National Laboratory

LANL Emergency Exercise Planned For Wednesday

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LANL News:

Los Alamos National Laboratory is conducting an emergency preparedness exercise on Wednesday, Aug. 29. It is an exercise only.

LANL routinely conducts emergency exercises to test the preparedness of emergency response and other LANL personnel who would respond to an actual emergency.

The majority of the exercise is on LANL property and shouldn’t affect the public. Signs will be in place outside the Los Alamos Medical Center, alerting the public that an exercise is under way.

Laboratory employees who work in facilities near the exercise scenario have been notified. Los

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LANL Responds to Radiological Incident at LANSCE

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  • Multiple tests indicate no health risks to public or employees

Los Alamos National Laboratory is investigating the inadvertent spread of Technetium 99 by employees and contractors at the Lujan Neutron Scattering Center at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE), a multidisciplinary accelerator facility used for both civilian and national security research.

The Laboratory has determined that about a dozen people came into contact with the material, and some tracked small amounts of Technetium 99 off-site.

The contamination poses no danger to the public. The type of radiation Read More

SFI Colloquium: ‘Ulam’s Demons’ Set for Thursday

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SFI Colloquium: “Ulam’s Demons” is set for 3:30 p.m. Thursday Aug. 30 in Noyce Conference Room.

 

George Dyson
Author and Historian of Technology

Abstract: Stanislaw Ulam (1909-1984), one of the inspirations for SFI, performed useful work, without the visible expenditure of energy, by letting good ideas in and keeping bad ideas out.

Four of the twentieth century’s most imaginative inventions — the Monte Carlo method, the hydrogen bomb, self-reproducing cellular automata, and nuclear pulse propulsion — originated with help from Stan.

Monte Carlo was the realization Read More

ChemCam Laser First Analyses Yield Beautiful Results

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This photo mosaic shows the scour mark, dubbed Goulburn, left by the thrusters on the sky crane that helped lower NASA’s Curiosity rover to the Red Planet. It is located 16 to 20 feet (5 to 6 meters) to the left of the rover’s landing position. The sky crane appears to have uncovered an outcrop of loosely consolidated rocks during the rover’s landing. The mosaic consists of six images from the remote micro-imager (RMI) on the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument, shown around an image from the Mast Camera for context. Each RMI image has a field of view of 4 to 5 inches (10 to Read More

LANL Engineer Selected for ‘Frontiers of Engineering’ Symposium

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LANL News:

  • Nathan Moody, specialist in electromagnetic radiation, honored

Nathan Moody of Los Alamos National Laboratory is among 78 of the nation’s brightest young engineers selected for the National Academy of Engineering’s (NAE) 18th annual U.S. Frontiers of Engineering symposium.

Engineers between 30 to 45 who are performing exceptional engineering research and technical work in a variety of disciplines attend the 2-1/2 day event, the academy announced.

The participants — from industry, academia, and government — were nominated by fellow engineers Read More

Explosions for Research at Los Alamos

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The Bradbury Science Museum has provided the following video depicting some of what goes on behind the fence at Los Alamos National Laboratory:

The science of explosives has been important at Los Alamos since 1943. A variety of experiments with explosives are represented in this video. Music Credit: Nerves – by Kevin MacLeod,  Larva – by PhreDdy M.

Click HERE to view other videos provided by the Bradbury Science Museum including an interview with KRSN AM1490 owner David Sutton regarding the Las Conchas Fire and a video of President John F. Kennedy's 1962 visit Read More

LANL Laser Research Shows Promise for Cancer Treatment

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Sasi Palaniyappan, right, and Rahul Shah inside a target chamber where the TRIDENT short pulse laser is aimed at a very thin foil target. Courtesy/LANL

LANL News:

  • New insights gained on how lasers generate ions in dense plasmas

Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have observed for the first time how a laser penetrates dense, electron-rich plasma to generate ions.

The process has applications for developing next generation particle accelerators and new cancer treatments.

The results, published online August 19 in Nature Physics, also confirm predictions made more than 60 years Read More

SFI Seminar – Models.Behaving.Badly: On Theories, Models, Intuition and Finance

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SFI News:

Models.Behaving.Badly: On Theories, Models, Intuition and Finance

By Emanuel Derman
Columbia University

Thursday, Aug. 23 • 12:15 p.m. • Medium Conference Room

Abstract: Models are metaphors that explain the world we don’t understand in terms of worlds we do.

They are merely analogies, provide partial insight, stand on someone else’s feet.

Theories stand on their own feet, and rely on no analogies.

Models tell you what something is more or less like; theories try to tell you what something is.

Financial models are not theories; they are analogies, idealizations that always Read More

DOE Hosts Public Hearing Tonight at Holiday Inn Express

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DOE News:

The Department of Energy is holding public hearings on a Surplus Plutonium Disposition Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement.

The hearings are scheduled for:

  • Los Alamos on Tuesday, Aug. 21 at the Holiday Inn Express, 60 Entrada Drive;
  • Santa Fe on Thursday, Aug. 23 at the Courtyard by Marriott, 3347 Cerrillos Road; and
  • Carlsbad on Aug. 28 hearing at the Pecos River Village Conference Center, 711 Muscatel Avenue.

The hearings will be 5:30-8 p.m. with a presentation beginning at 6:30 p.m. and public comments beginning around 6:45 p.m.

The comment period ends Sept. 25.

ABOUT THIS

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Planned Steam Plant Outage Underway at LANL

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LANL News:

Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Utilities and Institutional Facilities Division began a planned steam outage for maintenance at 7 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 19.

The planned steam outage is scheduled to conclude at 7 p.m., Aug. 25.

The centralized steam distribution system must be shut down for required maintenance of equipment, including replacing and upgrading key components of the Laboratory’s utility system.

During the outage, there will be no heating and no process steam available in building systems served by the Steam Plant.

All buildings within the TA-3 and TA-43 area

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