Los Alamos

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Site Where World's First A-Bomb Went Off Is About to Get Busy

Officials prep for record turnout at New Mexico test site, open twice a year, thanks to 'Oppenheimer'

(Newser) - Thousands of visitors are expected to descend Saturday on the southern New Mexico site where the world's first atomic bomb was detonated, with officials preparing for a record turnout amid ongoing fanfare surrounding Christopher Nolan's blockbuster film Oppenheimer. Trinity Site, a designated National Historic Landmark, is usually closed...

Teen Wins $250K for Malnutrition- Busting Tool

Inspired by her 3 siblings and an Ethiopian drought, Lillian Peterson aces Regeneron science contest

(Newser) - A high school senior in New Mexico has a bright future in STEM—and it just got much brighter with the announcement she beat out 40 other finalists to win a prestigious science and math competition. NPR reports that 17-year-old Lillian Kay Petersen of Los Alamos has taken home the...

Newly Uncovered Atomic Spy May Have Been Key for Soviets

Newly released files suggested Los Alamos mole turned over important advances

(Newser) - Given the secrecy around the Manhattan Project in the 1940s, American scientists and historians have never been sure how the Soviet Union managed to join the atomic age as early as it did. Four years after the US set off the first atomic bomb, the Soviets detonated a similar one....

'He Handed Them the Formula for the A-Bomb'

Oscar Seborer was part of a family of spies

(Newser) - Three Soviet spies were at Los Alamos during World War II, stealing atomic secrets—that we know. Now the CIA journal Studies in Intelligence reports on Oscar Seborer, a fourth, previously unknown figure who may have "handed" Soviets the A-bomb formula before defecting to the USSR. Born in New...

New Mexico Residents: US Covered Up Atomic Test

Tularosa residents want government to acknowledge what happened in 1945

(Newser) - An unknown blast shook the New Mexico desert on July 16, 1945, unsettling the historic Hispanic village of Tularosa. Residents there didn't learn that scientists from the then-secret city of Los Alamos had successfully detonated the first atomic bomb at the nearby Trinity Site until after the US announced...

Nuke Honcho Who Signed Hiroshima Bomb, Filmed Blast, Dies

Los Alamos director Harold Agnew helped build 75% of US' nuclear stockpile

(Newser) - Harold Agnew, a physicist who helped build the first atomic bomb and served as a director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, died yesterday at his home in Solana Beach, Calif. He was 92. Agnew, who was suffering from chronic lymphocytic leukemia, died while watching football on TV, the AP...

Los Alamos Has Ultra-Secure 'Quantum Internet'

Researchers have been using it for more than 2 years

(Newser) - The concept of a "quantum Internet" is like the holy grail of online security—any such system would guarantee that all communication is safe. Now it appears that researchers at Los Alamos have made real progress: They've been using an uber-secure system of their own design for about...

Worried US Nuke Lab Ditches Chinese Parts

Computer components were made by Huawei-affiliated company

(Newser) - In a national security move, a top US nuclear facility has replaced at least two computer parts after learning that they were Chinese-made. The systems at Los Alamos National Laboratory, which maintains our nuclear weapon stockpile, used some network switches created by China-based H3C; the switches control data flow. H3C...

Los Alamos Officials Still Confident Lab Is Safe

But thousands of experiments remain idle during shutdown

(Newser) - Los Alamos nuclear laboratory officials say it could be a few days before they'll know the extent of how experiments at the facility that created the first atomic bomb have been affected by a shutdown caused by a 125-square-mile wildfire . The lab has been shut down since Monday, when...

Wildfire Races to Los Alamos Plutonium

30,000 drums of spent material stored on grounds

(Newser) - Desperate firefighters scrambled today to keep a raging New Mexico wildfire from thousands of drums of spent plutonium on the grounds of the Los Alamos nuclear weapons facility. The potential danger has already forced the evacuation of the entire town of Los Alamos and the surrounding area. Officials insisted that...

