Science Highlights 2015
Science Highlights feature awards and noteworthy scientific achievements at Los Alamos National Laboratory
! Click on an issue date to see the Science Highlight headlines and link to the articles.
January 7
- David Andersson recognized for excellence in advancing nuclear fuels models and simulations
- Fryer, Funsten, Gordon, Kiplinger, and Moore named Laboratory Fellows
- Toni Taylor joins American Physical Society Panel
- Kristin Omberg leads American Chemical Society’s fiscal committee
- Rare multinuclear thorium complexes synthesized
- Los Alamos employees volunteer in local schools for Hour of Code
- Global disease monitoring and forecasting with Wikipedia
- Strength of microscopic magnetic interactions for emergent phenomena measured
- Method to direct embedding of polycrystal plasticity in multiscale materials models
- “Surprising discrepancy” discovered in temperature of shocked aerogel foam
January 21
- Batista, Boshier, Dattelbaum, Doorn, Espy, Rodriguez, Saxena, Tretiak, Yin named APS Fellows
- Understanding how plants have resistance to fungus
- Scientists support Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty field inspection exercise
- Using ultrashort optical pulses to control magnetoelectric materials
- Ion beam analysis textbook published
- Experiments on the head-on merging of supersonic plasma jets
February 4
- Los Alamos simulation project is a finalist in ANSYS Hall of Fame competition
- Phenix software enables 3-D studies of “molecular machines”e
- Correlation between climate and wildfires during an extreme drought
- LANSCE resumes 120-Hz operations
- Mapping multiple quantum transitions in the antiferromagnet CeRhIn5
- A quantification and certification paradigm for additively manufactured materials
- First beryllium capsule experiment successfully completed on world’s largest laser
- Research Library investigates “reference rot” on the web
February 18
- Seminal paper on materials modeling receives 1,000 citations
- High quality sequencing from smaller samples
- Novel sample introduction system developed for material-at-risk (MAR) reduction
- Assessing the efficiency of in-situ recovery of uranium mining
- LANSCE School on Neutron Scattering morning lectures open to all employees
- Novel crystal growth technique developed for high efficiency perovskite solar cells
- Prototype gamma ray imaging microscope tested at Duke University
- Modeling ocean mixing
March 4
- Sullivan Graham receives award and donates scholarships to Milenski and Brown
- Manard appointed Parliamentarian to the Society for Applied Spectroscopy
- LANL helps BioRisk Management and Genomics Training Divisions open in Jordan
- Call for Nuclear Forensics Undergraduate Summer School applications
- Combined capabilities reveal how trees transport water
- Ultracold Neutron Source at LANSCE enables new experiments Los Alamos researchers employ capabilities at the Los Alamos Neutron
- Accessing optoelectronic properties in atomic layered semiconducting materials
- Scientists examine a surrogate for PuO2 in nuclear fuel studies
- Modeling quasi-brittle damage behavior in metals
April 1
- George “Rusty” Gray’s accomplishments recognized at TMS honorary symposium
- Gia-Wei Chern and Xuedan Ma receive Postdoc Distinguished Performance Awards
- T. Leitner, S. Tretiak, and B. Uberuaga win Postdoc Distinguished Mentor Awards
- Developing a novel means to detect traumatic brain injury
- A new approach to trap atoms and molecules
- Opportunities and challenges for supercritical CO2 as a fracturing fluid
- Computational and experimental approaches examine tuning of magnetic materials
- Discovery of surprisingly mobile defects in face-centered cubic metals
- Illuminating the origin of the nucleon spin
- Neutron surface scattering studies important aspects of actinide surface chemistry
April 15
- George “Rusty” Gray chairs National Academy of Sciences panel
- Ludmil Alexandrov receives Harold M. Weintraub Award
- Ricardo Mejia-Alvarez honored as outstanding young alumni
- Kathy Prestridge to serve on editorial advisory board of fluid dynamics journal
- Discovery of genotoxic mechanisms of PAH-induced immunotoxicity
- Ethernet Backbone enables high performance computing infrastructure
- Direct metal laser sintering machine supports additive manufacturing
- Numerical methods reduce spurious mixing in a LANL ocean model
- Magnetic measurements detect hydrogen contaminants in plutonium
- Magnetic fields hold the heat for inertial confinement fusion
- Developing the optics required for high-energy x-ray light sources
April 29
- Ellen Cerreta joins ASM Board of Trustees
- Panayotis Kevkrekidis serves as Stanislaw M. Ulam Distinguished Scholar
- Edwin Fohtung named 2015 Rosen Scholar
- Kathy Prestridge expands APS diversity goals for women in physics
- Infrastructure upgrades support LANL’s newest supercomputer, Trinity
- Signatures indicating chemical changes in U3O8 for forensic applications
- Locating sources of natural and anthropogenic infrasound events
- ¬Valence fluctuations trigger superconductivity in a plutonium compound
May 13
- Steven Girrens and Daniel Livescu elected ASME Fellows
- Brian Williams named American Statistical Association Fellow
