National Laboratory

‘Tension – 25 Years Underground’ In Albuquerque June 5

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MUSIC News:
 
Albuquerque Film and Music Experience presents: “Tension – 25 Years Underground”, a documentary on the power/thrash metal band Tension, which will be played from 7-9 p.m., Friday June 5, at South Broadway Cultural Center, 1025 Broadway Blvd SE in Albuquerque.
 
Tension originated from Laurel Maryland, with founding members Tom Gattis and Marty Friedman in 1978. Later, Friedman would leave Tension to play in bands like Cacaphony and Megadeth. Tensions member lineup then finally included Timmy Meadows, Billy Giddings, Tim O’Connor
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New Research Reveals Europa’s Mystery Dark Material Could Be Sea Salt

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AGU/NASA News:
 
WASHINGTON, D.C. ― New laboratory experiments suggest the dark material coating some geological features of Jupiter’s moon Europa is likely sea salt from a subsurface ocean, discolored by exposure to radiation.
The presence of sea salt on Europa’s surface suggests the ocean is interacting with its rocky seafloor―an important consideration in determining whether the icy moon could support life.
 
The new study has been accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union, and is available
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DOE’s Better Buildings Challenge Saves $840 Million

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DOE News:
 
WASHINGTON, D.C. ― As part of the Administration’s effort to advance energy efficiency and combat the harmful effects of climate change, Better Buildings Challenge partners have cut energy waste by 94 BTUs since President Obama first launched the challenge in 2011.
 
The energy savings announced today have saved partners a total of $840 million dollars in energy costs and avoided 6 million tons of harmful carbon emissions, equivalent to cutting the emissions of 1 million cars.
 
To continue this progress, the Energy Department is expanding the Better Buildings
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Armenia Secures Dangerous Radioactive Sources In Cooperation With NNSA

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NSA News:

YEREVAN, Armenia – The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) joined the Republic of Armenia today to announce the safe and secure removal of three unused radioactive sources from two locations in Yerevan, Armenia.

The successful completion of the radioactive source recovery campaign was conducted by the Armenia Nuclear Regulatory Authority (ANRA).

Since 2002, the NNSA’s Radiological Security Program has committed over two million dollars to Armenia in support of radiological security projects. Together, ANRA and NNSA have removed, identified Read More

Roger Snodgrass Joins Los Alamos Daily Post

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Roger Snodgrass

Staff Report

Esteemed science writer Roger Snodgrass has joined the Los Alamos Daily Post.

Snodgrass has a unique body of site-specific knowledge and experience related to Los Alamos National Laboratory. Since 2001, he has made a specialty of researching, synthesizing and writing complex scientific, topical and historical newspaper stories about LANL for the general public and targeted readers.

“We are so pleased to have Roger join the Los Alamos Daily Post news team. He is well-known in the community and his experience and expertise will enrich our coverage of the research Read More

Mars Rover’s ChemCam Instrument Gets Sharper Vision

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Yellowjacket is the first rock targeted by the NASA Mars Rover’s ChemCam device after checkout of the auto-focus repair. It is a layered sedimentary rock. The laser analysis yielded a composition very close to that of Mars soil and unlike the lakebed sedimentary compositions observed at lower elevations and earlier in the mission. The soil-like composition may indicate that these rocks formed from sediment transported by wind, rather than by water. The ChemCam image also shows millimeter-size spherules of unknown origin, not seen in most earlier sedimentary rocks. Yellowjacket was analyzed Read More

WIPP: Work Begins On Interim Ventilation System

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WIPP News:
 
Recovery operations at the WIPP facility continue to move forward with work beginning on installation of the interim ventilation system.
 
This system will increase the overall amount of airflow in the underground facility from the 60,000 cubic feet per minute (CFM) available under the current configuration up to 114,000 CFM. Following the radiological event of February 2014, all air exiting the WIPP underground passes through High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filters prior to being released into the environment.
 
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LAHS Junior EliseAnne Koskelo Receives Prestigious Awards For Work In Art, Design And Science

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LAHS student EliseAnne Koskelo wearing the medal she received from the YoungArts Foundation. Courtesy photo

LAHS News:

EliseAnne Koskelo, a junior at Los Alamos High School, is the recipient of several prestigious awards for her work in art, design and science. 

In December of 2014, Koskelo was awarded a Merit designation from the National Young Arts Foundation for her work. Koskelo’s portfolio was chosen from more that 11,000 applications from across the United States.

As one of 700 winners of this award, she travelled to New York City earlier this month to attend master classes Read More

VIDEO: LANL’s Canyon Cleanup Near Smith’s

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A spider excavator is lowered partway down the canyon side at Smith’s Marketplace during May 11 work to remove mercury-contaminated soil. Photo by Robert Hull

Cleanup work in the canyon is scheduled to take about two months to complete. Photo by Robert Hull

Staff Report

Watch video here.

To reduce the historical footprint through environmental cleanup, Los Alamos National Laboratory began this month performing a high-angle canyon-side cleanup on DOE property just south of  Smith’s Marketplace.

In collaboration with experts from contractor TerranearPMC, the Laboratory’s Environmental Read More

NNSA Hosts International Nuclear Forensics Workshop

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NNSA News:
 
WASHINGTON, D.C. ― During May 11-22, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Nuclear Smuggling Detection and Deterrence program held a hands-on nuclear forensics course at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Richland, Washington. The “International Training Course on Nuclear Forensics Methodologies,” was co-sponsored with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). 
 
Twenty participants from eight countries focused on the application of nuclear forensics methods during the investigation of nuclear or
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