Environment

Arctic Islands Film And Presentation Part 1 At Nature Center 7 p.m. Today

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Stephen Becker of Los Alamos aboard the National Geographic/Lindblad Explorer. Courtesy/PEEC

PEEC News:

Enjoy the beauty of the Arctic Islands, only recently opened to eco-tourism, from the comfort of the Los Alamos Nature Center, 2600 Canyon Road.

At 7 p.m., today in the Los Alamos Nature Center Planetarium, Stephen A. Becker will show a film and share stories from his three week National Geographic voyage to West Greenland and the North Canadian Islands. This is the first of two events revealing nature in this remote part of the globe.

Part 2 of this event is 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 9, in which Read More

Temporary Road and Area Closures Announced On Pecos/Las Vegas Ranger District

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SFNF News:

SANTA FE – The Santa Fe National Forest has issued a temporary closure order for many roads and areas on the Pecos/Las Vegas Ranger District restricting the use of all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), two-wheel and four-wheel motorized vehicles. Snowmobiles are not prohibited by the order.

The closures have been implemented to protect natural resources and infrastructure, including wildlife, watershed and roads, and to ensure public health and safety during extreme soil moisture and heavy snowfall periods. 

The closure order is in effect until April 9, 2016, unless it is rescinded Read More

Nature On Tap At UnQuarked Thursday Jan. 7

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COMMUNITY News:

Nature On Tap begins at 5:30 p.m. this Thursday, Jan. 7 at UnQuarked Wine Room, 145 Central Park Square in downtown Los Alamos.

The speaker is Park Ranger Jorge Moldonado who will be discussing the National Park Service anniversary. The National Park Service and one of its jewels in New Mexico, Bandelier National Monument, will be celebrating their 100th anniversary in 2016.

Join ranger Jorge Maldonado for a discussion on what it means to celebrate 100 years of preservation, how this major occasion will be commemorated, and how you can participate.

Sponsored by the  Read More

To Sustain Astronauts’ Mental Health, Dartmouth-Led Team Testing Virtual Reality Tech In Arctic Isolation

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Professor Robert Stone
University of Birmingham

DARTMOUTH News:

HANOVER, N.H. – Dartmouth physician and former astronaut Jay Buckey is leading a team of international investigators testing new virtual reality technology in the remote Arctic this winter.

Their goal is to see whether simulated natural beauty can relieve the psychological challenges of living in the isolated confines of deep space travel.

The test site is the Canadian Forces Station Alert (CFS Alert), the most northerly, permanently inhabited location in the world, only 817 kilometers from the geographic North Pole. The Read More

Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, No Politics

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A New Year’s Day light display in the sky above Los Alamos taken with an iPhone near Ashley Pond Park. Photo by Sean Reilly

A New Year’s Day light display in the sky above Los Alamos taken with an iPhone from a porch in White Rock. Photo by Douglas Reilly

A light display visible across Los Alamos taken by a LANL photographer using a fish-eye lens in 1988 from the roof of the old Administration Building. Courtesy/Douglas Reilly

Staff Report

Douglas Reilly explains that the sun with sun dogs are so-called because they follow (dog) the sun. Sean Reilly’s photo includes much of the circle that passes Read More

Top LANL Sci-Tech & Spy Stories 2015

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Courtesy/FBI

VIDEO: Leonardo Mascheroni Of Los Alamos Offering Nuclear Weapons To Venezuela

FBI News:
Feb. 1, 2015

In FBI undercover video and audio recordings, Pedro Leonardo Mascheroni of Los Alamos explains to undercover agent Jimenez that he had a “top of the top” clearance and that he held a security clearance from the Department of Defense and from the Department of Energy.

Mascheroni, 79, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Argentina, was recently sentenced to 60 months in prison for Atomic Energy Act and other violations relating to his communication of classified nuclear Read More

2015 Top Stories Of The Year

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From left, Los Alamos County Council Chair Kristin Henderson, former Councilor Fran Berting, Los Alamos Historical Society Executive Director Heather McClenahan, Dr. Ben Neal, second from right, and at far right, Bandelier Superintendent Jason Lott join U.S. Senators Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich, and seated, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell and U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz at this morning’s signing ceremony, in Washington, D.C., to officially establish the Manhattan Project National Historical Park. Courtesy/NPS

MPNHP Field Team leader Arthur Knox wowed Read More

Unusual Snow Bow Or Sun Dogs Spotted In Los Alamos

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This unusual and amazing snow bow or sun dog was spotted early this morning from Woodland Road in Los Alamos. Sun dogs, mock suns or phantom suns, scientific name parhelia (singular parhelion), are an atmospheric phenomenon that consists of a pair of bright spots on either side on the Sun, often co-occurring with a luminous ring known as a 22° halo. Sun dogs are a member of a large family of halos, created by light interacting with ice crystals in the atmosphere. Sun dogs typically appear as two subtly colored patches of light to the left and right of the Sun, approximately 22° distant and at the same

Read More

Board Upholds LANL Clean Air Operating Permit

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Kathy Sanchez, the environmental health and justice program manager of Tewa Woman United, an intertribal women’s collective in Northern New Mexico, testified recently on behalf of additional clean air measures at LANL. Courtesy photo

 

By ROGER SNODGRASS
Los Alamos Daily Post

SANTA FE – Despite eloquent testimony by Kathy Sanchez, the great-granddaughter of world famous Pueblo de San Ildefonso pottery maker, Maria Antonia Martinez, the New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board denied a permit appeal in which she and others sought additional air quality monitoring in a Read More