National Laboratory

Consortium Partners with LANL’s Academy

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Special to the Los Alamos Daily Post

Northern New Mexico Math and Science Academy aims to enhance professional development of K-12 math and science teachers in underserved rural school districts.

The New Mexico Consortium (NMC) will become the new fiscal agent for the Northern New Mexico Math and Science Academy (MSA). 

The MSA is a teacher professional development program, sponsored by Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to help improve math and science education in New Mexico K-12 schools. 

Partnership with MSA has the potential to expand the impact of NMC research programs Read More

LANL’s Great Garbage Grab Sweeps Townsite

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Members of the Environmental Stewardship Group at Los Alamos National Laboratory from left, Beth Norris, Libby Jones, Rebecca Clark, Jeff Treasure and Debbie-Bryan-Ricketts join other employees cleaning up the landscape this week as part of the laboratory-wide Earth Day project – the Great Garbage Grab. Photo by Carol A. Clark/ladailypost.com

Photo by Carol A. Clark/ladailypost.com

Members of the Environmental Stewardship Group at Los Alamos National Laboratory picked up several bags of trash in White Rock Wednesday, separating aluminum and plastic to run through LANL’s recycle Read More

Suspicious Item at Lab Determined to be Duct Tape and Wire

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Photo by Carol A. Clark/ladailynews.com

Emergency responders descended on the area near the parking garage next to Technical Area 3 at Los Alamos National Laboratory a few minutes ago.

Photo by Carol A. Clark/ladailypost.com

Lab security, the hazardous devices team and local police and fire personnel surrounded the area where a suspicious item was spotted and reported to officials.

Photo by Carol A. Clark/ladailypost.com

After securing the area, authorities determined that the item was simply duct tape wrapped in wire. 

Photo by Carol A. Clark/ladailypost.com

The all clear Read More

Three Small Businesses Selected for Los Alamos National Laboratory Environmental Work

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Subcontract worth up to $250 million over five years:

Los Alamos National Laboratory has awarded a master task order agreement for up to $250 million to three small businesses with offices in Northern New Mexico.

The agreement is for services related to the transportation and disposal of hazardous and radioactive waste.

The companies include Portage, Inc., ARS Cavanagh Environmental Services, LLC and Navarro Research & Engineering, Inc.

“Safely handling and transporting waste containers is an important part of our environmental cleanup efforts at Los Alamos,” said Pete Maggiore, Read More

LANL Releases Voluntary Separation Program Results

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Los Alamos National Laboratory today announced that 557 employees will leave the Laboratory as part of a voluntary separation program announced last month.

The employees come from nearly all Lab functions, excluding certain essential areas.

“I would like to thank each and every employee who volunteered for the program,” LANL Director Charlie McMillan said in a news release. “Some of them devoted their entire careers to serving the nation during a truly historic time for the country and the Lab. They set the example that we will continue to follow.”
 
LANL announced
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World Record Shattered During Six-Experiment Pulse at LANL

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Charles Mielke, center, receives congratulations at the moment of the 100-T pulse. Courtesy LANL

LANL News:

Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s biggest magnet facility today met the grand challenge of producing magnetic fields in excess of 100 tesla while conducting six different experiments. The hundred-tesla level is roughly equivalent to 2 million times Earth’s magnetic field.

“This is our moon shot, we’ve worked toward this for a decade and a half,” said Chuck Mielke, director of the Pulsed Field Facility at Los Alamos.

The team used the 100-tesla pulsed, multi-shot magnet, Read More

Nanopower: Avoiding Electrolyte Failure in Nanoscale Lithum Batteries

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Using a transmission electron microscope, NIST reearchers were able to watch individual nanosized batteries with electrolytes of different thicknesses charge and discharge. The NIST team discovered that there is likely a lower limit to how thin an electrolyte layer can be made before it causes the battery to malfunction. Photo by Talin/NIST

From NIST Tech Beat:

It turns out you can be too thin—especially if you’re a nanoscale battery.

Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the University of Maryland, College Park, and Sandia National Laboratories Read More

Local governments to Discuss Funding for LANL, Environmental Liabilities, Jobs

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WHAT: Press conference to discuss funding for Los Alamos National Laboratory and the impacts on jobs, environmental cleanup and national security.

Proposed funding cuts are resulting in a reduction of jobs at LANL, missed environmental cleanup deadlines, and significant changes in LANL’s nuclear mission.

WHO: Mayor Alice Lucero, City of Espanola; Council Chair Sharon Stover, Los Alamos County; Commissioner Alfredo Montoya, Rio Arriba County; Commissioner Danny Mayfield, Santa Fe County; Mayor David Coss, City of Santa Fe; Commissioner Andrew Chavez, Taos County; Elmer Torres, San Read More

SFI Seminar: Free Will and the Brain: Some Current Confusions

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Daniel Dennett

Daniel Dennett of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute is presenting the seminar, Free Will and the Brain: Some Current Confusions at 12:15 p.m., Monday in the Medium Conference Room at the Santa Fe Institute.

Abstract: There has been a recent explosion of writing by neuroscientists and psychologists about how “science shows us” that we don’t have free will.

The problem with this work is that it confuses several quite different issues.

Once we sort it out, we find that there have been in fact some important discoveries Read More

Heather Wilson Draws Many LANL Employees to Her Town Hall Meeting

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LANL employees and others listen to Senatorial candidate Heather Wilson during her Town Hall meeting late Wednesday afternoon at the Hilltop House Hotel. Photo by Carol A. Clark/ladailypost.com

By Carol A. Clark

A large crowd turned out to hear Republican U.S. Senatorial candidate Heather Wilson speak at a Town Hall Meeting at the Best Western Hilltop House Hotel late Wednesday afternoon.

Wilson spoke of her background and experience before fielding questions from the audience of slightly more than 100 people.

At age 17, she entered the U.S. Air Force Academy and graduated in 1982. A Rhodes Read More