Bandelier Superintendent Jason Lott addresses members of the Energy Community Alliance this morning in Richland, Wash. He cautioned that the park service is in the business of telling stories, and it may tell stories that some in the community don’t want told. That could include Nagasaki and the environmental contamination left by plutonium production, Lott said, adding that the park service also can discredit the bad information that circulates. The Manhattan Project sites will have to be clear with visitors about what they will experience in facilities such as B Reactor before Read More
National Laboratory
LANL Grounds Crew Begins Fire Prevention Efforts
Los Alamos National Laboratory Grounds and Roads crews work along the truck route this week thinning tree branches and shubbery ahead of this year’s fire season. Photo by Carol A. Clark/ladailypost.com
Photo by Carol A. Clark/ladailypost.com
Photo by Carol A. Clark/ladailypost.com
Tree and shrubbery branches line the terrain on either side of the truck route as workers thin out area ahead of this year’s fire season. Photo by Carol A. Clark/ladailypost.com Read More
Energy Community Alliance Members Tour B Reactor
The local contingent of community, business and civic leaders visiting Richland, Wash., this week as part of the Energy Alliance Committee conferance discussing the possible inclusion of Los Alamos, Oak Ridge and Hanford as a unit in the national park system had an opportunity to tour the B Reactor at Hanford today. Photo by Kevin Holsapple
The B Reactor is one of the most historic buildings at Hanford. It was given the code name, “105-B” during World War II. The B Reactor was the world’s first, full-scale nuclear reactor and produced the plutonium used in the “Fat Man” bomb dropped Read More
LAMS Student Wins Second Place in Supercomputing Challenge
LANL News:
Los Alamos Middle School student Cole Kendrick took second place for his project, “Computer Simulation of Dark Matter Effects on Galaxy Collisions.”
Kendrick received a check for $500. He also received the $100 Crowd Favorite Award chosen by teachers and students and the Best Presentation Award.
Kendrick took the top prize in last year’s Supercomputing Challenge for his computer program to model the rotation of a galaxy including dark matter.
Jordan Medlock of Albuquerque’s Manzano High School took the top prize in the 22nd New Mexico Supercomputing Challenge for his computer Read More
DOE IG Again Calls for DOE Closures and Reprioritization of Cleanup Projects
DOE News:
Testifying before the House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigation Subcommittee at a hearing on “Budget and Spending Concerns at DOE” last Thursday, April 18, DOE Inspector General Gregory H. Friedman reiterated his office’s recommendation that DOE consider:
- (1) Closing national laboratories
- (2) Reprioritizing environmental remediation efforts, and
- (3) Reincorporating NNSA into DOE.
Friedman said DOE may not be able to sustain its complex of 16 Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDC) and should therefore convene a blue ribbon Read More
Mesa Public Library to Host Display of Historic J. Robert Oppenheimer Photographs
MESA PUBLIC LIBRARY News:
J. Robert Oppenheimer. Courtesy Photo
A New Mexico Centennial Exhibit
The J. Robert Oppenheimer Memorial Committee (JROMC) will present an exhibit of historic photos entitled “J. Robert Oppenheimer: Photographs From His Life: 1904–1967” at the Mesa Public Library Gallery, 2400 Central Ave. from May 2 to May 30.
The photos and their captions show the full range of Oppenheimer’s life, from early childhood, through his youth, his professional life at Cal Tech, Los Alamos, University of California at Berkeley, and the Institute for Advanced Study which he directed Read More
Renowned Scientist George Cowan Has Died
By Carol A. Clark
Internationally renowned scientist George A. Cowan has died.
Cowan was a scientist, philanthropist and businessman who conducted early research for the Manhattan Project and went on to found Los Alamos National Bank and the Santa Fe Institute.
Los Alamos National Laboratory issued the following statement today on the death of the Laboratory’s Senior Fellow.
“Dr. Cowan was a central figure at the Laboratory for 39 years. As a Senior Fellow and Los Alamos National Laboratory Medal Winner, he set an example of service to the nation that we strive to follow today. Read More
Cancer Therapy Gets a Boost from New Isotope
Los Alamos scientist Meiring Nortier holds a thorium foil test target for the proof-of-concept production experiments. Research indicates that it will be possible to match current annual, worldwide production of Ac-225 in just two to five days of operations using the accelerator at Los Alamos and analogous facilities at Brookhaven. Photo by Robb Kramer/LANL
A new medical isotope project at Los Alamos National Laboratory shows promise for rapidly producing major quantities of a new cancer-treatment agent, actinium 225 (Ac-225).
Using proton beams, Los Alamos and its partner Brookhaven Read More
New Scalable Green Protocols for Processing Carbon Nanotubes
NIST News:
Summary: The overall aim of this project is to develop and validate general methods and protocols for purification, size-separation and dispersion of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) that will enable aqueous ‘biological’ applications. New NMR metrologies are also being developed and applied to characterize and compare the physio-chemical properties of various length/diameter sized separated CNTs in aqueous dispersions.
Description: Since the discovery of the C60 “buckyball” by the 1996 Nobel Prize laureates Robert F. Curl, Harold W. Kroto, and Richard
Students descend on Los Alamos National Laboratory April 23-24 for Supercomputing Challenge Expo and Awards Ceremony
LANL News:
Research by student teams to be showcased during this month’s New Mexico Supercomputing Challenge. Courtesy/LANL
More than 200 New Mexico students and their teachers will convene at Los Alamos National Laboratory April 23 and 24 for judging and the awards ceremony in the 22nd annual New Mexico Supercomputing Challenge.
More than 60 teams of students from elementary, middle, and high school are participating in the event, said David Kratzer of the Laboratory’s High Performance Computer Systems group and LANL’s coordinator of the Supercomputing Challenge.
While at LANL, Read More