Articles are listed in reverse chronological order, with most recent listed first.
Also, Lab News issues published since Dec. 2000 are archived here as Adobe Acrobat-compatible .pdf files.

Check out Labs Accomplishments 2004

• March 18 , 2005 Lab NewsTiny porphyrin tubes may lead to new nanodevices; ARM-UAV program makes it to the arctic for first time; Forensic gemology: Stephen Attaway’s research hobby casts new light on origins, history of Hope diamond; and more . . . (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• March 4 , 2005 Lab News Sampling ‘small atmospheres’ in the tiny new worlds of MEMS; Success story for Sandia’: Munitions-destroying Explosive Destruction System shown to employees; DOE Secretary Samuel Bodman visits Sandia Labs; and more . . (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• February 18, 2005 Lab News Army and Air Force to acquire Sandia Gauntlet body armor for field evaluation; Texas police, border agents using Labs’ sniffer to nab drug traffickers; Sandia, UT unveil agreement for close strategic partnership; and more . . (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• February 4, 2005 Lab News Sandia tests wing sensors that will be used on NASA’s next shuttle mission; Sandia researchers seek new nonpolluting ways to produce hydrogen fuel from water and sunlight; GM joins with Sandia to advance hydrogen storage; and more. . . (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• January 21, 2005 Lab News Sandia, Lockheed Martin develop electromagnetic missile launcher for naval shipboard operations; Researchers develop portable device that can detect disease; . . . and more (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• January 7, 2005 Lab News Sandia’s Robinson, Woodard share their thoughts on the state of the Labs; Optical innovator Jon Weiss uses soda-straw-like tubes to solve three widespread problems; Labs computational scientists team with artists to capture and display gigapixel-sized images; and more . . . (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• December 10 , 2004 Lab News TSA installs Sandia licensee’s explosives-sniffing walk-through portal at airport terminal; Sandia to begin testing innovative arsenic removal technologies; Sandia’s assistance helps lead to successful launch of innovative airplane cargo containers; and more . . . (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• November 26 , 2004 Lab News El Paso police, Sandia working together on high-tech approach to law enforcement, forensics investigations; How Sandians helped keep radioactive materials from terrorists at Olympics; Sandia, National Instruments build versatile wireless sensor platform for use by scientists, engineers; and more . . . (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• November 12 , 2004 Lab News Imaging the maelstrom about Z’s center; Labs researchers share their work at annual biotech conference; National laboratory women gather at LBL to explore employee pipeline issues; and more . . . (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• Oct. 29 , 2004 Lab News Sandia joins forces with Stirling Energy Systems to build, test mini power plant of six solar dish systems; Presidential Science Advisor John Marburger receives Sandia science overview; and more . . . (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• Oct. 15 , 2004 Lab News Sandia gets DOE/NNSA approval for Z machine refurbishment; Labs, Pantex, NNSA officials dedicate WETL, the new state-of-the-art weapon testing facility; sandians play key role in big accident response exercise in Montana; and more . . . (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• Oct. 1 , 2004 Lab News Sandia creates tiny motion detector 1000 times more sensitive than any known; Weapons Integration Facility breaks ground in New Mexico; DHS Undersecretary McQueary says nation better prepared for homeland defense; and more . . . (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• September 17, 2004 Lab News Sandia showcases technologies, capabilities to National Guard; Homeland Security scholars work on key projects at Sandia; Strategic Education Plan initiative to bring renewed commitment to continuous education at Labs; and more . . . (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• September 3, 2004 Lab News Sandia researchers team with Mexican, university partners on hydroponic agriculture tests; Labs and Livermore police demonstrate "sensor management architecture" for rapid deployment of detection system ; and more . . . (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• August 20, 2004 Lab News Sandia aids Navy in study of aircraft carrier operations; Sandia researchers help countries secure potential "dirty bomb" materials; Labs president C. Paul Robinson shares views on visionary global nuclear future vision; and more . . . (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• August 6, 2004 Lab News Sandia synthetic aperture radar technology