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BAM continues
amazing development
A material
that rivals industrial diamond in hardness continues to amaze
the researchers at DOE's Ames
Laboratory who developed it and attract interest from a variety
of industrial sectors. Metallurgist Bruce Cook and fellow researchers
Alan Russell and Joel Harringa expected the alloy of boron, aluminum,
and magnesium (nicknamed "BAM") to perform well as a cutting tool,
but were surprised to find out that the material cuts without
getting hot. Even when the cutting edge is spinning off red-hot
ribbons of lathe-turned stainless steel (somewhere around 700°
C), the tool stays cool enough to touch with a bare fingertip.
[Kerry
Gibson, 515/294-1405,
kgibson@ameslab.gov]
Museum
visitors dig virtual artifacts
"Don't touch" is
a common sign found among priceless artifacts displayed at museums.
But visitors to the Seattle Art Museum this summer were encouraged
to interact with objects found in a Chinese sacrificial burial
plot using a virtual technology developed by DOE's Pacific
Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Washington.
The system uses a gesture-recognition hardware and software
immersive environment developed at PNNL that allows visitors
to explore an archeological site by virtually "brushing" away
or "digging" through dirt to find artifacts. Once artifacts
are exposed, the UW's Augmented Reality Toolkit projects them
onto a screen where visitors interact with them. Industry could
use this technology for human-computer interaction and collaboration,
such as national security, city planning, education and entertainment.
[Staci
Maloof, 509/372-6313,
staci.maloof@pnl.gov]
Nu's from
underground
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| The
first of 486 planes of steel octagons. |
At 5:26 p.m., on
Friday, July 27, half a mile underground in a former Minnesota
iron mine, the MINOS collaboration successfully erected the
first plane of steel for their detector. It's the first plane
of 486 steel octagons that the long-baseline neutrino experiment,
based at DOE's Fermi National
Laboratory, will install. The experiment's goal is to detect
the mass of the neutrino, using a beam created by the NuMI (Neutrinos
at the Main Injector) Project at Fermilab. Late last month,
NuMI/MINOS also unveiled a new website (http://www-numi.fnal.gov:8875/
), useful for keeping up with all the latest nu's.
[Judy Jackson,
630/840-4112,
jjackson@fnal.gov]
Physicists
produce "doubly strange nuclei"
Strange science leaps
ahead at Brookhaven Lab, where
physicists have produced significant numbers of "doubly strange
nuclei"—nuclei containing two strange quarks. The experiment
was done at the Lab's Alternating Gradient Synchrotron, source
of the world's most intense proton beam. Protons colliding with
tungsten produce negatively charged kaons, which, when aimed
at beryllium, occasionally produce nuclei containing a proton,
a neutron, and two lambda particles. These nuclei will help
scientists explore the forces between nuclear particles, particularly
within strange matter, and may contribute to a better understanding
of neutron stars, which are thought to contain large quantities
of strange quarks.
Radiation
study provides unique opportunity
An epidemiological
study that evaluates radiation exposure to residents of a former
Soviet Union community is offering researchers a unique opportunity
similar to Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb survivor studies.
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
scientists are working with others to evaluate radiation exposure
and human health impacts to more than 30,000 people in the Techa
River basin, near the southern Ural Mountains. Accidents and poor
waste disposal practices from plutonium production efforts between
1949 and 1956 exposed individuals living in 39 basin villages
to elevated radiation doses. PNNL researchers are analyzing data
to determine if radiation delivered at low dose rates is equally
responsible for causing cancer and other adverse health effects
as the same doses delivered at high rates.
[Geoff
Harvey, 509/372-6083,
geoffrey.harvey@pnl.gov]
X-rays
etch semiconductor patterns
Argonne
scientists are using X-rays from the Advanced
Photon Source (APS) to cut tiny patterns in semiconductor
material. Researchers use a focused X-ray beam to etch the
semiconductor surfaces in selected areas to produce patterns.
This etching technique could have applications in devices
from cell phones to radar to microwave detectors. Using X-rays
allows the process to be performed at room temperature and
atmospheric pressure. In addition, by tuning the X-ray energy,
researchers can select atoms of one type to ionize, etching
on one material while an adjacent, different material stays
unchanged. Funding for the research comes from DOE's
Office of Basic Energy Sciences.
[Catherine
Foster, 630/252-5580,
cfoster@anl.gov]
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'Well
on way' to 100 trillion
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|
Dr.
David Nowak
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Some
folks can park their computer on their lap, or tuck it into
a briefcase—but not Dr. David Nowak. At Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory in California, his computer
entails 8200 IBM processors (an advanced version of the one
that beat Russian chess champion Garry Kasparov) and nearly
50 miles of high-speed data cables. Fortunately that's not his
only computer. His other one has nearly 6000 processors
and fills more than a basketball court.
What
they lack in portability, the two machines more than compensate
for in speed. Nowak is Livermore Program Leader for the National
Nuclear Security Administration's Accelerated Strategic Computer
Initiative. In July his computers ranked first and fourth among
the world's fastest according to TOP500. They compute at 12.3
and 3.9 trillion operations per second respectively.
For
six years, Dr. Nowak has led Livermore's efforts to introduce
3D, high fidelity physics simulation to the Stockpile Stewardship
Program. He is also a founding member of ASCI, NNSA's ten-year
effort to reach 100-trillion calculations per second by 2005.
That
speed is needed to help scientists maintain the safety and reliability
of our nuclear stockpile by simulating—in three dimensions—the
aging and operation of nuclear weapons in a world without nuclear
testing.
Accurate
computer simulation is essential to retain confidence, as stewardship
of world's most complex arsenal transitions to a new generation
of scientists and engineers that has neither designed nor tested
a nuclear weapon. And Dr. Nowak should know first hand the importance
of that transition. During the Cold War he was a designer of
the B83 and W84 warhead, and led Livermore's X-Ray Laser program.
"We're
well on our way in our race to reach 100-trillion calculations
per second by 2005. And the future challenge we face is just
as steep as the one we've conquered. But given the resources,
I'm confident we can do it," Nowak said.
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