World

LANL: Machine-learning Earthquake Prediction In Lab Shows Promise

by

LANL researchers have developed a two-dimensional tabletop simulator that models the buildup and release of stress along an artificial fault. In this image, the simulator is viewed through a polarized camera lens, photo-elastic plates reveal discrete points of stress buildup along both sides of the modeled fault as the far (upper) plate is moved laterally along the fault. Courtesy/LANL

LANL News:

  • Listening to faultline’s grumbling gives countdown to future quakes

By listening to the acoustic signal emitted by a laboratory-created earthquake, a computer science approach using machine Read More

FSU Researcher Studying Ways To Treat Spinal Cord Injuries At Cellular Levels

by

FSU News:
 
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Supported by a new $800,000 National Science Foundation grant, Florida State University College of Medicine Professor Yi Ren is studying the immune response to spinal cord injuries and how cellular functions contribute to paralysis and organ dysfunction.
 
While instant paralysis is an obvious point of fear in spinal cord injuries, a great deal of the damage actually takes place after the initial trauma.
 
“Most of the research being done by scientists who focus on spinal cord injuries is about trying to prevent the secondary injury from happening,”
Read More

Groups Call On Japan Not To Dump Radioactive Water Into Pacific Ocean

by

BN News:
 
TAKOMA PARK, Md. — Beyond Nuclear has signed onto a new letter from marine wildlife, environmental and conservation groups calling on authorities in Japan to avoid at all cost the dumping of hundreds and thousands of tons of radioactively contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean.
 
Currently, Japanese utility, TEPCO, is planning to release 777,000 tons of waste containing radioactive tritium into the Pacific Ocean from its stricken Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear site. The contaminated water, used to cool the destroyed reactors to avoid further
Read More

NNSA Removes All HEU From Ghana

by

NNSA News:
 
WASHINGTON, D.C. ― The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA), in cooperation with Ghana, China, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), repatriated approximately one kilogram of Chinese-origin highly enriched uranium (HEU) from Ghana’s GHARR-1 Miniature Neutron Source Reactor (MNSR) at the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission’s National Nuclear Research Institute in Accra, Ghana Aug. 28.
 
This shipment removes the last known HEU from Ghana, making it the 32nd country plus Taiwan to become
Read More

International Day Of Victims of Enforced Disappearances: States That Make Journalists Disappear

by

REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS News:

On the eve of International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances Aug. 30, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reveals that a growing number of states are finding new ways to make troublesome journalists disappear.

Dawit Isaak, Jean Bigirimana, Akram Raslan and Guy-André Kiefferare all journalists who suddenly went missing, leaving their loved ones in a never-ending state of anxiety. All were the victims of “enforced disappearance,” a practice in which governments are directly or indirectly implicated.

It is governments, Read More

Privacy And The Internet

by

HSNW News:

In the Internet era, consumers seem increasingly resigned to giving up fundamental aspects of their privacy for convenience in using their phones and computers, and have grudgingly accepted that being monitored by corporations and even governments is just a fact of modern life.

In fact, Internet users in the United States have fewer privacy protections than those in other countries. In April, Congress voted to allow Internet service providers to collect and sell their customers’ browsing data. By contrast, the European Union hit Google this summer with a $2.7 billion antitrust fine. Read More

Shin: County Council’s Immigration Proclamation … An Undercurrent Of Obstructionism

by

By LISA SHIN
Los Alamos

The Los Alamos County Council will consider an immigration proclamation this coming Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017. This is a toned-down version from the April resolution, to which Councilor Antonio Maggiore stated, “could have easily been deemed as geared toward Donald Trump”.

While this resolution does not change how we treat immigrants, its local advocates are aligned with Indivisible, a grassroots movement formed to resist the Trump agenda. Nationwide, these activists protect sanctuary cities, and speak out for the rights of “undocumented” immigrants.

This proclamation Read More

Spencer: War And Other Historical Memorials Aren’t Created Equal

by

Memorial in Frank Ortiz Park. The camp was at what is now the Casa Solana residential area. Courtesy/N. Mesa Mutts 

By KHALIL SPENCER
Los Alamos

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.

Shovel them under and let me work—
I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.

Two years, ten years, and the passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?

I am the grass.
Let me work.

Grass, by Carl Sandburg

There is quite a bit of uproar over the de-emphasis of United States Civil War monuments to Read More

EPFL: Urban Butterflies Under Threat Of Extinction

by

Small white butterfly (Pieris rapae). Photo/©Magali Deschamps-Cottin

 

By SANDRINE PERROUD
EPFL

According to an École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) study, butterflies living in urban areas face the threat of consanguinity and potential extinction. The research drew on the fields of genetics and urban development to quantify the trend across an entire city.

“Our research illustrates what is probably a widespread phenomenon: a drastic reduction in biodiversity in urban areas. We were able to quantify this trend and show that it’s a problem that needs to be taken seriously,” Read More

World Futures: Cyber (Part One)

by

World Futures: What Do We Need?

By ANDY ANDREWS
Los Alamos World Futures Institute

In the recent past, White Rock and parts of the Los Alamos National Laboratory lost electrical power for about six hours.

The power loss was caused by a lightning strike that essentially destroyed a pole supporting power lines delivering electrical energy to the affected area, causing an array of circuit breakers in the Norton Substation to be tripped. It was an inconvenience.

But what if the outage had lasted longer? In Part One, let’s visit a bit of history and the intellectual development of warfare.

If you do Read More