used in search and rescue; Sandia researcher grows great terahertz crystals; DOE, Russian labs sign pact on nuclear power cooperation; and more . . . (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• July 23, 2004 Lab News Long-awaited Red Storm supercomputer rising at Sandia; Legislation takes aim at safe, secure, sustainable water supplies through technology, national policy support; Sandia research wins two R&D 100 Awards; Sandia 'Working on the railroad'; and more . . . (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• July 9, 2004 Lab News NanoSummit explores nanotechnology for energy, security needs; and more . . . (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• June 25, 2004 Lab News Desalination, removal of arsenic to be focus of water research at Sandia for next few years; Researchers from Sandia, LANL achieve wireless nanocrystal breakthrough; Youssef Marzouk, Gregory Nielson named Sandia's first Truman Fellows; Paul Robinson addresses challenges, possibilities for post-Cold War strategic deterrence; and more . . . (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• June 11, 2004 Lab News Center for Integrated Nanotechnology breaks ground; Shuttle Columbia study indicates Sandia shares many cultural attributes with NASA; Waste Isolation Pilot Plant overview; Sandia called top "employer of choice in Aviation Week survey; and more . . . (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• May 28, 2004 Lab News Sandia-designed space reactor could drive in-orbit salvage tug; Sandia, University of Colorado-Colorado Springs to collaborate on MEMS, nano, and software projects; Sandians propose plan to simplify security measures for bioresearch;and more . . . (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• May 14, 2004 Lab News Sandia named a virtual center of Excellence for hydrogen storage research; DOE Secretary Abraham on hand to help launch Sandia Joint Computational Engineering Lab; and more . . . (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• April 30, 2004 Lab News Joint Computational Engineering Lab opens; Sandia, military team on conventional weapon for hardened deeply buried targets; Self-assembly process forms durable nanocrystal arrays, independent nanocrystals and more . . . (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• April 16, 2004 Lab News Sandia researcher brings Bell Labs technique to wiring molecules; Combustion Research Facility team and partners measure car's particulate emissions driving on road; and more . . . (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• April 2, 2004 Lab News Sandia Carlsbad, N.M., office evacuated after well blow-out; Labs prototypes new organizational arrangement for MESA research; Sandia, UT institutions announce research pact; and more . . . (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• March 19, 2004 Lab News Labs' tools to help NASA get shuttles space-bound again; Labs launches test capabilities revitalization effort; Sandia researchers among those named as Asian American engineers of the year; and more . . . (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• March 5, 2004 Lab News Sandia technology could help avert friendly fire casualties; Labs symposium focuses on hydrogen storage, other emerging technologies; Sandia team heads to Central America with energy solutions; and more . . . (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• February 20, 2004 Lab News Sandia's "inchworm" activator studies friction at the microscale; California site team solves a mystery of magnetism and chemistry; Sandia's President and executive VP discuss state of the labs; Novel simulations harness protiens to buold new, desirable nanostructures; and more . . . (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• February 6, 2004 Lab News Sandia decontamination foam liley would stop SARS virus; MiniSAR reduces synthetic aperture radar to 30-lb. package; and more . . . (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• January 23, 2004 Lab News Sandia/UNM team manipulates platinum at nano scale; Labs technology helps JPL with successful Mars landings; Ultraviolet fiber-based laser; and more . . . (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• January 9, 2004 Lab News Labs help track potential dirty bomb material; Sandia's Airworthiness Assurance Center acquires Boeing 727 for research use; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• December 12, 2003 Lab News Sandia, Columbia U. researchers create extremely cold molecules; mock bio attack drills emergency responders at SFO; Shoes for Kids program enters 47th year; and more . . . (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• November 28, 2003 Lab News Overview of Sandia's Kauai Test Facility; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• November 14, 2003 Lab News Ultraviolet LEDS; Cooperative Monitoring Center@Amman opens; and more . . . (Click on issue date for .pdf version of Lab News.)
