World

Rotary Club Hosts Purple Pinky Day

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Rotarian Linda King helps Barranca Mesa Elementary students participating in Friday’s Purple Pinky Project. Photo by Ed Van Eeckhout

Barranca Mesa Elementary students show off their purple pinkies during Friday’s recognition of Rotary’s World Polio Day. Photo by Ed Van Eeckhout

 

By LINDA HULL, Vice President
Rotary Club of Los Alamos

In honor of Rotary International’s World Polio Day, members from the Rotary Club of Los Alamos volunteered Friday at local elementary schools to engage students in the Purple Pinky Project. 

 For a $1 donation, roughly the cost Read More

NNSA Awards Over $11 Million to Accelerate Development Of Domestic Mo-99 In U.S. Without Use Of Highly Enriched Uranium

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Workers prepare a low-enriched uranium machine for the production of Molybdenum-99 (Mo-99). Courtesy/NNSA

NNSA News:

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced Thursday it has awarded more than $11 million in additional funding to its cooperative agreement partners, SHINE Medical Technologies and NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes, to accelerate the establishment of new, domestic sources of the medical isotope molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) produced without the use of proliferation-sensitive highly enriched Read More

LANL Team Receives NNSA Administration Awards For Exceptional Work

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LANL News:

WASHINGTON, D.C.—In a ceremony last week, National Nuclear Security Administrator Lt. Gen. (retired) Frank G. Klotz presented five Los Alamos National Laboratory members awards for their exceptional work in a large-scale, on-site field exercise held in Jordan to evaluate progress in the development of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.

At the Oct. 14 ceremony, General Klotz presented LANL team leader Ward Hawkins with the Silver Award for Distinguished Service, and team members Richard Kelley, Emily Schultz-Fellenz, Aviva Sussman and Kenneth Wohletz  Read More

Rings of Fire: New Explosives Provide Enhanced Safety, High Energy

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Explosives chemist David Chavez weighs a small amount of tetrazine, an explosives precursor. Chavez has synthesized two new explosives molecules that promise high-energy with enhanced safety. Courtesy/LANL

A small amount of explosive material is subjected to shock wave with a striker plate to induce detonation. An explosive material’s insensitivity — it’s resistance to accidental or unintended detonation — is one set of data measured using this type of test. Photo by Daniel Preston/LANL

LANL News:

Los Alamos National Laboratory explosives chemist David Chavez has synthesized Read More

Local Man Retires From U.S. Army

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Lt. Col. Brian D. Ray
 
By SHIRLEY RAY
White Rock
 
Lt. Col. Brian D. Ray was born in Los Alamos Dec. 21, 1964. He attended local schools and graduated from Los Alamos High School in 1983. He attended Eastern New Mexico University and received his BA in Criminal Justice in 1997.
 
While in college, Ray started his career in the U.S. Army by joining the ROTC and the New Mexico National Guard. He was honored at a retirement ceremony at the New Mexico National Guard in Santa Fe Oct. 13, 2015.
 
In attendance were his wife Ida; daughters Jamie and Felicia; grandchildren Athena, Brianna,
Read More

Theoretical Study: Most Earth-Like Worlds Have Yet To Be Born

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SCIENCE News:
 
Earth came early to the party in the evolving universe.
 
According to a new theoretical study, when our solar system was born 4.6 billion years ago only eight percent of the potentially habitable planets that will ever form in the universe existed.
 
And, the party won’t be over when the sun burns out in another 6 billion years. The bulk of those planets — 92 percent — have yet to be born.
 
This conclusion is based on an assessment of data collected by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the prolific planet-hunting Kepler space observatory.
Read More

LANL Protective Force Contract Protested

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Los Alamos National Laboratory. Courtesy/LANL
 
By ROGER SNODGRASS
Los Alamos Daily Post

The Los Alamos National Laboratory protective force contract that was awarded to Centerra Group, LLC Sept. 11 has been formally protested by SOC, LLC, the incumbent service provider.

“There is a protest,” said SOC Los Alamos General Manager Jack Killeen today. “The lawyers are working on it.”

Killeen said the appeal was lodged within the five-day period allowed and included the basis of the protest, but he could not elaborate on that now.

“It’s lawyers talking Read More

Oak Ridge 3 Peace Protesters Headline Awards Ceremony On Capitol Hill

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NFFAF News:
 
TAKOMA PARK, Md., ― Peace protesters Megan Rice, Michael Walli and Greg Boertje-Obed are among those to be honored at this year’s Nuclear-Free Future Awards in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the Nuclear-Free Future Award Foundation (NFFAF).
 
The Nuclear-Free Future Awards are given annually to individuals who, through courage, integrity and conviction, have acted to rid the world of uranium mining, nuclear power and nuclear weapons.
 
This year’s Nuclear-Free Future Award ceremony is Wednesday, Oct. 28, in the Rayburn House
Read More

Mother Teresa’s Volunteer Receives Caring Award

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Noah Levinson. Photo by Miranda Parro/Reformer
 
SENATE News:
 
WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senators Bob Dole and Tom Daschle, co-chairs of the Caring Institute, have announced the 2015 Caring Award honorees.
 
The Caring Institute was founded in 1985 by Val J. Halamandaris after a meeting with Mother Teresa, who told him there was a poverty of the spirit in the developed world that was much worse than the poverty of the body seen in the developing world.
 
When she directed him to do something about it, he founded an awards program that identifies those who give back to society
Read More

Nobel Peace Prize: Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet

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The members of the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet awarded the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. Courtesy/EPA/HO

Nobel Prize News:

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2015 to the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet for its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution of 2011.

The Quartet was formed in the summer of 2013 when the democratization process was in danger of collapsing as a result of political assassinations and widespread social unrest. It established an alternative, peaceful Read More