Environment

Heinrich Continues Call For Wildfire Budget Fix

by

U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich
 
SENATE News:
 
WASHINGTON, D.C. ― During a U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources hearing, U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) underscored the need to increase wildfire suppression efforts and continued his call for wildfire funding reform.
 
The hearing focused on a review of previous wildfire seasons to inform and improve future federal wildland fire management strategies.
 
The committee heard testimony from U.S. Government Accountability Office Director for Natural Resources and Environment
Read More

Small Business Profile: PEEC Gift Shop Celebrates The Natural World

by

PEEC Executive Director PEEC Katie Watson outside the new Los Alamos Nature Center. Photo by Chris Clark/ladailypost
 
By KIRSTEN LASKEY
Los Alamos Daily Post

If there is one stand-out quality in Los Alamos, it would be the community’s spectacular scenery and all the flora and fauna that goes with it.

For more than 10 years, the Pajarito Environmental Education Center (PEEC) has strived to educate, celebrate, preserve and explore all the natural wonders of this community.

Sandra West, marketing manager for PEEC, explained the organization was founded in 2000, “by a group of dedicated Read More

Learn About Los Alamos Smart Grid Project At Sierra Club Meeting Dec. 2

by

SIERRA CLUB News:

The public is invited to attend the December meeting of the Sierra Club of Los Alamos at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 2 in Room 230 of the UNM-Los Alamos Student Center (Bldg. 2). The speaker is Tim Glasco of the Los Alamos Department of Public Utilities.

Glasco will discuss the U.S.-Japan Demonstration Smart Grid Project that was undertaken in Los Alamos. Project partners included Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Los Alamos Department of Public Utilities.

Through the construction Read More

Udall, Heinrich Urge LWCF Reauthorization, Funding Before Year Ends

by

SENATE News:
 
WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. senators Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich and a bipartisan coalition of 12 other senators sent a letter asking Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kent.) and Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to include the permanent reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) along with full mandatory funding in one of the bills Congress must pass before adjourning for the year.
 
“The LWCF is funded with offshore oil royalties and was designed not to use taxpayer dollars. However, since the creation of
Read More

SCEC Improves Understanding Of Earthquake Hazards With Supercomputers, Achieves Societal Impacts

by

SCEC News:
 
LOS ANGELES ― Decision-makers from various sectors now have better knowledge to assess and mitigate earthquake risk owing to high-performance computing research by the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC), headquartered at the University of Southern California.
 
On Thursday at the 2015 International Conference for High Performance Computing, Network Storage, and Analysis (“Supercomputer 2015”) in Austin, Texas, SCEC Director Tom Jordan will present an invited talk on the societal impacts of SCEC’s research and development in using
Read More

ARPA-E Awards Tibbar Plasma Technologies Of Los Alamos $3.5M For Transformational Energy Technology

by

Tibbar Plasma Technologies owner Richard Nebel and colleague Bill Gibson standing next to ‘the machine.’ Courtesy photo

BUSINESS News:

Los Alamos based company, Tibbar Plasma Technologies Inc, announced today that it was awarded $3.5 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E).

The funding will be used to develop plasma-based AC-DC electrical transformers for High Voltage DC Electrical Transmission.

“Plasma-based electrical transformers have the potential to reduce the cost of transforming power by a Read More

SDSS J103842.59+484917.7: Where Alice In Wonderland Meets Albert Einstein

by

This group of galaxies has been nicknamed the ‘Cheshire Cat’ because of its resemblance to a smiling feline. Some of the cat-like features are actually distant galaxies whose light has been stretched and bent by the large amounts of mass contained in foreground galaxies. This is an effect called ‘gravitational lensing,’ predicted by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity that is celebrating its 100th anniversary. X-rays from Chandra show that the two ‘eye’ galaxies and the smaller galaxies associated with them are slamming into one another

Read More

Fractal Show At The Planetarium Friday

by

Fractals. Courtesy/PEEC

PEEC News:

Enjoy an evening out and journey into the never-ending world of fractals in the Los Alamos Nature Center Planetarium 7 p.m. Friday, Nov.27. This show incorporates math, science, art and nature in a full-dome planetarium show featuring original music.

This spectacular show starts promptly at 7 p.m. and seating is limited. Tickets may be purchased by phone or at the nature center and are only $10 for adults and $8 for children. This fractals show will run on the fourth Friday of each month, and is suitable for audiences ages 4 and up.

For more information about Read More

SFI: ‘Disturbance Ecology Meets Macroecology…’ Nov. 23

by

Erica Newman, University of California, Berkeley
 
SFI News:
 
The Santa Fe Institute (SFI) holds seminar “Disturbance Ecology Meets Macroecology: A new method for cross-system comparisons of ecosystems in transition” for 12:15 p.m., Monday Nov. 23, at Collins Conference Room in Santa Fe. 
 
Abstract: Natural disturbances increase heterogeneity and diversity of ecosystems, while anthropogenic changes often decrease ecosystem complexity and diversity.
 
To a disturbance ecologist, factors such as the type, size, and seasonality of disturbances
Read More

Los Alamos Technology Gains National Backing

by

Descartes Labs artificial intelligence can race through mountains of data and read a landscape in seconds. An early emphasis for this technology is in evaluating and predicting agricultural output, like these irrigated fields near Roswell. Courtesy/2015 NASA/LANDSAT

 

By ROGER SNODGRASS
Los Alamos Daily Post

Los Alamos pixels and Los Alamos dots were both riding high this week.

Descartes Labs, Inc., a one-year-old company specializing in satellite imagery recognition and analysis, announced Tuesday that it had raised $5 million in a venture capital round, thanks to a group of investors Read More