• October 31, 2003 Lab News Sandia researcher's controllable magnetic particles; Labs announces Truman postdoc felllowship; Norm Augustine talks leadership, technology; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• October 17, 2003 Lab News Sandia works with NASA on hypersonic aircraft; Sandia Corp., NNSA sign 'model' GOCO contract; Sandia Senior VP Tom Hunter talks about weapons program; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• October 3, 2003 Lab News Sandia researchers develop ultra-high-temperature ceramics; 'New Water' meeting attendees discuss use of brackish water resources; Farewell, Galileo: Sandia's rad-hardened electronics served you well; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• September 19, 2003 Lab News Sandia nanolaser research could extend life; Sandia, NM Tech, LANL sign MOU on energetic materials research; Sandia names Gosler, Brinker as Fellows; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• September 5, 2003 Lab News Sandia aids NASA in Colubia shuttle accident investigation; Sandia, Rockwell Collins sign R&D MOU; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• August 22, 2003 Lab News Sandia formally breaks ground on MESA project -- "a momentous day for Labs"; Explosive destruction System gets workout on both sides of "pond"; Instant Shooter ID Kit being used in combat theaters; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• August 8, 2003 Lab News Sandia researchers create nanocrystals nature's way; Journey toward improved business systems continues at Sandia; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• July 25, 2003 Lab News Sandia researchers win or share seven R&D 100 awards; Sandia microdevice rapidly separates proteins, researchers report in Science; Public health officials, Sandia test Labs-designed antiterrorism planning tool; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• July 11, 2003 Lab News Quantum dots used in solid state lighting initiative; Labs, military team to make bases "grid free"; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• June 27, 2003 Lab News Photoic lattice emissions exceed Planck's Law; Center for Integrated Nanotechnology advances; Labs President Paul Robinson weighs in on polygraph rulemaking; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• June 13, 2003 Lab News Xyce software sparks interest; Labs sign pact to cooperate on nuclear energy R&D; Sandia, Kurchatov to collaborate in some research areas; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• May 30, 2003 Lab News Sandia Microhound 'sniffer' goes to federal emergency responders for evaluation; Labs' MTI satellite completes three-year mission objectives; Labs, Zircle LP sign innovative tech commericalization pact; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• May 16, 2003 Lab News Sandia researchers help develop bonelike scaffolding for surgery; Homeland Security officials like what they see at Labs; Sandia's nuclear weapons tester device assures safe, secure, reliable stockpile; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• May 2, 2003 Lab News Sandia aiding in Yucca Mountain studies; Sky scanner could detect biowarfare attack; Labs, San Francisco International Airport team up on chem/bio defenses; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• April 18, 2003 Lab News Annual State of the Labs interview; Labs aids Forest Service on tanker safety; LEDS have bright future; Z machine produces fusion neutrons; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• April 4, 2003 Lab News Labs works with ports on security issues; Sandia scientists seek cognitive machines; Researchers study antineutrino production as reactor monitoring protocol; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• March 21, 2003 Lab News VP Jim Tegnelia talks about DoD relationship; Labs researchers developing new ways to conserve water in agricultural applications; earth penetrators; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• March 7, 2003 Lab News Sandia leaders present annual State of the Labs report to the community; Labs aids in stand-up of Homeland Security Department; Sythetic aperture radar comes of age; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• February 21, 2003 Lab News Sandia researchers study underground carbon dioxide storage options; Labs, Bureau of Reclamation develop desalination technology roadmap; Consortium honors Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography accomplishments; Sandia, UNM launch security policy think tank; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• February 7, 2003 Lab News Sandia research reactor back on line after upgrades; sandia develops new generation of microfuzes for safer, more reliable and secure weapons control; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• January 24, 2003 Lab News Stockpile surveillance program vital to managing aging stockpile; SnifferStar sniffs outs chemical agents; Telemetry systems for flight test units; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• January 10, 2003 Lab News DOE Secretary Abraham announces extension of Lockheed Martin contract to manage Sandia National Labs; Sandia scientists' efforts recognized by C and E News; 2003 Sandia org chart; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• December 13, 2002 Lab News Geothermal energy gets boost in form of polyurethane grout; Sandia scientist sleuthes smallpox outbreak; Visualization hardware brings distant collaborators closer together; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• November 29, 2002 Lab News Smart heat pipes, cool laptops; labs scientists win prestigious Gordon Bell supercomputer award; Carbon sequestration; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• November 15, 2002 Lab News Blast suppression foam; Concurrent design and manufacturing at Sandia; Labs researchers involved in studying fusion energy futures; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• November 1, 2002 Lab News Sandia, Cray seek to build world's fastest computer; Marine orders