- Christopher Lee chosen for DOE Office of Science Early Career Award
- Conference celebrates 20 years of quantum dots at Los Alamos
- Performance modeling of a temperature accelerated molecular dynamics (AMD) code
- Multi-Year Underground Nuclear Explosion Signatures Experiment Project launched
- Analytical models evaluate the costs of reliability in fast storage tiers
- Shining light on the exotic hidden order phase in a uranium compound
- Neutron diffraction studies of high explosive powder during compaction
- Lab’s muon imaging system going live at Fukushima Daiichi
- Neutron scattering of pore morphology in shale reveals pore structure and gas behavior
May 27
- Eric Doors and Christopher Fryer win E. O. Lawrence awards
- Daekyoung Kang receives Baekchun award
- James Wendelberger elected chair of an American Statistical Association section
- Function discovery platform for transcriptional regulators
- New data transfer system released for the Turquoise Network
- Radiation effects on polymers
- Next Generation Ecosystem Experiment Arctic Project yields new publications
- Neutron scattering studies the response of polymer films to high mechanical stresses
- Oxygen-deficient BaTiO3-x as an efficient bifunctional oxygen electrocatalyst
- Rapid heating of materials beyond 10,000 K
- First in situ x-ray diffraction of explosives during impact at the Advanced Photon Source
- Understanding how HIV infection can be controlled without drug therapy
June 24
- Eric Flynn chosen for the Achenbach Medal
- Jeffrey Hyman honored with Fraunhofer Award
- Eda Aydogan and M. Arul Kumar receive TMS poster awards
- Lujan Center proposal call for upcoming run cycle
- Direct current (DC) arc for the analysis of actinide materials
- Jumpstarting commercial-scale CO2 capture and storage
- Sequencing and bioinformatics Training at Los Alamos
- LANSCE School on Neutron Scattering opens the mesoscale world to students
- Laboratory demonstrates extreme scale indexing for large-scale data analysis
- Interface engineering enables a path forward for magnetoelectric multiferroics
- Using neutrons to predict the lifetime of bridges
- Recent LANSCE run cycle was one of the most prolific for NNSA research
- Additively manufactured U6Nb heat-treated in situ in SMARTS
- Collective transport properties of driven skyrmions with random disorder
June 28
- James Boncella named Fellow of the American Chemical Society
- Michael Hamada elected as a Fellow of the American Society for Quality
- Snelson, Viswanathan, and Wohletz named Geological Society of America Fellows
- Stacy Copp receives University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship
- Albright, Fernandes, Freeman, Losko, Rieck, Yang win Lab’s Science in “3” Awards
- First synthesis and characterization of the actinium aquo ion
- Method reduces computational cost to characterize subsurface geologic heterogeneity
- Advanced lasers simulate extreme environment of icy satellite impacts
- Ra’anan Tobey named Rosen Scholar
- Synthetic shape tuning controls blinking suppression for two colors in “seeded” tetrapods
- Study of damage in gallium-stabilized δ-plutonium stored at cryogenic temperatures
- Muon detector developed for subsurface borehole imaging
- HIV persists in macrophages during antiretroviral therapy
July 8
- Benno Schoenborn chosen for Bau Neutron Award
- John Bliss named Fellow of the Health Physics Society
- Claudia Mora selected to lead the American Geological Society
- Plasma spray system enables coating full-sized fuel rods
- First tests of thermal-neutron-induced semiconductor failures
- Chemistry researchers to assist NM Algae LLC
- New design principles boost performance of solar cells
- Neutron spectra measurements obtain uranium-235 data in previously unexplored region
- New spectrometer enables advances in high energy density physics research
- Simulating helium bubble behavior in fusion reactors
July 22
- Kathy Prestridge named APS’s Woman Physicist of the Month
- Sherri Bingert receives ASTM International Award of Merit
- Study of the Burkholderia pseudomallei genome examines differential virulence
- Characterization of products from the hydrolysis of uranium hexafluoride
- Subsurface Technology and Engineering Crosscut tackles energy grand challenge
- Doped nanotubes open a new path toward quantum information technologies
- Z Machine cylindrical compression experiments on depleted uranium
- Automatic alignment of multiple magnets into a Halbach cylinder
- Vertical Shock Tube experiments drive understanding of unsteady turbulence
- Magnetic reconnection: a powerful cosmic particle accelerator
August 5
- Darleane Hoffman and Wojciech Zurek receive Los Alamos Medals
- Combined crystallographic and NMR studies of carbonic anhydrase
- Model evaluates heat-generating nuclear waste disposal in bedded salt formations
- Predicting space weather and protecting satellite hardware
- Neutron scattering showcased as Editor’s Pick in special Biointerphases issue
- Ion implantation enables synthesis of layer-tunable graphene
- Measuring the anisotropy in uranium-235 fission
- Ultrafast laser driven shocks allow observation of initial chemistry behind a shock front
August 19
