Fire danger: High
Astrophysics student reaching for the stars
An astrophysics student at the Laboratory
has been awarded the highest academic youth honor for the nation
of Mexico for his studies of cosmic gamma ray bursts. Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz
of Space and Remote Sensing Sciences (NIS-2) recently traveled
to the home of President Ernesto Zedillo to receive the Premio
Nacional de la Juventud -- Rama Academica from the president.
Lab Director John Browne said, "Los Alamos National Laboratory prides itself on its population of world-class scientists in a variety of fields. And in the case of Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz, that description applies even before he starts on his first graduate degree."
As the top candidate of 8,000 applicants in the science field, Ramirez-Ruiz won a medal and $7,000 cash prize, as well as a second medal for having been the sole unanimous choice of the selection panel.
A student of astrophysicist and Laboratory Fellow Edward Fenimore, Ramirez-Ruiz has authored several scholarly papers and discoveries in astrophysics, specifically in the study of gamma-ray bursts, the largest cosmic explosions since the Big Bang. These titanic explosions flood the entire universe with gamma rays, and they are the brightest objects in the universe -- many of them gleaming 1,000 times brighter than a supernova.
Among the conclusions Ramirez-Ruiz has reached is that the random flickering characteristic of gamma-ray bursts is the same at the end of the burst as at the beginning, despite that the burst's source should have used up much of its energy by the end of the event.
Another of his papers analyzed how the bulk-motion energy dissipates. As Ramirez-Ruiz explains, a substantial energy reservoir must power gamma ray bursts, and several theories suggest merging massive objects such as neutron stars and black holes are the source of the energy.
Observing very high-energy photons produced during the brief bursts gives researchers information about the interior structure of the bursts. Ramirez-Ruiz's interpretation is that the bursts of energy are carried on a set of thin spherical layers (rather like the layers of an onion); and these layers are moving at a speed very close to the speed of light. Current models don't explain where all this relativistic energy goes, and the Los Alamos student and his mentor have come up with a model that accounts for almost all this energy.
Ramirez-Ruiz next will be presenting a paper on "Filling Factors: A Hubble Relationship for Gamma-Ray Bursts" at the Gamma Ray Burst Symposium conference October 19-22, 1999, in Huntsville, Ala., where he is among the few undergraduates ever invited to present a paper.
Ramirez-Ruiz is the son of two University of Mexico chemistry professors. While winning the youth prize from his home country is his highest achievement so far, academic acclaim is not new to the young scientist: He came to Los Alamos after winning the prestigious 1997 Leon Lederman Award as an undergraduate science student at the University of Mexico in Mexico City. Subsequently, he won the Gabino Barreda award at the university for the best overall grade point average in physics and a scholarship awarded by the Nonproliferation and International Security (NIS) Division.
"I'm not the type of person to do things just to win awards, but my mother encouraged me to put my papers in for consideration . . . and now everything's going so fast," he said.
He said Fenimore has helped him handle the pressure. "Meeting people like Ed has been wonderful. He has guided me in terms of career decisions and in my life overall," Ramirez-Ruiz said.
Fenimore, for his part, notes that his experience in developing students such as Ramirez-Ruiz has been extremely positive. "These undergraduate students can do incredible things, and have a real scientific impact if given the opportunity."
This fall, Ramirez-Ruiz will start his graduate work at Cambridge University, England, where he hopes to study with the renowned astrophysicist Sir Martin Rees, Royal Astronomer to Queen Elizabeth II.
--Nancy Ambrosiano
Pueblo representatives visit UC-Davis campus
University of California, Davis, Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef, left, greets Sandra Realivasques of Pojoaque Pueblo in his office during a recent visit to the UC-Davis campus. Behind Vanderhoef at left in photo is Barbara Grimes of the Laboratory's tribal relations team in the Community Relations Office (CRO). At center in photo is Larry Schwartz of the UC Office of Research and Laboratory Programs. Next to Realivasques is Selpha Poe, an administrative assistant in the UC Laboratory Administration Office. Representatives from the Laboratory's four accord pueblos -- Jemez, Cochiti, San Ildefonso and Santa Clara -- and other nearby pueblos visited the university and received briefings on university outreach programs; toured several campuses including UC, Berkeley and UC, Davis; and met with UC President Richard Atkinson. Photo courtesy of Neil Michel, Axiomphoto.
1998 drinking water quality report approved by county
The 1998 Water Quality Report for the community drinking water system will be provided to all Lab group offices by the Incorporated County of Los Alamos.
The Federal Safe Drinking Water Act requires water distributors to provide all customers with a Consumer Confidence Report. The Los Alamos County report provides information about the community drinking-water system, sources of drinking water and water test results.
"Perhaps the most fundamental question people want answered regarding their drinking water is 'is our drinking water safe?'" said Barbara France, special projects director for the county's Department of Public Utilities. "The answer to that question is a great big 'yes,' and it can be found right on the cover of the Consumer Confidence Report."
Detailed information about the water system can be found inside the three-page report.