decon formulation in deployment quantities; Labs-developed shooter id kit helps solve real crimes; Reactor experiments provide data to update shipping regulations; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• October 18, 2002 Lab News B61 trainer delivered; Army orders decon foam in deployment quantities; Polygraph policy update; RSA for health care or child care explained; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• October 4, 2002 Lab News Jeff Brinker wins DOE's E.O. Lawrence Award; Neutron generator team attains milestone; Benefits Choices 2003 info; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• September 20, 2002 Lab News Retinal prosthesis advances; Boeing, Sandia sign CRADA; Mexican indigenous group views labs' solar work; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• September 6, 2002 Lab News Paul Robinson on 9/11; Miniaturized lipid biosensors; CAMU begins treatment at chemical waste landfill; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• August 23, 2002 Lab News Microarray technology could aid in disease diagnosis, prevention; Sandians involved in Yucca Mountain research; New compound could immobilize AIDS virus; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• August 9, 2002 Lab News Researchers pursue biologically fueled microcells; Center for Integrated Nanotechnology advances; Joint Computational Engineering Facility launched; California lab gets Genomes to Life projects; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• July 26, 2002 Lab News DOE announces "Genomes to Life" grants; Labs explosive detection technology deployed at CN Tower; President Bush reviews DOE labs' counterterrorism R&D; Sandia and Air Forcde test arsenic removal technologies; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• July 12, 2002 Lab News Sandia teams win R&D 100 awards; Labs VP discusses energy and critical infrastructures; Sandia/California breaks ground on new Distributed Information Systems Lab; Lockheed Martin honors Sandia for post 9/11 efforts; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• June 28, 2002 Lab News Labs purrsues biotechnology as a new technology area; sandians win DOE Weapons Excellence awards; California renames IMTL lab MANTL to focus on micro and nanotechnologies; Sandian Merrill Jones retires after 54 year at Labs; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• June 14, 2002 Lab News Rings around the Earth a clue to climate change?; First EUVL tool on order; Labs names Osbourn a Sandia Fellow; Sandia names Dave Nokes as newest VP; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• May 31, 2002 Lab News Sandia, Lockheed Martin share Presbyterian Healthcare Foundation award; Labs helps evaluate simpler, better helicopter rotor system; US, Mexico sign bi-national lab pact; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• May 17, 2002 Lab News Safer building glass; rapid prototyping could aid in spine surgery; testing acceleration data recorders; New explosive detection portal unveiled; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• May 3, 2002 Lab News Researchers observe molecular shuttling that mimics cellular behavior; Tungsten photonic lattice developed; Labs, industry test hydrogen-powered locomotive; Russian, US lab directors meet; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• April 19, 2002 Lab News Vibration-powered sensors could be embedded in bridges, structures; Innovative back-support system aims to alleviate lower back pain; Nanotube transistors could have more functionality at reduced size; Paul Robinson Senate testimony; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• April 5, 2002 Lab News New stun device is reusable, more effective; Labs team perfects portable cluster computing; One-way network link is secure; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• March 22, 2002 Lab News Quiet revolution underway in solid-state lighting; Massive MESA project advances to next step; RSVP program detects disease outbreaks; OPSEC practices; Sandia targets play key role in missile defense test; and more . . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• March 8, 2002 Lab News State of the Labs address to the community focuses on war on terrorism; Homeland Security Director Ridge visits Labs; Anthrax detector; and more. . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• February 22, 2002 Lab News Annual Lab News State of the Labs interview with Paul Robinson and Joan Woodard; DOE approves pension plan changes; Sandia technology used in shoe bomb case; and more. . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• February 8, 2002 Lab News Gun residue detection technology; Nevada Sen. Harry Reid praises labs, cites future roles; Explosive Destruction System deployed to Aberdeen for more tests; and more. . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• January 25, 2002 Lab News Water-solid interface behavior explained; Architects receptive to surety concepts; Labs, Goodyear sign umbrella CRADA; and more. . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• January 11, 2002 Lab News water resoruces calculator; Modernized use-control codes; Sandia Secure Processor; World's smallest microchain drive; and more. . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• Dec. 14, 2001 Lab News Hi-temp electronics could boost geothermal research; assesing dam security; Assuring 'food-to-fork' food safety; and more. . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• November 30, 2001 Lab News Labs demo technologies to Homeland security Director; and more. . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• November 16, 2001 Lab News Labs experts help assess vulnerability of buildings to terror attack; Integrated Nanoscience Center advances; DAKOTA software to be available for free download; and more. . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• November 2, 2001 Lab News Labs experts help industry analyze chem plant security; Labs-developed bio/chem foam sees duty in war on terror; Labs well-poised to aid in war across a broad front of technologies; and more. . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• October 19, 2001 Lab News DOE national labs, industry extend next generation microchip CRADA; Labs-developed bio/chem foam sees duty in war on terror; Sandia's aggressive hiring program on track; and more. . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• October 5, 2001 Lab News Sandian offers techniques for assessing water system vulnerabilities; Sandia terrorism expert offers views on bin Laden network, and more. . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• September 21, 2001 Lab News Sandians respond to World Trade Center attack (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• August 24, 2001 Lab News Articles on: Z-machine; Nanoscience; battery advances; national energy grid; and more. . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• August 10, 2001 Lab News Articles on: Tracking blue whales; Labs completes work on chem waste ;landfill excavation; Sen. Jeff Bingaman on energy policy; US, Mexican officials explore bi-national lab concept; and more. . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• July 27, 2001 Lab News Articles on: Sandia researchers win R&D 100 awards; Labs works with NRC on next- generation nuclear plant regulation; Rep. Heather Wilson on balanced energy; and more. . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• July 13, 2001 Lab News Articles on: Visulazation corridor displays wall-sized images; Sandia VPs discuss Global Nuclear Future; Sen. Jeff Bingaman hears briefings on alternative energy; and more. . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• June 29, 2001 Lab News Articles on: Pac man-like microfluidic devices; Sandia researchers working on tomorrow's nuclear plant designs; Sen. Jeff Bingaman talks about nuclear energy, other issues; and more. . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• June 15, 2001 Lab News Articles on: Sandia teams with Emcore on optical comm devices; Labs software makes bomb robots smarter; Sandia/Californians seek new energy efficiencies; CPlant code released to public; Sandia security team competes in 'Duel in the Desert' ; and more. . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• June 1, 2001 Lab News Articles on: Sandia sees opportunities in nuclear energy; Diversity strides since "Building Bridges" standdown; Sandians win IEEE pulsed power awards; Sandia, Lockheed Matin honor science teachers; Peter Esherick, musician and physicist ; and more. . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• May 18, 2001 Lab News Articles on: Upgrading prison security; Russian scientists briefed on capitalism; Labs' health care costs rising; Venture capitalists hear sales pitches; savings bond campaign launched; and more. . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• May 4, 2001 Lab News Articles on: Cutting the chatter in milling machines; MicroChemLab moves toward commercialization; International Arms Control Conference; DOE Secretary Spencer Abraham visits Sandia; Employee Recognition Awards; and more. . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• April 20, 2001 Lab News Articles on: Industry warms up to promise of Cold Spray™ Extreme excitment marks EUVL event; Nanostructures change color to mark changes in environment; Paul Robinson white paper addresses 21st century weapons policy; New version of ALEGRA code released; MTI satellite images; Sandia wood artist on way to Smithsonian craft show; and more. . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• April 6, 2001 Lab News Articles on: Compressed air as an energy source; pension fund analysis; US-Mexico bi-national labratory; Backyard dream train; Sandia HazMat team; "Pulse stretcher" timekeeper counts time in trillionths; and more. . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• March 23, 2001 Lab News Articles on: Downhole fiber optics aid well-drilling; Dierect-write system enhances building small, complex multi-layer electronics; Sandians rescue snowbound couple; Distributed Information Systems Lab opens; Sandia-Ardesta CRADA will commercialize MEMS; and more. . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• March 9, 2001 Lab News Articles on:Arsenic trapper technology could help cities meet tough new EPA standards; Sandia's CTH shock code gets update; Explosive Destruction System neutralzies '50s-vintage sarin-filled bombs; Labs president and executive VP spell out Labs vision in community address; Sandia exhibit at Alamagordo Space Center; Retiree is famous movie director's dad; and more. . . (Click on issue date for links to .pdf and html versions of Lab News.)
• February 23, 2001 Lab News Articles on: The annual "State of the Labs" interview with Labs President C. Paul Robinson and Executive VP Joan Woodard. Also, Robotics developments at DOE's Pantex site; Z machine shoots pellets 20 times faster than a rifle bullet; camcorder-size iamgers spots gas leaks; Sandia student interns to fly NASA's "vomit comet." (Click on issue date for full publication; use bookmarks in .pdf file to navigate to specific stories. For a straight html version of the state of the Labs interview click here.)
• February 9, 2001 Lab News Articles on: Molecular "sieves" that trap toxic wastes; Sandia's aid to NM small businesses; breakthroughs in thermal battery R and D; Supporting national missile defense; National Atomic Museum-Hollywood spy collection; Sandia's Campus Executives program; and more. (Click on issue date for full publication; use bookmarks in .pdf file to navigate to specific stories. Tip: Click on the image of Jupiter on page 1 of the .pdf document to read about Sandia's contributions to NASA's Galileo project.)
• January 26, 2001 Lab News Stories on the world's smallest tracked robots; Senator Pete Domenici's Sandia colloquium; Sandia-Celera-Compaq 'superdupercomputer' agreement; Sandia's work with NASA on Space Shuttle mission; Lidar; . . . and more. (Click on issue date for full publication; use bookmarks in .pdf file to navigate to specific stories.)