New Mexico Governor: Let's Skip the Fireworks

She makes plea with wildfire near Los Alamos lab

(Newser) - With a wildfire burning up her state and threatening the Los Alamos nuclear lab, Gov. Susana Martinez thinks this would be a terrific year to skip the Fourth of July fireworks. She doesn't have the authority to order a statewide ban, so she's merely making an appeal to...

New Mexico Wildfire Reaches Los Alamos
 Wildfire Reaches Los Alamos 
Jun 28, 2011 2:25 AM CDT

Wildfire Reaches Los Alamos

Blaze on outskirts of lab complex extinguished

(Newser) - A wildfire raging in New Mexico jumped a highway and set fire to an acre at the edge of the Los Alamos National Laboratory property, triggering the evacuation of thousands of nearby residents. The fire, which hit an area once used for underground tests of radioactive explosives, was extinguished safely...

Wildfire Threatens Los Alamos Nuclear Lab

'It's a very, very big concern'

(Newser) - It's not a good day to live near a nuclear facility : In New Mexico, a wildfire is edging dangerously close to the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where the world's first nuclear weapons were developed during WWII. "It's a very, very big concern, not only locally but...

Accused Los Alamos Physicist Now Under House Arrest

Mascheroni charged with trying to get Venezuela nukes

(Newser) - The Los Alamos physicist and his wife accused of trying to peddle nuclear secrets to Venezuela were released to house arrest today, the AP reports. While under the impression that he was in touch with agents of Hugo Chavez's government, Pedro Leonardo Mascheroni is charged with offering to help Venezuela...

Feds: We Won't Nuke Gulf Spill

Nuclear option isn't an option: scientists

(Newser) - The federal government is definitely not considering nuking its way out of the Gulf oil spill crisis, despite some people's belief that it may be the best remaining option, officials said. The Soviet Union has successfully used nuclear blasts to seal off several runaway gas wells, supporters of the nuclear...

Building Explodes in Los Alamos Blunder

$3M damage after cannon test goes awry

(Newser) - Nuclear researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory accidentally blew up part of a building this week while testing a gun that acts like a Civil War cannon, according to documents obtained by the Project on Government Oversight. Nobody was injured in the incident, but sources say the bill for the...

Supercomputers Supercharge Research

Scientists with big questions to benefit more from DOE's two behemoths

(Newser) - It's easier than ever before to get some quality time with one of the most powerful computers on Earth. The Department of Energy has increased the performance of two of its supercomputers more than fivefold, making 900 million processor-hours available to scientists, reports Wired. Expect that boost to lead to...

69 Nuke Lab Computers Missing
 69 Nuke Lab Computers Missing
Feb 12, 2009 3:44 AM CST

69 Nuke Lab Computers Missing

Los Alamos probing thefts; Blackberry lost in 'sensitive foreign country'

(Newser) - The nuclear weapons lab at Los Alamos is trying to find 69 missing computers, including three stolen from a scientist's home and a Blackberry lost in "a sensitive foreign country" in the last two months, reports AP. No classified information was on the computers but they contained names and...

Books Map A-Bomb's Spread
 Books Map A-Bomb's Spread 
Dec 9, 2008 11:49 AM CST

Books Map A-Bomb's Spread

Authors track nations' paths to nuclear club

(Newser) - When it comes to the spread of nuclear weapons, all paths lead back to the US, the New York Times reports in a look at two books. In The Nuclear Express, the authors chart the rise of the world's nine nuclear nations and conclude that "since the birth of...

PlayStation Chip Lifts Military Computer to Record Speeds

Los Alamos, IBM team pass petaflop level

(Newser) - IBM and Los Alamos Laboratory scientists used an amalgam of computer chips, including some designed for use in the PlayStation 3, to blow through one of the computing world’s most pursued milestones—processing more than one thousand trillion calculations per second, reports the New York Times. The petaflop benchmark...

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