage Codec (ADS Codex), translates data files from what a computer understands into what biology understands,” said Latchesar Ionkov, a computer scientist at Los Alamos and principal investigator on the project. “It’s like translating from English to Chinese, only harder.” (Full Story)

 

 

Study assesses advances and commercialization of colloidal quantum dots

 

Quantum dots can be tuned to emit light in specific wavelengths, LANL photo.

 

A new study published in Science magazine offers an outline of nearly 30 years of research performed on colloidal quantum dots. Several advances explained in the Science article were started at Los Alamos, including the first illustration of colloidal quantum dot lasing.

 

"Thirty years ago, these structures were just a subject of scientific curiosity studied by a small group of enthusiasts. Over the years, quantum dots have become industrial-grade materials exploited in a range of traditional and emerging technologies, some of which have already found their way into commercial markets." Said Victor I. Klimov, Study Co-Author and Leader, Los Alamos National Laboratory. (Full Story)

 

 

 

LANL employees’ generosity provides more than 700 backpacks

 

As the new school year begins, Los Alamos National Laboratory employees have been making sure children in Northern New Mexico can return to their classrooms with everything they need to succeed by providing more than 700 backpacks with school supplies to schools and regional partners.

 

The Lab’s Community Partnerships Office (CPO) distributed 95 backpacks funded by employees to the City of Espanola’s Project RACE school supply drive. With some larger school districts already covered by other drives, CPO also used employee donations to purchase 650 backpacks with supplies from a local small business, and distributed them to five rural school districts in Northern New Mexico that expressed a need. (Full Story)

 

What’s shaking?

When the earth shakes anywhere in the world, scientists are keenly interested in what happened. Was it an earthquake? A chemical explosion? A collapsing mine? Or, was it a nuclear explosion?

 

At Los Alamos National Laboratory, we’re especially interested in the answer to the last question. Making sure the world is safe from nuclear proliferation means we need to monitor the globe for nefarious activity.

 

As you can imagine, a bad actor who wants to hide a nuclear test isn’t going to volunteer a lot of information regarding its whereabouts. That’s where nuclear explosion signatures come in. (Full Story)

 

Decades of research bring quantum dots to brink of widespread use

 

The tiny specs of matter called quantum dots can be tuned to emit light, LANL photo.

 

A new article in Science magazine gives an overview of almost three decades of research into colloidal quantum dots, assesses the technological progress for these nanometer-sized specs of semiconductor matter, and weighs the remaining challenges on the path to widespread commercialization for this promising technology with applications in everything from TVs to highly efficient sunlight collectors.

 

"Thirty years ago, these structures were just a subject of scientific curiosity studied by a small group of enthusiasts. Over the years, quantum dots have become industrial-grade materials exploited in a range of traditional and emerging technologies, some of which have already found their way into commercial markets," said Victor I. Klimov, a coauthor of the paper and leader of the team conducting quantum dot research at Los Alamos National Laboratory. (Full Story)

 

Also from Science Daily

 

What does the edge of the solar system look like?

 

Outer heliosphere graphic from NASA.

 

Earth is the sixth planet from the edge of the solar system, meaning we're none too near this cold and inhospitable frontier. But we've sent out various spacecraft over the years, so do we have any idea what the edge of the solar system looks like?

 

The answer is yes, but it's a work in progress. One of the latest developments, a 3D map of the solar system's edge that took 13 years to create, revealed a few more secrets about this mysterious boundary, called the outer heliosphere.

 

The outer heliosphere marks the region of space where the solar wind, or the stream of charged particles emitted from the sun, is "deflected and draped back" by the interstellar radiation that permeates the empty space beyond the solar system, said Dan Reisenfeld, a space science researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and head of the team that conducted the research on the 3D map. (Full Story)

 

Neutrons cluster in nuclear reactors

 

Neutron clustering measurements at the Walthousen Reactor Critical Facility at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, RPI photo.

 

Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory developed a neutron detector capable of making such observations. This detector, known as Nomad, has an excellent time resolution and can therefore measure how neutrons are spatially distributed within a small reactor at a given time.

 

In the latest work at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Reactor Critical Facility, data from the Nomad system showed that when reactor fuel undergoes fission, the results are far from uniform. While some fission events go on to produce long “lineages” of neutrons, others quickly die off. This lack of uniformity means that energy is produced asymmetrically within the reactor, the researchers explain. (Full Story)

 

Quantum metasurfaces manipulate free photons

 

A metasurface with all-optical modulation of the refractive index, LANL graphic.

 

A team at Los Alamos National Laboratory proposes that modulated quantum metasurfaces can control all properties of photonic qubits. According to the team, such a breakthrough would affect the fields of quantum information, communications, sensing, imaging, and energy and momentum harvesting. 

 

“People have studied classical metasurfaces for a long time,” said Diego Dalvit of the Physics of Condensed Matter and Complex Systems group in the laboratory’s Theoretical Division. “But we came up with this new idea, which was to modulate in time and space the optical properties of a quantum metasurface that allow us to manipulate, on demand, all degrees of freedom of a single photon.” (Full Story)

 

David Chavez selected Fellow of the American Chemical Society 

 

David Chavez, LANL photo.

 

David Chavez, deputy group leader of the High Explosives Science and Technology group at Los Alamos National Laboratory, has been selected as a member of the 2021 class of Fellows of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

 

Chavez is recognized by the ACS for distinguished contributions to the field of energetic materials chemistry, particularly the development of highly energetic, fundamentally novel, and environmentally friendly materials important to national security. (Full Story)

 

Also from Chemical & Engineering Newsand the Los Alamos Reporter

 

Travis Sjostrom selected for prestigious John Dawson Award from American Physical Society

 

Travis Sjostrom, LANL photo.

 

Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist Travis Sjostrom has been selected for a 2021 John Dawson Award for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research from the American Physical Society (APS). Sjostrom is one of seven scientists to receive the national award this year.

 

“It is such an honor for me,” Sjostrom said. “It is rewarding to see this field of theoretical research in warm dense matter, which has had many contributors in recent years and is an active research area, recognized by the award.” (Full Story)

 

Los Alamos National Laboratory welcomes NGD Systems to Efficient Mission Centric Computing Consortium

 

As the HPC community enters an era in which computation can be offloaded to storage devices, it is important to explore the mechanisms for using and programming these processing offloads. To this end, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and NGD Systems are partnering through Los Alamos’ Efficient Mission Centric Computing Consortium (EMC3) to explore scalable computational storage offloads for ultrascale High Performance Computing (HPC) simulation environments.

 

“Computational storage devices become a key source of acceleration when we are able to directly interpret the data within the storage device,” said Brad Settlemyer, senior scientist in Los Alamos’ HPC Design Group. (Full Story)

 

 

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