Bob Beers of Water Quality and Hydrology (ESH-18) said the county is providing a copy of the report to each group office at the Lab. Beers is asking each office for their cooperation in posting the report in a conspicuous, central location and alerting employees to the location of the report.
"The Laboratory is the biggest customer the county has for water," Beers said. "Each Laboratory employee also is a water customer. Since federal law requires that the county notify all customers each year about the condition of their water, we are asking everyone at the Laboratory to take a look at the report and become an informed consumer."
Beers said Los Alamos has high-quality drinking water. The Consumer Confidence Report contains a table that outlines levels of dissolved constituents that can be found in county water; none are above health-risk guidelines established by the Safe Drinking Water Act. The drinking water supply was tested for inorganic compounds such as arsenic and lead, organic compounds and radionuclides by the New Mexico State Scientific Laboratory; drinking water was tested for microbiological contamination by Johnson Controls Northern New Mexico's Environmental Laboratory.
"These days we're hearing more and more about communities that have problems with contamination," Beers said. "It's good news that we currently don't see contaminant levels that exceed safe-drinking-water standards, but we need to remain vigilant due to the potential for contamination from Laboratory activities."
In 1999 and 2000, the Lab will continue to take quarterly water samples from three wells in the Pajarito well field to ensure that high-explosives contamination that was detected in a ground-water-monitoring well near the Lab's southwest boundary isn't moving into the drinking water supply. To date, HE contamination has not been detected in drinking-water-supply wells. The monitoring is part of the Lab's continuing environmental surveillance activities. In addition, Lab hydrologists plan to drill more surveillance wells in the area to determine the extent of the high-explosives contamination.
In September 1998, the water system was transferred from the Department of Energy to the county under a three-year lease. At the end of the three-year period, ownership of the water system may be transferred permanently from the DOE to the county if both parties agree.
The Consumer Confidence Report also has been distributed to every household in the community of Los Alamos, France said. Lab employees who want additional copies of the report can contact France at 662-8130 or Beers at 7-7969. People also can download a PDF version of the report by going to the county Web site at http://www.lac.losalamos.nm.us/departments/utility/ccrweb.pdf.
Those with questions about the report can call France at the county Department of Public Utilities.
--Jim Rickman
Dunk the division director in the tank for United Way Northern New Mexico
Business Operations (BUS) Division Director
Allan Johnston is all wet. At least he will be from 11 a.m. to
2 p.m. Thursday at the SM-30 Warehouse when he and other BUS managers
will plummet into the dunk tank to raise money for United Way
of Northern New Mexico.
The Laboratory/Northern New Mexico United Way 2000 giving-campaign continues through Nov. 5. University of California Lab employees began receiving their pledge cards last week.
For a $5 donation to United Way, BUS employees get five chances to deposit a BUS manager into a tank of water, said Mary Van Eeckhout of Materials Management (BUS-4). If BUS employees also sign a United Way pledge card, they will receive 10 throws, she added.
Other BUS managers scheduled to take the plunge include John Tapia of Business Support Services (BUS-8), Anthony Garcia of BUS-4, Claire Harmon of Accounting (BUS-1), Jim Herring of Business Planning and Analysis (BUS-3), Mary Erwin and Joe Field of the BUS Division Office, Bill Barr of Procurement (BUS-5) and Don Bryson, formerly of the BUS Division Office and currently acting director of the Diversity (DV) Office.
ARAMARK Corp. is providing lunch for $5 and donating a percentage to United Way. There also will be big band and accordion music.
The campaign goal is $730,000. Last year's United Way campaign raised about $665,000 for a number of social service programs in Los Alamos, Española, Fairview, Santa Fe, Albuquerque and El Rito. Of the total raised last year, $467,000 came from University of California Laboratory employees, said Olivera.
As of Oct. 1, about $79,000 has been received in pledges or donations in this year's campaign, said Chris Olivera of the Community Relations Office (CRO) and a campaign co-chair.
Some 8,200 UC Lab employees were to receive campaign pledge cards and donation forms through Laboratory mail.
He said that this year's pledge form also has an area where employees can designate their donation or pledge to the Northern New Mexico/Los Alamos United Way or Santa Fe County campaigns. Employees also can designate specific agencies to which they would like their donations or pledges to be donated, Olivera added.
Employees can pledge to United Way through payroll deduction or write a check to United Way, attach the check to the pledge card and return it to Mail Stop A117 through interoffice mail.
Concurrent with the United Way giving-campaign is the United Way Leadership Giving Circle, which is open to employees who donate or pledge through payroll deduction at least $1,000 in the current campaign, said Olivera.
The Jemez Giving Circle campaign, which is open to employees who have donated to United Way for at least two consecutive years, also continues, Olivera added.
Olivera and Carol Mullaney of the Training Integration Office (HR-TI) are on the Northern New Mexico/Los Alamos United Way board of directors, while Martin Strones, general manager of Protection Technology Los Alamos, the Lab's protective force contractor, and Sharon Eklund of Security, Planning and Assessments (S-1) are on the board of trustees.
For more information about the 2000 United Way campaign, call Olivera or Tonya Suazo, also of CRO, at 5-4400. Or write to unitedway@lanl.gov by electronic mail.
