Science

2019 Los Alamos Faith And Science Forum Asks: Are You A Robot? Brain, Mind, Soul

by

Courtesy/LAF&SF

LA Faith & Science Forum News:

This summer, the Los Alamos Faith and Science Forum asks: Are You a Robot? Brain, Mind, Soul.

If you use the internet at all, you may have been asked whether you are a robot. Many websites do this, trying to protect against spurious account creation. On one level, it’s an easy question to answer — no, you’re not a robot, you’re a flesh-and-blood human.

But on another level, it’s more difficult. Can we be sure our behavior is not programmed by our genetics, life experiences, instincts, and habits — to say nothing of our addictions and psychoses? Read More

NMMSH: Free Science Saturday Program May 11

by

NMMSH News:
 
ALAMOGORDO ― Spin up a pan of water and make a miniature hurricane.
 
Join Education Director Dave Dooling for a (not too) messy morning using food dye and spinning water pans to simulate hurricanes and ocean circulation the way scientists do in laboratories. It’s not quite a tempest in a teapot, but its close enough. Science Saturday will be held 10 a.m. to noon in the front classroom of the museum’s New Horizons Dome Theater.
 
Science Saturday is free to the public and happens every second Saturday of the month. It is designed to be a fun and educational program for kids
Read More

National Science Foundation Awards SHSU Faculty

by

Christopher Hobbs receives a $410,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. Courtesy photo
 
SHSU News:
 
Christopher Hobbs, assistant professor of Chemistry in Sam Houston State University’s College of Science and Engineering Technology, has been awarded a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Development Program CAREER Award for his research proposal, “Developing New Polymer Supported Catalysts Using ROMP, ADMET and ATRP with High School, Undergraduate and Graduate Students”.
 
The CAREER award grants Hobbs $410,000 over five years to support the development
Read More

Tales Of Our Times: ‘Wright Brothers’ Flight Boosts Smart Tools For Regulatory Tasks

by

Tales of Our Times
 

By JOHN BARTLIT
New Mexico Citizens
for Clean Air & Water

‘Wright Brothers’ Flight Boosts Smart Tools For Regulatory Tasks

Testing out ideas is the ageless key to progress. For decades, the College of Engineering at New Mexico State University, with support from industry, has pursued ideas with environmental aims, which are tested in a formal contest held each spring in Las Cruces.

This year, the 29th Design Contest attracted 21 teams of contestants with their projects from 11 universities, and 25 judges. I was a first-time judge for a task that was developed and

Read More

Celebrate May The Fourth At Nature Center

by

Celebrate May the Fourth at the Los Alamos Nature Center. Courtesy image

PEEC News:

The Los Alamos Nature Center is showing the full-dome film “Exoplanets” at 2 p.m. Saturday, May 4.

This film explores how it is known there are planets outside the solar system and which exoplanets could harbor life.

Seating is limited, so call the nature center at 505.662.0460 or stop by to reserve tickets. Admission is $6 for adults and $4 for children. Events in the planetarium are not recommended for children under age 4.

For more information about this and other PEEC programs, visit www.peecnature.org, email Read More

U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich Leads Bipartisan Legislation To Establish Tech-Transfer Maturation Program

by

U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich

From the Office of U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich:

The Energy Technology Maturation Program Act would help national laboratories work with the private sector to commercialize innovative energy technology

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today U.S. Senators Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) reintroduced legislation to authorize an Energy Technology Maturation Program at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to facilitate successful commercialization of laboratory-developed

Read More

Los Alamos Quadrumaniacs Robotics Team Qualifies For International Competition In West Virginia

by

The Quadrumaniacs with their robot, from left, Zoya Kahn, Timothy Rousculp, Sasha Simakov, Magellon Bronson and Lucy Kelley. Members Corben Meek and Maggie Kelley are not pictured.  Photo by Bonnie J. Gordon/ladailypost.com

By BONNIE J. GORDON
Los Alamos Daily Post
bjgordon@ladailypost.com

The story of how the Quadrumanics got their name tells you something about the team. The name comes from quadrumana, primates with four hands. Probably, most people reading this didn’t know that, but the team did. During a game of telephone, quadrumana became “quadrumaniac,“ team member Timothy Read More

Scientists Track Giant Ocean Vortex From Space

by

Researchers have found a new way to use satellites to monitor the Great Whirl. Courtesy/AGU

AGU News:

WASHINGTON—Researchers have found a new way to use satellites to monitor the Great Whirl, a massive whirlpool the size of Colorado that forms each year off the coast of East Africa, they report in a new study.

Using 23 years of satellite data, the new findings show the Great Whirl is larger and longer-lived than scientists previously thought. At its peak, the giant whirlpool is, on average, 275,000 square kilometers (106,000 square miles) in area and persists for about 200 days out of the year. Read More

LANL: SuperCam One Step Closer To Mars

by

The SuperCam has completed testing and evaluation at LANL and is on its way to JPL for full system integration. Courtesy/LANL

LANL News:

The SuperCam instrument – designed, built and tested at Los Alamos National Laboratory in partnership with the French Space Agency – and destined for the exploration of Mars – has completed testing and evaluation at Los Alamos and is on its way to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California for full system integration. 

The SuperCam instruments left Los Alamos Monday, April 29. SuperCam will be one of two* Los Alamos instruments on the next rover, called Read More