National Laboratory

U.S. Releases Updated Plutonium Inventory Report

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NNSA News:

Plutonium pellet. Courtesy photo

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced Friday the public release of a report that details the current plutonium inventory of the U.S.

Titled The United States Plutonium Balance, 1944-2009, the document serves as an update to Plutonium: the First 50 Years, which was first released by the Department of Energy (DOE) in 1996.

The report provides the U.S. inventory of plutonium owned by DOE and includes material in the possession of the Department of Defense (DoD).

It can be found online at https:////nnsa.energy.gov/plutoniuminventory. Read More

LANL Honors its Employee and Retiree Volunteers

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Virginia Stovall, volunteer with the Los Alamos Retired and Senior Organization, listens to Los Alamos National Laboratory Deputy Director Beth Sellers deliver the keynote speech at the annual LANL Volunteer Recognition Awards ceremony Thursday morning at Fuller Lodge. Photo by Salvador Zapien/ladailypost.com

LANL Deputy Director Beth Sellers commends the many Laboratory employees who perform community volunteer service. Photo by Salvador Zapien/ladailypost.com

More than 120 people attended the LANL Volunteer Recognition Awards ceremony held Thursday on the lawn at Fuller Read More

Los Alamos Site Office Takes Fire Prevention Measures

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NNSA News:

As a result of the region’s high fire potential, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Los Alamos Site Office (LASO) has imposed fire prevention restrictions on the government-leased Sportsmen’s Club property in Los Alamos to match those for the Forest Service, Park Service, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory property.

“We are very concerned about the severe drought and weather conditions that are affecting the southwest,” LASO Manager Kevin Smith said. “We just can’t afford to take a chance right now on causing a fire that could rapidly spread to other areas.”

In Read More

Officials Break Ground on Interagency Fire Center at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s TA-49

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Dignitaries broke ground Tuesday morning on an Interagency Fire Center at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Technical Area-49. The 6,400 square foot facility will serve as a joint coordination and response center for fire events around the area. From left, Ray Todd, associate regional director for Facilities and Lands for National Park Service Intermountain Region; Rebecca Montoya, field representative for Sen. Jeff Bingaman; Kevin Smith, manager of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Los Alamos Site Office; Sharon Stover, chair of the Los Alamos County Council; Read More

Celebration Marks 1,000th TRU Waste Shipment

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Employees of the Transuranic (TRU) Waste processing facility are joined by local and state officials to celebrate the 1,000th (1,014th) shipment of TRU waste to WIPP. Photo by Greg Kendall/ladailypost.com

By Greg Kendall

New Mexico’s governor and other dignitaries gathered at Los Alamos National Laboratory Tuesday for a special event marking the 1,000th shipment of nuclear waste to a permanent repository at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad.

“I am pleased we continue to make progress on our environmental cleanup commitment to protect this beautiful place where Read More

Drumheads Tuned to Make Quantum Dots

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NIST researchers showed that straining graphene membrane creates pseudomagnetic fields that confines the graphene’s electrons and creates quantized quantum dot-like energy levels. The background is a false color image of the graphene drumheads made from a single layer of graphene over 1 micron-sized pits etched in a silicon dioxide substrate.Credit: N. Klimov and T. Li, NIST/UMD

NIST News:

Tightening or relaxing the tension on a drumhead will change the way the drum sounds.

The same goes for drumheads made from graphene, only instead of changing the sound, stretching graphene Read More

Friendship: An Evolutionary Puzzle

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SFI News:

Dan Hruschka will present his talk: Friendship: An Evolutionary Puzzle at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday June 27 in the James A. Little Theater in Santa Fe.

Hruschka is a Santa Fe Institute Omidyar Fellow alumnus, is an assistant professor of anthropology at Arizona State University and author of Friendship: Development, Ecology, and Evolution of a Relationship

Abstract: Friends sacrifice for one another with little concern for past behavior or consequences.

Such unconditional helping provides an important buffer against hardship. But it also poses an evolutionary puzzle.

How have people Read More

LANS Donates to Over 230 Nonprofits

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LANL News:

LANL employees Randy Erickson, center, and Louise Mendius, at right, help fill sandbags at Santa Clara Pueblo. Courtesy/LANL

  • LANS Recognizes Employee and Retiree Volunteer Efforts

Nonprofit organizations will receive more than $180,000 from Los Alamos National Security, LLC (LANS) during a recognition event beginning at 9:30 a.m. Thursday, June 28, at Fuller Lodge in downtown Los Alamos.

LANS contributions are determined by the number of volunteer hours logged by Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) employees and retirees through an organization called VolunteerMatch. Read More

LANL Dissolves N-4 Today

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In a memo to staff members, Associate Director W. Scott Gibbs of Threat Identification and Response at Los Alamos National Laboratory announced late last week that N-4 (Safeguards and Security Systems Group) is being dissolved.

N Division recently became the Nuclear Engineering and Nonproliferation Division (NEN) to recognize and expand on two important capabilities for the Laboratory, Gibbs explained in the memo.

As the next step in furthering those capabilities, he decided that the International and Nuclear Systems Engineering Group (D-5) should join NEN to leverage that group’s Read More

The Crown Jewel of Manhattan Project Properties: The Oppenheimer House

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Exterior of Master Cottage #2, when May Connell lived there. Courtesy/LA Historical Society

 

By Heather McClenahan, Executive Director
Los Alamos Historical Society

When conducting school tours of the Los Alamos Historic District and the Oppenheimer House, I like to tell kids that A. J. Connell, director of the Los Alamos Ranch School, thought girls had cooties. Most third and fourth graders love that!

Even the hard-headed Connell had to give in a bit, though, realizing that if he intended to prepare his young male students for Ivy League schools, he would have to offer art education, Read More