Science

NNSA To Conduct Aerial Radiation Assessment Survey Over Boston April 14-18

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NNSA News:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will conduct low-altitude helicopter flights over the Boston Marathon route Thursday, April 14, through Monday, April 18 in preparation for the race and the events related to it.

NNSA’s Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST) aircraft will measure expected background radiation as part of standard preparations to protect public health and safety on the day of an event. 

The public may see NNSA’s twin-engine Bell 412 helicopter, which is equipped with radiation-sensing technology. Read More

AFRL To Open $7.3 Million Space Laboratory ‘RAPID’

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Rendering of AFRL Space Vehicles new Space facility, the Rapid Architecture Prototyping and Integration Development (RAPID) laboratory. Construction contractor is Eagle Eye LLC. Architect is Studio Southwest Architects. Courtesy/Studio Southwest Architects

AFRL News:

KIRTLAND AFB — The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Space Vehicles Directorate will hold a ribbon cutting ceremony 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, April 12 at Bldg. 595, Aberdeen Ave. SE at Kirtland Air Force Base, opening the directorate’s new Space lab, the Rapid Architecture Prototyping and Integration Development (RAPID) Read More

Dreams Come True For Air Force STEM Champion

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AFRL Senior Scientist Dr. Imelda Atencio, serving as a Colony Commander at the AFRL STEM Academy Mars Link-up Day May 8, 2015 at the Albuquerque Convention Center. The annual event draws over 1,000 students and teachers from classrooms across New Mexico. Photo by Stephen Burke/AFRL

AFRL News:

KIRTLAND AFB – “I grew up in Dixon, a small town in northern New Mexico, where the skies were dark, the stars bright, and I had vivid dreams of becoming an astronomer, sitting on top of a mountain with my telescope,” said Dr. Imelda Atencio, who was recently announced as the Department of the Air Force 2021 Outstanding Read More

AGU: Ancient Helium Leaking From Core Offers Clues Of Earth’s Formation

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The center of Lagoon Nebula, captured by the Hubble Telescope. Nebulae are the primary sources of helium-3, and the amount of He-3 leaking from the Earth’s core suggests the planet formed inside the solar nebula, according to a new study in the AGU journal Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems. Courtesy/NASA, ESA

AGU News:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Helium-3, a rare isotope of helium gas, is leaking out of Earth’s core, a new study reports. Because almost all helium-3 is from the Big Bang, the gas leak adds evidence that Earth formed inside a solar nebula, which has long been debated.

Helium-3 has been Read More

TUS: Reconstructing States Of Nonlinear Dynamical System

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The stock market behaves unpredictably and is an example of a nonlinear dynamical system. In this study, researchers from TUS and Saitama University developed a novel method to predict how such nonlinear systems change with time, yielding an important discovery for the field of data science. Courtesy/Katrina Tuliao

Tokyo University of Science News:

We often encounter nonlinear dynamical systems that behave unpredictably, such as the earth’s climate and the stock market. To analyze them, measurements taken over time are used to reconstruct the state of the system. However, this depends Read More

LANL News Roundup For Week Of April 4, 2022

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‘Frustrated’ nanomagnets order themselves through disorder: Extremely small arrays of magnets with strange and unusual properties can order themselves by increasing entropy, or the tendency of physical systems to disorder, a behavior that appears to contradict standard thermodynamics — but doesn’t. ‘Paradoxically, the system orders because it wants to be more disordered,’  said Cristiano Nisoli, a physicist at Los Alamos and coauthor of a paper about the research in Nature Physics. ‘Our research demonstrates entropy-driven order in a structured system of magnets at equilibrium.’ Read More

World Robot Olympiad Teams Forming In Los Alamos

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Courtesy image

Los Alamos STEAM Lab News:

The World Robot Olympiad season has started and will continue through November.

This competition is a Lego Robotics competition similar to First Lego League, but with smaller teams, no research project, and a more dynamic challenge. 

Los Alamos STEAM Lab is happy to mentor teams (as well as connect interested kiddos together to form teams) for the 2022 WRO season. Teams will need to cover the cost of registration as well as practice mats and additional brick sets if needed, but the actual mentoring will be free of charge and some number of robots are available Read More

FIRST Robotics Team #4153 Qualifies For District Championships

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Team #4153 at the Fort Worth, TX regional competition. Photo by Holly Trellue

Team #4135 at the Amarillo, TX regional competition. Photo by Christy Patterson

FIRST ROBOTICS TEAM #4153 News

The Los Alamos FIRST Robotics Team #4153, Project Y has been hard at work since January to build a custom robot to compete in the FIRST Robotics league. Their first competition took place in Fort Worth, TX on March 17-19. They placed 8th in the competition and achieved the honor of being the 5th Alliance Captains for the finals. This was only the second time in the team’s history that they scored well enough to become Read More

New Mexico Tech Hosts Future Inventors, Problem-Solvers At Science And Engineering Fair At Which Los Alamos Students Shine

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Barranca Mesa Elementary 6th graders Natan Svyatsky and John Fung investigated which fertilizer would work best to germinate and grow grass. Two types of grass, bluegrass and ryegrass, were examined in the project. Courtesy/NMT

Los Alamos High School junior Isabella McTeigue said she thought it would be interesting to find out if students should re-wear their face masks or replace them, and if wearing masks was hurting more than helping them. Courtesy/NMT

NMT News:

SOCORRO — The 22nd century’s environmental, medical, and technical challenges will likely be no match for the latest group Read More

EDD: Allerpops Of Los Alamos Among Grant Awardees

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The team at Molten Salt Solutions is among eight companies awarded a $25,000 Science & Technology Business Start Up Grant. Courtesy/EDD

Allerpops of Los Alamos is among eight companies awarded a $25,000 Science & Technology Business Start Up Grant. Courtesy/EDD

EDD News:

SANTA FE — New Mexico Economic Development Department (EDD) Cabinet Secretary Alicia J. Keyes has announced that eight New Mexico high-growth-potential companies, including AllerPops Corp. of Los Alamos, were awarded Science & Technology Business Start Up Grants at $25,000 each for a total of $200,000. Read More