- President of Poland awards Piotr Zelenay National Professorship In Chemistry
- Carlos Tomé selected for plasticity research medal
- Hai Ah Nam to chair Supercomputing Conference Student Cluster Competition
- Fidler, Hernandez, Meyers, Stier, Yablinski win Postdoc Research Day Awards
- GOTTCHA bioinformatics tool developed for metagenome investigation
- Novel processing techniques for post-nuclear detonation debris analysis
- African Technopolitan Magazine features article by Giday WoldeGabriel
- Curiosity spots possible continental crust on Mars
- Mixed-material steady shock experiments at Omega Extended Performance Laser Facility
- PHELIX at pRad enhances movie-making of materials in extreme environments
September 2
- New chelating agents for bismuth isotopes developed for cancer therapy
- Isotopic signals of nitrate sources in tundra soils and permafrost
- Nuclear Safeguards and Security Summer School trains the next generation of experts
- Long-lived electron spin relaxation and spin coherence in atomically-thin semiconductors
- Implementing statistics to examine x-ray computed tomography data of polymer foams
- Lab participates in three DOE Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy studies
- Rare noncoding point mutations associated with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder
September 16
- Dee Magnoni elected to presidential succession of the Special Libraries Association
- Highly efficient solar concentrators developed using nontoxic quantum dots
- Researchers provide expertise for Bradbury Science Museum exhibit
- Scientists teach short course on fuel cells
- Trinity-Haswell High Performance Computing System delivered to LANL
- Hybrid ultrasmall gold nanocluster developed for enzymatic fuel cells
- LANL makes depleted uranium targets for NNSA Global Threat Reduction Initiative
- Inaugural issue of Journal of Dynamic Behavior of Materials published
- Emil Mottola presents gravastar concept at the Hawking Radiation Conference
- Young, Jupiter-like planet discovered
September 30
- Albert Migliori selected for Keithley Award
- Yang, Cattaneo, and Mascareñas win Best Paper Award
- Using lichens to detect plutonium and neptunium
- Mixed fossil and biofuel aerosols in the UK enhance light absorption
- LANSCE User Group solicits input on neutron science needs
- Discovery of novel topological states
- Radiation-induced spectroscopic changes in Parylene-C
- Reducing the uncertainty of backgrounds for Chi-Nu fission measurements
- Advanced lasers examine extreme environment of a meteorite impact
- Town Hall meetings to refresh Materials Strategy
October 15
- American Physical Society names new Fellows
- Developing longer-lived isotopes for medical diagnostics
- 2012 Sumatra Earthquake triggers elastic response in Japan
- Automating x-ray imaging applications with robotics
- High-speed fiber Bragg grating measurement of extreme material dynamics
- Ben Morrow featured in young professional spotlight article
- MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR begins search for neutrinoless beta decay
- Modeling alternate ideas for an HIV Vaccine
October 29
- Michele DeCroix receives award from Department of Homeland Security
- Harp, Holesinger, and Myers honored for NMBSA “Success Stories”
- Climate change impact on arid biological crust communities
- Tree mortality and forest die-off from droughts
- MXRF provides improved elemental analysis capabilities
- Thermal ionization mass spectrometry for actinides
- Mini-CAPTAIN snags first ionization track
- Functional nanomaterials featured in materials journal
- Enriched uranium pellets fabricated for test irradiations of accident-tolerant nuclear fuels
- Nanoscale, multidimensional artificial magnet created
November 25
- Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics recognizes neutrino research
- Yu-Miin Sheu and Brad Ramshaw receive LANL Postdoctoral Publication Prize
- Carl Gable co-authors National Academy of Sciences report
- Tunable riboregulator switches for post-translational control of gene expression
- Harshini Mukundan co-edits book on mycobacterial diseases
- Impact of the loss of large mammalian herbivores on the global methane cycle
- Fuel cell team receives DOE funding for R&D project
- Uranium-niobium experiments validate models for aging degradation and material processing
- Synchrotron 3-D imaging during uniaxial loading experiments sheds light on material damage
- Behavior of amorphous materials under high strain
December 23
- Carlos Tomé wins Cyril Stanley Smith Award for materials research
- James Boncella named Bartlett Lecturer at the University of California - Berkeley
- Nuclear Testing Limitations Team receives accolades
- John Gordon selected to serve on journal’s International Advisory Board
- Los Alamos Northern New Mexico IEEE Section wins two excellence awards
- Sequence and transcriptome analysis of microalga reveal potential applications
- When two neutron stars merge
- Experiments reveal possibility of polaronic Bose-Einstein condensates in UO2(+x)
- Origins of radiation tolerance in complex materials
- TRIDENT experiments measure imprint of rippled shocks in solid metal
- Key development for implementing the next generation of high brightness x-ray sources
