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Physical and Life Sciences
LLNL's Saturday lectures explore cutting edge science
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's popular lecture series, "Science on Saturday," returns Jan. 26 and runs through Feb. 23. This year's talks cover a wide range of current topics including detecting pathogen DNA; the Lab's technologies used on NASA's NuSTAR Mission; the next generation medical diagnostic devices; and biofuels -- the new energy from ancient life.The…
Meteorite made up of rare early solar system material
It looked like a fireball in the sky. It created a sonic boom. It vaporized upon entering the atmosphere. It's all of the above: The Sutter's Mill Meteorite had the force of 4 kilotons of TNT upon descent and spilled samples of itself over the towns of Columa and Lotus in northern California when it hit Earth last spring. And now a consortium of scientists including…
DOE launches rare earth metals research hub
The Department of Energy has launched a research hub that focuses on solutions to the domestic shortages of rare earth metals and other materials critical for U.S. energy security. Housed at Ames Laboratory in Iowa, Lawrence Livermore has been involved in establishing this Energy Innovation Hub since its conception more than two years ago. In 2010, on behalf of DOE, LLNL…
Oxygen to the core
LIVERMORE, Calif. -- An international collaboration including researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has discovered that the Earth's core formed under more oxidizing conditions than previously proposed. Through a series of laser-heated diamond anvil cell experiments at high pressure (350,000 to 700,000 atmospheres of pressure) and temperatures (5,120 to 7…
CAMS used to determine biological effects of silica nanoparticles
In a study published in a recent edition of Nano Letters , the Laboratory's Mike Malfatti, Heather Palko, Ed Kuhn and Ken Turteltaub report on accelerator mass spectrometry measurements used to investigate the relationship between administered dose, pharmacokinetics (PK), and long-term biodistribution of carbon 14-labeled silica nanopartocles in vivo .The increasing use of…
Lab research team solves condensed matter physics puzzle
Led by LLNL scientist Magnus Lipp and former LLNL scientist Joseph Bradley, researchers at the Lab, the University of Washington, Stanford and the Carnegie Institute have answered a longstanding, much debated question in condensed matter physics. The question has to do with the rare earth element cerium (Ce), which undergoes a surprising, large isostructural volume…
Laboratory partners with North Dakota State University in energy research
The Laboratory has partnered with North Dakota State University (NDSU) to collaborate on research and development projects involving computational-based modeling and simulation for energy and energy-related applications. NDSU President Dean Bresciani and LLNL Director Parney Albright finalized the agreement at a signing ceremony at NDSU on Dec. 14. Collaboration between…
Plutonium at 150 years
The article below presents a summary of ongoing work at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The work is to assess how radioactive decay in plutonium affects its material properties as they relate to the performance of nuclear weapons. This work is a continuation of the joint plutonium aging study done by Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National laboratories. That…
X-ray laser takes aim at cosmic mystery
An international collaboration including researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has refined a key process in understanding extreme plasmas such as those found in the sun, stars, at the rims of black holes and galaxy clusters. In short, the team identified a new solution to an astrophysical phenomenon through a series of laser experiments. In the new…
Science Express article describes new clues to planetary evolution
A new understanding of planetary evolution could emerge from studies of the behavior of magnesium oxide under high pressures and temperatures, such as those found in the interior of Earth and Earth-like planets. In an article recently published by Science Express , a team of UC Berkeley and LLNL researchers, led by former LLNL researcher Stewart McWilliams, now of the…
LLNL to work with Interior Department on underground coal gasification
LLNL's Underground Coal Gasification (UCG) Program has received a two-year research grant to study water-quality hazard mitigation strategies from the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE). OSMRE is a Department of the Interior bureau charged with ensuring the public and the environment are protected during and after coal mining operations. In recent…
A human-caused climate change signal emerges from the noise
LIVERMORE, Calif. -- By comparing simulations from 20 different computer models to satellite observations, Lawrence Livermore climate scientists and colleagues from 16 other organizations have found that tropospheric and stratospheric temperature changes are clearly related to human activities. See simulation (.mov) The team looked at geographical patterns of atmospheric…
NARAC to more quickly predict haz mat releases
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) on Monday announced that it recently sponsored the installation of a 336-processor computing cluster at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) National Atmospheric Release Advisory Center (NARAC). This new cluster allows consequences predictions for hazardous material releases to be completed approximately 50…
LLNL scientists assist in building detector to search for elusive dark matter material
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers are making key contributions to a physics experiment that will look for one of nature's most elusive particles, "dark matter," using a tank nearly a mile underground beneath the Black Hills of South Dakota. The Large Underground Xenon (LUX) experiment located at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, S.D. is…
Have you met LEXI?
LEXI is a new robot at work in the firing tanks of the Lab's High Explosives Applications Facility (HEAF) and the work that's done there for the National Explosives Engineering Sciences Security (NEXESS) Center. The tri-lab program is funded by the Department of Homeland Security to assess threats from explosives and to evaluate countermeasures. See the video . NEXESS was…
Ocean salinity trends show human fingerprint
Changes in ocean salinity over the second half of the 20th century are consistent with changes driven by human activities and are inconsistent with natural climate variations, according to a new study by Laboratory researchers. Observed salinity changes agree with what computer models have suggested would happen to salinity patterns in a warming world, said Scripps climate…
Milky Way's black hole getting ready for snack
Get ready for a fascinating eating experience in the center of our galaxy.The event involves a black hole that may devour much of an approaching cloud of dust and gas known as G2.A supercomputer simulation prepared by two Lab physicists and a former postdoc suggests that some of G2 will survive, although its surviving mass will be torn apart, leaving it with a different…
New military apparel repels chemical and biological agents
LIVERMORE, Calif. -- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists and collaborators are developing a new military uniform material that repels chemical and biological agents using a novel carbon nanotube fabric. The material will be designed to undergo a rapid transition from a breathable state to a protective state. The highly breathable membranes would have pores…
Dick Post receives Lifetime Achievement Award
One of the Laboratory's early phone books, in December 1952, listed about 250 employees, including a newly-transferred physicist named Dick Post. At the time, Harry Truman was the nation's president and Herb York was the director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Eleven presidents have come and gone, and 10 LLNL directors have come and gone, but Dick Post has…
Cold cases heat up through Lawrence Livermore approach to identifying remains
LIVERMORE, Calif. -- In an effort to identify the thousands of John/Jane Doe cold cases in the United States, a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researcher and a team of international collaborators have found a multidisciplinary approach to identifying the remains of missing persons. Using "bomb pulse" radiocarbon analysis developed at Lawrence Livermore, combined…
