Tess Light discusses what is shocking about lightning during a Science on Tap presentation Thursday at Unquarked. She is with the Lab’s Space and Remote Sensing Group and touched on research that dates back to the 1960s when it was developed in connection with space payloads that monitor the Earth for evidence of nuclear treaty violation. Learning more about lightning is an outgrowth of those sensors. Courtesy photo Read More
Science
World Futures: Efficiency (Part Four)
World Futures: What Do We Need?
By ANDY ANDREWS
Los Alamos World Futures Institute
In part one of this efficiency series we defined efficiency as avoiding waste in doing something. Waste encompasses materials, energy, efforts, money and time.
Looking at the sun-earth system, essentially the same amount of energy is delivered by the sun each day. Some of that energy is stored for future use and the rest must leave earth if a stable relationship is to be maintained. Clearly, the energy transfer process must have less than 100 percent efficiency for earth to remain habitable and support humanity. In Read More
Medical Imaging Research Leader Ken Hanson Of Los Alamos Receives SPIE Directors’ Award
Medical imaging research scientist Dr. Ken Hanson from Los Alamos National Laboratory has been selected for a top award by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics. Dr. Hanson received the 2017 SPIE Directors’ Award last week during SPIE Optics + Photonics in San Diego, Calif. Photo by Vitaliy Gyrya
SPIE News:
BELLINGHAM, Wash., and SAN DIEGO, Calif. — Ken Hanson, a medical imaging research scientist at Los Alamos National Lab (LANL), has been selected as this year’s recipient of a top award from SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics. Dr. Hanson received Read More
Robotics Night Returns To Bradbury Science Museum!
BSMA News:
Regional school robotics teams, and others, will demonstrate their robots to the public 5-8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 25 at Robotics Night at the Bradbury Science Museum, 1350 Central Ave.
This free event is brought to you by the Bradbury Science Museum Association (BSMA) and generously supported by New Mexico Bank & Trust. Visitors will have an opportunity to see the robots used by organizations such as Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos County Police Department and University of New Mexico Los Alamos.
Ann Ollila, who works on the Mars Rover, also will be on hand to show Read More
Science On Tap: What’s Shocking About Lightning
Los Alamos Creative District News:
Attend Science On Tap at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 17 at UnQuarked in Central Park Square to learn the shocking truth about lightning.
Lightning strikes the earth more than one billion times each year, causing thousands of fatalities worldwide, and costs nearly a $1 billion in damages in the U.S. alone.
When strong updrafts cause layers of positive and negative charge to develop in the atmosphere, lightning discharges occur to restore the balance of the Earth’s electrical state. Because the fundamental physical mechanisms of that discharge are not perfectly Read More
AGU: Tracking A Solar Eruption Through Solar System
One effect of a coronal mass ejection (CME) is a sudden decrease in the number of galactic cosmic rays detected, called the Forbush decrease after the scientist who first described it. During the passage of the CME (depicted as the pale swath in the middle graphic), it acts like a protective bubble, temporarily sweeping aside the cosmic rays (depicted as the white flecks) and shielding the planet or spacecraft such that the impact of cosmic rays is reduced. Typically a rapid decrease is observed, with a more gradual recovery over the coming days or longer, depending on the speed and size of the CMELANL: Unique Imaging Of Dinosaur’s Skull Tells Evolutionary Tale
A 3D image of Bistahieversor sealeyi, which was found in the Bisti Badlands in New Mexico and Imaged at Los Alamos’ unique facilities. Courtesy/LANL
LANL News:
- Collaboration creates highest-resolution scan of a large tyrannosaur skull
Researchers using Los Alamos’ unique neutron-imaging and high-energy X-ray capabilities have exposed the inner structures of the fossil skull of a 74-million-year-old tyrannosauroid dinosaur nicknamed the Bisti Beast in the highest-resolution scan of tyrannosaur skull ever done. The results add a new piece to the puzzle of how these bone-crushing Read More
NIST: ‘W’eird Signals: Listening In On The Eclipse
Earth’s ionosphere. Courtesy/NASANIST News:
Two years ago, I had never heard of the WWVB radio station. Today, it’s one of my favorites, but that’s not because it broadcasts a pleasant mix of Top 40 hits. (It doesn’t.)
WWVB is a low-frequency station, operated by NIST, that provides precise time information to radio-controlled clocks across North America. The WWVB signal is sent from a transmitter in Fort Collins, Colorado, on a carrier frequency of 60 kilohertz (kHz). The devices that use WWVB interpret the digital time code transmitted by
Read More Supernova Hunters: ‘Get Them Young’
Bright blue dot: Supernovae such as SN 2017cbv appear as “stars that weren’t there before,” which is why multiple images taken over time are necessary to reveal their true identity. SN 2017cbv lies in the outskirts of a spiral galaxy called NGC 5643 that lies about 55 million light-years away and has about the same diameter as the Milky Way (~100,000 light-years). Data are from the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Supernova Project and the Carnegie-Irvine Galaxy Survey. Courtesy/B.J. Fulton/Caltech)
UA News:
TUCSON, Ariz. — Thanks to a global network of telescopes, astronomers Read More
AGU: Human-Caused Warming Likely Leads To Recent Streak Of Record-Breaking Temperatures
Rising global temperatures are linked to more extreme weather events, such as heat waves, floods, and droughts. Courtesy/Luis Iranzo Navarro-OlivaresAGU News:
WASHINGTON, D.C. ― It is “extremely unlikely” 2014, 2015 and 2016 would have been the warmest consecutive years on record without the influence of human-caused climate change, according to the authors of a new study.
Temperature records were first broken in 2014, when that year became the hottest year since global temperature records began in 1880. These temperatures were then surpassed
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