World

World Futures Institute: Communication And Information Part 2

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ANDY ANDREWS
Los Alamos World Futures Institute

In Part One of this series we ended with Guillermo Marconi and his 1896 patent of what we call the radio. This was 41 years after the telegraph. The timeline is more complicated because in 1976 Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone which allowed voice communication.

On the same day that he filed in February, Elisha Gray filed for a similar patent, but Bell filed earlier in the day. Obviously, the telephone caught on. In 1892, Bell opened the telephone line connecting Chicago and New York. People could orally communicate over long distances Read More

LANL Computer Scientists Develop New Artificial Intelligence System To Foil Illicit Cryptocurrency Mining

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Artificial intelligence may be key to catching cryptocurrency miners in the act of stealing computing power to mine for Bitcoins and other block chain currencies. Courtesy/LANL

LANL News:

Los Alamos National Laboratory computer scientists have developed a new artificial intelligence (AI) system that may be able to identify malicious codes that hijack supercomputers to mine for cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin and Monero.

“Based on recent computer break-ins in Europe and elsewhere, this type of software watchdog will soon be crucial to prevent cryptocurrency miners from hacking into Read More

LANL: Searching Mars For Signatures Of Life

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Mars Technica is a new, limited-series podcast where experts talk about the science behind the Mars Perseverance mission. Courtesy/NASA/JPL-Caltech/Arizona State University

LANL News:

Today, Mars is an arid, dusty, and frigid landscape with an average temperature of minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit—inhospitable to life as we know it.

But it wasn’t always that way. NASA’s Perseverance rover is headed straight for a spot scientists believe was an ancient river delta billions of years ago to search for signs that life once existed on the Red Planet.

A new episode of the podcast Mars Technica will Read More

LANL: Machine Learning Unearths Signature Of Slow-Slip Quake Origins In Seismic Data

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Using a machine learning model and historical data from the Cascadia region in the Pacific Northwest, LANL computational geophysicists have unearthed distinct statistical features marking the formative stage of slow-slip ruptures in the earth’s crust months before tremor or GPS data detected a slip in the tectonic plates. Courtesy/Galyna Andrushko/Shutterstock.com

LANL News:

Combing through historical seismic data, researchers using a machine learning model have unearthed distinct statistical features marking the formative stage of slow-slip ruptures in the earth’s crust months Read More

Zozobra! The Original Burning Man Goes Global

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The 96th Burning of Zozobra will be broadcast live Friday, Sept. 4. Courtesy photo

ZOZOBRA News:

SANTA FE — Friday, Sept. 4, a spectacularly unique and transformative annual experience happens in Santa Fe, The City Different.

Due to crowd gathering restrictions from the Covid-19 pandemic, a New Mexico secret for nearly a century is now available to everyone as The 96th Burning of Zozobra will be broadcast live, with personal participation easily accessible online.

In a typical year, over 60,000 people from fifty states and 21 countries pack into Ft. Marcy Park to dispel all thoughts and feelings

Read More

World Recognized Expert Deniece Korzekwa Named Los Alamos National Laboratory Senior Fellow

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Deniece Korzekwa, of LANL’s Sigma Division, has been named a Senior Fellow. Courtesy/LANL

LANL News:

Deniece Korzekwa, of Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Sigma Division, has been named Senior Fellow for outstanding leadership and seminal contributions to nuclear weapons manufacturing science, global security initiatives and international scientific exchanges involving plutonium and uranium.

Korzekwa is a world recognized expert in actinide casting with significant technical contributions across the entire Weapons Program including manufacturing, Directed Stockpile Work Read More

AGU Study Finds Widespread Electric Vehicle Adoption Would Save Billions Of Dollars, Thousands Of Lives

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A new study finds if electric vehicles replaced 25 percent of combustion engine cars on the road, the United States would save approximately $17 billion annually by avoiding damages from climate change and air pollution. Courtesy/Michael Movchin / Felix Müller / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)

AGU News:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — If electric vehicles replaced 25 percent of combustion engine cars currently on the road, the United States would save approximately $17 billion annually by avoiding damages from climate change and air pollution, according to new research. Read More

Air Force Research Laboratory ‘DRAGON Army’ To Host Triannual Sprint Advanced Concept Training Event Aug. 17-21

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DRAGON Army Operations holds Sprint Advanced Concept Training Aug. 17-21. Courtesy/LeoLabs

AFRL News:

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — DRAGON Army Operations, an Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) program, is holding a Sprint Advanced Concept Training (SACT) this month.

The event is held both virtually and in-person at the Catalyst Campus in downtown Colorado Springs, with the goal of disrupting the DoD space technology acquisition pipeline, providing a lower barrier to entry for new and non-traditional participants.

SACT, which is co-hosted by the Department of Commerce, is a multi-cell, Read More

Skolnik: Learning From COVID-19

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By RICHARD SKOLNIK
Los Alamos

We must learn a number of lessons from COVID-19 to more effectively address the present outbreak and prevent a similar toll from future epidemics. Building on these lessons will also help make the US a fairer and more just society, strengthen our economy, and enhance our national well-being. Below are just a few of the most important things we must learn from

COVID-19 now.

First, we must understand that there is a strong connection between health, our economy, and our overall national well-being. Disease outbreaks have enormous economic consequences, vastly in Read More

Los Alamos National Laboratory Podcast Mars Technica Explains How Plutonium Powers Perseverance Rover

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Mars Technica podcast series discusses the science behind the Mars Perseverance mission. Courtesy/LANL

LANL News:

To have dependable power to explore the the frigid surface of Mars, NASA’s Perseverance rover is equipped with a type of power system called a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG)—which is what the latest episode of Mars Technica will tell listeners all about.

“An RTG is essentially a nuclear battery that uses heat from the natural radioactive decay of plutomium-238 to generate electricity,” said Jackie Lopez-Barlow, the radioisotopes power system program manager Read More