Latest Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Stories

KNOXVILLE, Tenn., June 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Brian Wirth, an authority in the ways materials behave in extreme environments, has been named the ninth University of Tennessee-Oak Ridge National Laboratory Governor's Chair. Wirth is currently an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley, which he joined in 2002 following several years as a materials scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Wirth leads a number of research projects funded by various U.S....

Purdue University researchers, working with high-performance computing experts at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, have created an automated program to "debug" simulations used to more efficiently certify the nation's nuclear weapons.The program, called AutomaDeD (pronounced like automated), finds errors in computer code for complex "parallel" programs."The simulations take several weeks to run, and then they have to be debugged to correct errors in the...

In a large natural disaster, such as the Haitian earthquake earlier this year, or in an unsolved homicide case, knowing the birth date of an individual can guide forensic investigators to the correct identity among a large number of possible victims.Livermore researcher Bruce Buchholz and colleagues at the Karolinska Institute are looking at victim's teeth to determine how old they are at the time of death.Using the Lawrence Livermore's Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, Buchholz...

LIVERMORE, Calif., May 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and VeriTainer Corporation have entered into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA). The CRADA will be used to refine and enhance VeriTainer's patented crane mounted scanning (CMS) technology. The CRADA will be in place for three-and-a-half years and require approximately $4 million in funding. LLNL will work in cooperation with VeriTainer's scientists and engineers to enhance both...

A giant laser -- the size of three football fields -- is being used by scientists at a government lab in California to possibly set off a nuclear reaction so intense that it will make a star bloom on the surface of the Earth, according to a recent CNN report. The scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory want to create a sun on the ground that seems like a science fiction fantasy straight from Hollywood. But the experiment is for real, and the National Ignition Facility will be...

TEWKSBURY, Mass., April 26, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) has awarded Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) a $20.5 million contract to research and develop an automated system for the standoff detection and identification of shielded special nuclear material. The Integrated Standoff Inspection System, or ISIS, is an active interrogation nuclear radiation detection system that will provide the government with an accurate and reliable inspection system that is fully...

Though comets are thought to be some of the oldest, most primitive bodies in the solar system, new research on comet Wild 2 indicates that inner solar system material was transported to the comet-forming region at least 1.7 million years after the formation of the oldest solar system solids.The research by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists and colleagues provides the first constraint on the age of cometary material from a known comet. The findings were published in the Feb. 25...

Special LaserFest seminar held in San DiegoAs part of LaserFest, the year-long celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first working laser, the Optical Society (OSA) and the American Physical Society (APS) sponsored a special day-long seminar on the birth, growth and future developments in laser science and technology at the 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting. The seminar, titled "The History and Future of Laser Technology," took place...

Most people know that diamond is one of the hardest solids on Earth, so strong that it can easily cut through glass and steel.Surprisingly, very little is known about the strength of diamond at extreme conditions. But new research by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists shows that diamond becomes even stronger during rapid compression.Using the Janus laser at LLNL and the Omega laser at the University of Rochester, Livermore scientists and Rochester and UC Berkeley colleagues...

Leafy greens can prevent the ill-effects of toxins in foods like peanut butterThe age old reminder to always eat your greens isn't just for kids anymore.Not only are the vitamins and minerals good for you, but eating greens could also save your life, according to a recent study involving scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL).LLNL researchers Graham Bench and Ken Turteltaub found that giving someone a small dose of chlorophyll (Chla) or chlorophyllin (CHL) "” found in...