News By Location

News from NM

Select a state to view local articles and features

Navajo Tribal Utility Authority brings solar electricity to homes in remote areas

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new solar power initiative of the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority (NTUA) is bringing electricity to the homes of people living in remote areas of the reservation. The Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories provides technical support.

Funder: Navajo Tribal Utility Authority

Summer heat spells lights out, but new power company software might keep nation’s power on

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A recent study headed by Sandia National Laboratories suggests that major power emergencies might be averted if power companies adopt new command and control software that predicts future energy demand rather than simply responds to it. If last year’s power outages are any indication, this summer might bring Y2K-like power failures to large areas of the nation as power companies struggle to meet peak daytime electricity drain prompted by widespread air conditioner use.

Funder: Department of Energy

Sandia develops vertical cavity surface emitting laser that promises to reduce cost of fiber optics connections

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories have developed the first 1.3 micron electrically-pumped vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) grown on gallium arsenide. It promises to reduce the cost of high-speed fiber optics connections.

Summer heat spells lights out, but new power company software might keep nation’s power on

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A recent study headed by Sandia National Labs suggests that major power emergencies like statewide conservation alerts in California might be averted if power companies adopt new software that predicts future energy demand rather than simply responds to it. DOE Secretary Bill Richardson has warned that summer might bring power failures to large areas of the nation as power companies struggle to meet peak daytime electricity drain prompted by widespread air conditioner use.

Funder: Department of Energy

Could have stopped the I-Love-You virus: Intelligent agents challenge computer intruders

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

An intelligent software agent able to defend itself on the Worldwide Web has been created at Sandia National Laboratories."If every node on the Internet was run by one of these agents, the I-Love-You virus would not have got beyond the first machine," says lead scientist. A cyberagent coalition successfully protected five network-linked computers over two days of attack from an expert hacker group, also at Sandia, that tests defenses of government and corporate computer systems.

Funder: DOE, Sandia National Laboratories Laboratory-Directed Research and Development

New deployable thin-film, ultralight mirror may be future of space telescopes and surveillance satellites

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers at the Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratories and the University of Kentucky are developing enabling technologies for a new thin-film, ultralight deployable mirror that may be the future of space telescopes and surveillance satellites.

Molecules with attitude, ready to perform: Functioning nanostructures self-assemble out of ink

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

An intelligent ink, as it dries, self-assembles into nanscopic caves in which it interrogates gasses, fluids, light, or electric or magnetic fields passing through it. Because the ink can be printed easily and cheaply from ordinary inkjet printers or even written by lithographic pens, the achievement should be of practical importance for those wishing to directly write -- rather than mechanically construct -- sensor arrays and fluidic or photonic systems

Journal: Nature
Funder: DOD, DOE, Sandia Laboratory-Directed Research and Development

Possible outpatient relief for millions of older men: MD researcher develops improved technology to shrink enlarged prostate glands without surgery

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Millions of older men who suffer from urinary obstruction and associated pain caused by an enlarged prostate gland could benefit from new treatment technology developed by a senior scientist MD .The method should have several advantages over existing ones -- it could be done on an outpatient basis,a single treatment should have long-lasting benefits (perhaps for the life of the BPH patient), and side effects should be almost nil from the minimally invasive technique

Funder: Laboratory-Directed Research and Development Office of Sandia National Laboratories

How to identify a new killer virus or West Nile fever: Epidemic outbreaks, biological attacks detectable by simple electronic reporting method

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In a Hollywood-style biological attack, Bruce Willis or, perhaps, George Clooney would be expected to render a killer virus harmless in 90 minutes. Because happy endings in real life are less certain, a pilot program to help doctors identify and contain disease outbreaks has begun at Sandia Labs. The program, operational this summer, should quickly identify diseases terrorist in origin, and help doctors more quickly identify and treat natural outbreaks of disease.

Funder: US Department of Energy

Why, in Superbowl of statistical mechanics, famous players could never cross goal line: 3-D proof for Ising model impossible, researcher proves

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The best-studied model in science to discuss a wide variety of changes in state (neural networking, protein folding, flocking birds, beating heart cells, questions of economics) is the Ising Model. The widely used model has been used in one, two and three dimensions, but only proven in one and two. Now a computational biologist has shown that the model's solution cannot be extended into 3-D, exact solutions can never be found, so the model may ultimately be incorrect.

Funder: US Department of Energy