DOE/LANL Jurisdiction Fire Danger Rating:
  1. LANL Home
  2. media
  3. news
April 22, 2025

Can we forecast viral outbreaks like we forecast the weather?

2025-03-22
Workers collect a wastewater sample at the Bioscience Lab Office, Operations, and Management building in Los Alamos.

Early warnings allow us to prepare for the unpredictable. We are notified when the weather turns ugly, if there’s a traffic jam on the drive to work, or if the airport changes our departure gate. But one of the most widespread, unpredictable moments everyone will experience is sickness—even if it’s only the common cold—and yet, we have practically no early-warning system to alert us as a virus spreads through the community.

We’ve all learned how to help keep illness at bay: washing hands more frequently or choosing to stay home. But knowing when to take these precautions requires forewarning, which is why Los Alamos National Laboratory is developing technologies that could alert a state, a city, even a specific airport, of disease outbreak.

Read the column.

Contact

Media Relations | media_relations@lanl.gov

Related Topics
  • Science, Technology & Engineering

Share

Explore More Topics
About the LabArtificial IntelligenceAwards and RecognitionsCommunityComputingEnergyHistoryOperationsScience, Technology & EngineeringSpaceWeapons

More Stories

All News
2026-05-06

Scientists map the shape of RNA that can shut down genes

Understanding the ‘dark matter of the genome’ could help develop therapeutic medical advances

2026-04-21

NASA’s Curiosity Rover finds more evidence of ancient lakes on Mars

The findings shed new light on the potential for past life

2026-04-16

Los Alamos leads research in versatile quantum computing

Innovative experiments demonstrate valuable capabilities for quantum annealing machines

2026-04-16

Meet URSA: The AI agent transforming how science gets done

AI framework is built to bring AI into the heart of scientific discovery

2026-04-13

Mapping Earth’s hidden hydrogen for energy dominance

A recent study examines the vast potential of subsurface hydrogen

2026-04-09

Researchers show some quantum learning models are classically simulable

Fix for quantum ‘curse of dimensionality’ may mitigate advantage versus classical computing

Subscribe to our Newsletter

Sign up to receive the latest news and feature stories from Los Alamos National Laboratory