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Sandia's Tiny Acoustic Wave Sensors Will Detect Minute Traces Of Dangerous Chemicals

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Minute acoustic wave chemical sensors being developed at the U.S. Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratories will in the next two years be part of a hand-held chemical detection system, commonly called "chem lab on a chip," and other integrated microsensor systems. The microsensors are each about the size of a grain of rice.

Funder: US Department of Energy

Some, Like Russian Dolls, Fit Inside Each Other: Self-Assembled Nanospheres May Be Helpful Against Disease Or Terrorism, Or As Fillers And Coatings

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Self-assembling nanospheres that fit inside each other like Russian dolls are one form of a broad range of nanospheres created in the past 12 months at Sandia National Laboratories. The achievements, which have medical, industrial and military potential, demonstrate unprecedented control over organic and inorganic nanoscale self-assemblies and represent a major step forward in control of these techniques.

Journal: Nature
Funder: National Science Foundation, US Department of Energy

Device To Safely Examine Insides Of Package Bombs

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Sandia has developed a technique to determine if stray packages contain bombs. This means police will not have to routinely evacuate an area and blow up ownerless packages. A remotely controlled, motorized cart will roll an X-ray device to the scene. A picture formed from reflected X-rays will be transmitted to the distant operator.

Funder: Department of Energy; Sandia's Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program

Sandia Decontamination Foam May Be Tomorrow's Best First Response In A Chem-Bio Attack

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories have created a foam that begins neutralizing both chemical and biological agents in minutes. Because it is not harmful to people, it could be dispensed on the disaster scene immediately, even before casualties are evacuated. Its developers think the decontaminating foam soon may be the best first response available in the event of a chem-bio attack.

Funder: Department of Energy

Protein Adultery Revealed!: Mechanism Of Protein Folding Captured In Computer Simulation

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Protein misfolding is a cause of Alzheimer's,"mad cow" disease, and could figure in biowarfare. Now the first robust computer model of one protein interfering with the folding of another has been created at Sandia. The model provides insights into the mechanisms by which incomplete folds occur, in order to prevent them, and is a first step in successful protein engineering.

Journal: Journal of Computational Biology
Funder: Department of Energy

Robocasting: Sandia Develops New Way To Fabricate Ceramics

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

An engineer at Sandia National Laboratories has developed a new way to fabricate ceramics that requires no molds or machining. Called robocasting, it relies on robotics for computer-controlled deposition of ceramic slurries — mixtures of ceramic powder, water, and trace amounts of chemical modifers — through a syringe.

Architecture Program Aims To Make Buildings More Resistant To Terrorism And Catastrophes

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

When disaster strikes, people evacuate. That’s because the structures that normally protect us — buildings, bridges, dams, and tunnels — are often the most dangerous places to be during catastrophes like hurricanes, earthquakes, industrial accidents, or terrorist attacks. Rudy Matalucci, a civil engineer at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., wants people to feel compelled to run into buildings rather than out of them during emergencies.

Funder: US Department of Energy

AAAS Symposium Asks, "Will New Accountability Requirements Hinder Scientific Advance?"

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Meeting Announcement

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- A panel of scientists and research program evaluators will address the national science policy issue, "How Will New Accountability Requirements Affect the Environment for Research?" at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science on Saturday morning, January 23.

Meeting: AAAS 1999 Annual Meeting

Weather On Tiny Pacific Island May Hold Clues To Global Climate Change

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A team of researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s national laboratories in New Mexico traveled 6,500 miles recently to a remote Pacific island to better understand, in part, why the American Southwest is having such a warm, dry winter and why the Great Lakes states are getting so much snow. The scientists took with them an atmospheric measurement station built and tested at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque.

Funder: US Department of Energy

Sandia Photonic Crystal Confines Optical Light: 'Very Important Work,' Says Physics Nobel Iaureate

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Sandia researchers achieved a 10-year dream of the world's laboratories by confining light in an artifical crystal that appears to be fabricated of microscopic Lincoln logs. The silicon device is the smallest, most efficient and economical ever created for optical telecommunications.

Journal: Optics Letters
Funder: US Department of Energy; Sandia Laboratory-Directed Research and Development Office