In other news

The Inside the Top-Secret Nuclear Lab at Forefront of Cancer Research news segment on NBC News recently showcased how Los Alamos National Laboratory is using some of its nuclear weapons scientific expertise to battle cancer.

Featured in the piece is Los Alamos physicist Eva Birnbaum, who uses actinium 225, one of a new class of alpha-emitting isotopes, in an effort to destroy cancer cells without hurting healthy tissue.

Los Alamos National Laboratory launched a publicly available YouTube channel in February 2008 that now has more than 1.2 million individual views, with over 1.3 million minutes of video watched and nearly 3,000 subscribers. Many Laboratory YouTube stories have been picked up by major news outlets like National Public Radio, NBC News, Popular Science and others.

Top Five for 2015

• Curiosity ChemCam Finds Silica Rocks (Dec. 16)
• Science in 60 – Antarctic Meteorites (Dec. 7)
• Los Alamos Discovers Super Efficient Solar (Jan. 29)
• Portable MRI developed at Los Alamos (Apr. 21)
• Trinity to Trinity 1945-2015 (July 15)

Some of our all-time most popular videos, in case you missed them

• World Record Magnetic Field 100T
• Roadrunner First to Petaflop
• How DARHT Works
• Super-Secret, Super-Secure Vault
• World's Largest Gold Crystal
• New Rocket Propellant and Motor
• Manhattan Project Historic Sites

The new year ushered in a new set of pueblo governors along with those who remain in office. As part of these changes in leadership, area pueblos also celebrated Reyes Day. Reyes Day is a traditional celebration to publicly present the recently appointed and elected tribal leaders, to recognize the transfer of the treasured Lincoln Canes to new pueblo tribal officials and to honor them. This year’s celebration included traditional dances at the tribal leaders’ homes as well as traditional feasts. 

Seventeen New Mexico women have been honored in a New Mexico Women in Science calendar for their contributions in inspiring young women to pursue careers in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. The honorees hail from a variety of institutions from across the state, including Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The calendars are distributed to New Mexico math and science teachers and their students in the hope that they will further encourage STEM education choices. The calendar’s photos also can be used as more permanent classroom posters.

The Supercomputing Challenge, which is held annually at Los Alamos National Laboratory, is one of the calendar’s main sponsors. For additional information on the calendar or the Supercomputing Challenge, email the Challenge’s Patty Meyer (nmstemcalendar@googlegroups.com).

Teams from regional schools took top honors at the New Mexico Regional Future City Competition held on Jan. 16 at the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History in Albuquerque.

Of the 17 teams who competed at the museum, 2 teams from Turquoise Trail Charter School took home awards in Water Resource Engineering and Innovation, and a team from McCurdy School won an award in Safety Design.   

During the Future City Competition, teams of sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders imagine, research, design and build cities of the future out of recycled materials. This year’s theme was waste management.

The competition was sponsored by Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, the Association of Chinese American Engineers and Scientists and the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History.

The A New Way To Approach Internships: Workforce Development in Los Alamos podcast episode that features Cindy Rooney, interim executive director of the University of New Mexico-Los Alamos (UNM-LA), and Carter Payne, assistant principal of Los Alamos High School (LAHS), has just been released by the Laboratory’s Community Programs Office.

The internship program—titled the Community Internship Collaboration—is built on a recent partnership between UNM-LA, LAHS and the Laboratory’s Community Programs Office. The program provides both high school and college students with real-world work experience in local small businesses during a paid, one-credit internship.

“The entire Los Alamos region will benefit from a program that helps prepare the workforce for the future,” Rooney said.

“The Community Internship Collaboration is a perfect investment for Los Alamos National Security, the company that manages the Laboratory,” Carole Rutten, deputy director of the Laboratory’s Community Programs Office, noted. “It is equal parts education and economic development—two of the three pillars of our Community Commitment Plan.”