Friday, November 6, 2015



Los Alamos scientist trying to determine source of methane hot spot

Manvendra Dubey, a climate change scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, said, “Methane is about 25 times more potent a greenhouse gas on a 100-year horizon than CO2.”

Kathleen McCleery: Los Alamos atmospheric scientist Manvendra Dubey was measuring carbon dioxide, not methane, last year when NASA released satellite images, including this one showing a 2,500-square-mile hot spot centered over the Four Corners area, where New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Arizona meet.

Manvendra Dubey: They showed that, over Four Corners, methane was enhanced. It was the — kind of the hottest methane spot in the whole of continental U.S. (Full Story)



Hunting for meteorites in Antarctica

Lanza training in Iceland.  

Nina Lanza, of Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Space and Remote Sensing group, was selected as one of eight members for the 2015-2016 field campaign of the Antarctica Search for Meteorites (ANSMET) program, which is supported by NASA.

"These meteorites can help us understand the formation and evolution of our solar system," said Lanza. "They come from planets, their moons and asteroids. Few of these solar system bodies will be visited by NASA in our lifetimes and this is a superb opportunity to collect material from across the solar system without having to leave the Earth." (Full Story)

Also in Albuquerque Business First



New study reports principle for tailored thermal expansion of alloys

A new study by researchers in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University and Los Alamos National Laboratory has led to a new principle to control macroscopic thermal expansion response of bulk materials, including obtaining zero thermal expansion metals.

Currently, researchers rely on manipulation of either the materials' composition and/or complex fabrication of composites to reduce thermal expansion to obtain tailored thermal expansion. (Full Story)



Researchers uncover new origins of radiation-tolerant materials

Scientists study how materials fall apart under irradiation, LANL graphic.

A new report from Los Alamos National Laboratory in Nature Communications provides new insight into what, exactly, makes some complex materials radiation tolerant.

The goal of such projects is to understand at a fundamental level just how materials respond to being irradiated, and how that response depends on fundamental properties of the material, such as its crystal structure and crystal chemistry. (Full Story)



MicroBooNE sees first accelerator-born neutrinos

The MicroBooNE chamber, FermiLab image.

MicroBooNE, a neutrino detector saw its first neutrinos, known as the ghost particles, Oct. 15 in a multi-laboratory experiment at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, near Chicago.

“This is a great day for MicroBooNE, and it brings us closer to addressing the question of sterile neutrinos and short-baseline neutrino oscillations,” said Los Alamos National Laboratory staff member Richard Van de Water, a longtime member of the team. (Full Story)



Northern NM businesses selected for awards

The Regional Development Corp. of EspaƱola is adding to its growing list of businesses it considers likely to add jobs and dynamism to the region’s economy by 2020.

RDC’s partners in this effort include Los Alamos National Security, the company that operates Los Alamos National Laboratory, and other organizations that provide low-cost business services in the Northern New Mexico. (Full Story)


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