Additional information about the Los Alamos and Santa Fe United Way campaigns can be found at http://www.losalamos.com/united way through the World Wide Web.
--Steve Sandoval
Lab programs may assist Central American disaster planning
Andria Karene Livingstone, program officer for the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency, enumerates the natural and man-made catastrophes that have impacted many of the region's small island economies during the past decade. Listening are, left to right, John Rasure of Photon Research Associates Inc., Ed Walters of the University of New Mexico's Office of Research Services and Judy Rosetta Thomas of Barbados, project manager for the Disaster Emergency Reponse Management Systems Project.
Representatives from seven countries and the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency recently visited Los Alamos to learn how science can help them respond to natural disasters in their homelands.
Many of the countries represented were devastated by hurricanes Georges and Mitch last year, and in some cases, most of the country's infrastructure is still seriously damaged.
The Natural Disasters Mitigation Workshop was sponsored by the Laboratory and the University of New Mexico Office of Research Services, in cooperation with the Organization of American States.
Lab scientists talked about recent and ongoing projects that simulate urban systems, and may eventually allow emergency planners to identify areas of vulnerability and risk. Grant Heiken of Geology and Geochemistry (EES-1) and Steen Rasmussen of Geoanalysis (EES-5) work on Los Alamos' Urban Security Initiative, which served as the technical basis for the workshop.
The project has concentrated so far on linked environmental and infrastructure models of two disaster scenarios: a terrorist release of toxic gas in an urban setting and exposures to vehicles driving through the plume; and earthquake damage on the Los Angeles power grid. In the future, project scientists will expand their natural hazard-modeling capabilities and may include hurricanes in their models.
"We are studying how the environment affects people and how people affect the environment," Heiken said. "With the help of our supercomputers and the wide range of disciplines cultivated at the Lab, we hope to develop tools for urban-crisis management and long-range planning."
Emergency response officials from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and the Dominican Republic each reported on their nations' disaster response programs and shared what they have learned from centuries of coping with the aftermath of hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, landslides and volcanic eruptions.
Geronimo Jose Guisto Robelo, a natural disasters management official from the office of the vice president of Nicaragua, pointed out that a natural event only constitutes a disaster when it overwhelms the country's ability to cope with its effects. He said his country is determined to allow only "sustainable development. Whatever is invested must not be risked," he said.
Steve Bender, an official with the OAS' Unit for Sustainable Development, applauded this approach. "Disaster reduction is a development issue," he said. "Disasters denote failed development policies."
Bender related a conversation with a Guatemalan official following a 1976 earthquake. The official was lamenting the second-rate methods used to rebuild a bridge.
"We're too poor to do it right," the official told him. "But we have the money to do it twice."
Bender told the conference participants that they should seek funds to retrofit their existing structures, particularly classrooms that are designated as emergency shelters.
Many of the Central American officials stressed the need for development of more effective early warning systems so people can evacuate dangerous areas, minimizing loss of life.
Hugo Rene Hernandez Ramirez, executive secretary of Guatemala's emergency response agency, said his country's system only recently passed from military to civilian control. "Hurricane Mitch showed how obviously unprepared we and some of our neighbors were to deal with such an event," he said.
Guatemala now has a small, experimental early warning system to alert residents of flooding along one river, but Ramirez pointed out that it is only one of 30 rivers that regularly flood during hurricanes.
In Jamaica, where the first hurricane was reported in 1559, disaster officials have launched a national public-awareness campaign by radio to acquaint citizens with evacuation plans and procedures.
"Residents of low-lying areas at the bottom of the watershed with large population densities have to know where the safe areas are," said Anestoria Charlyn Shalkowski of Jamaica's Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management. "We run the radio ads constantly during hurricane season," she said.
Heiken, a geologist who has spent time in Indonesia where there are more than 100 active or potentially active volcanos, said the best disaster response happens on a neighborhood scale.
"The work must be done on the community, local level," he said. "In Indonesia, kids learn about natural hazards in school, and they have drills where all members of the community are involved. Practice and rehearsal are essential to effective response."
At the end of the conference, participants asked that the Laboratory and UNM develop a plan to establish a communications network among participating OAS countries and explore funding opportunities. The plan also will enhance partnerships for development and create educational and training opportunities.
Abad Sandoval of the University Programs office (STB-UP) and Ed Walters of UNM will take the lead on drafting the plan.
--Kay Roybal
SLAC deputy director to discuss the future of stockpile stewardship
Sidney Drell, deputy director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, will review the current national science-based stockpile stewardship program at a Director's Colloquium at 8:10 a.m. Friday in the Administration Building Auditorium.
The talk is open to badge holders only but also will be shown on LABNET. For more information, see the Oct. 4 Newsbulletin.
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Lab Counsel offers guidance on dealings with investigators The Laboratory Counsel Office has issued a memorandum that provides guidance to employees who might be asked for documents or interviews by investigators with the Federal Bureau of Investigation or U.S. Attorney's Office. Click here for the memo. |
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Battle of Iwo Jima talk by William
A. Hudson at Mesa Public Library