• January 12, 2001 Lab News Stories on Sandia Science Day, neutron generator certification, DOE weapons awards, diversity at Sandia, a new warhead rad-monitor, Former Sen. Spencer Abraham nominated as DOE secretary, and more. . . (Click on issue date for full publication; use bookmarks in .pdf file to navigate to specific stories.)
• December 15, 2000 -- Pages 1-9 Lab News Stories on Gamma irradiation facility;Powerball lottery winners; alloy formation; MESA facility funding and more. . . (Click on issue date for full publication; use bookmarks in .pdf file to navigate to specific stories.)
• December 15, 2000 Pages -- 10-16 Lab News Stories on wind power; renewable energy programs with Mexico; Trades Training Program; DOE-Navajo MOU, and more. . . (Click on issue date for full publication; use bookmarks in .pdf file to navigate to specific stories.)
• December 1, 2000 Lab News Stories on Accident modeling software for nuclear power plants; Labs to standardize on Dell, HP PCs (and Macs and Unix boxes); Former KGB officer talks about Russian intelligence; and more. . . (Click on issue date for full publication; use bookmarks in .pdf file to navigate to specific stories.)
• Cheesecloth-like photonics device bends light with little loss A tiny bar that in appearance resembles cheesecloth has bent infrared beams with very little loss of light in laboratory experiments at Sandia. The bar is fabricated from gallium arsenide. (November 3, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia's lightweight portable chemical vapor detection system being prepared for big test A Sandia-developed lightweight, portable chemical vapor detection system designed to identify chemical signatures from weapons of mass destruction proliferation is in the final preparation stages for the big test -- a field test simulating a chemical release. (November 3, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Test 'pops' scale model of nuclear plant pressure vessel In the unlikely event of a severe nuclear power plant accident such as a core meltdown, the cylindrical steel pressure vessel that houses the reactor's nuclear fuel rods would be subjected to extremely high temperatures and internal pressures, perhaps enough to rupture the vessel. (November 3, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Processing and Environmental Technology Laboratory to be formally dedicated Nov. 8 Labs Director Paul Robinson heads the list of speakers who will gather Nov. 8 to dedicate Sandia's Processing & Environmental Technology Laboratory (PETL, Bldg. 701), a $45.9 million, 151,000-square-foot DOE facility that provides materials support for nuclear weapons design, manufacture, surveillance, maintenance, and dismantlement. (November 3, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Trinity Test 'brighter than 20 suns and the most spectacular sunrise ever seen,' says Ben Benjamin The blast that lit up the entire New Mexico sky at 5:29:45 a.m. on July 16, 1945 was "brighter than 20 suns and the most spectacular sunrise ever seen." (November 3, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Hop to it: Sandia hoppers leapfrog conventional wisdom about robot mobility A hopping machine inspired by the clumsy jumping of grasshoppers may soon give robots unprecedented mobility for exploring other planets, gathering war-fighting intelligence, and assisting police during standoffs or surveillance operations. (October 20, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Tragic gas explosion propels potential pipeline safety technologies onto national priority list In a flash the scene out of a Norman Rockwell painting -- a family of 12 fishing on the banks of the Pecos River on a summer afternoon -- went from idyllic to tragic. (October 6, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia spin-off company to commercialize Labs-developed microsystems technology In what VP 1000 Al Romig calls a "bold and important move," Sandia has spun off a private company, MEMX, Inc., to commercialize Labs-developed microsystems technology. (October 6, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia joins Next Generation Economy Initiative to establish new microsystems industry Sandia executives Al Romig, Lenny Martinez, and David Williams may soon be "fathers" of a new microsystems industry in the Albuquerque area that promises to bring thousands of high paying jobs to New Mexico. (October 6, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Agreement signed to create a 'smart' leg Over the past two years, Sandia has joined forces with the Russian nuclear lab Chelyabinsk 70 and American private industry to create a superior prosthetic foot and also a better prosthetic knee. (October 6, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia VCSEL generates ultraviolet light They won't cause sunburns or be found in tanning salons. But the first prototype solid-state microcavity lasers to operate in the ultraviolet (UV) range, with the capability to generate the white light most prized for indoor lighting, have been demonstrated by scientists at Sandia working with colleagues at Brown University in Rhode Island. (October 6, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Exploding demand for top training prods Labs bomb disablers to take show on road Back in 1994 Chris Cherry (5932) never would have guessed his experimental training workshop for bomb squad members, called Operation Albuquerque, would one day attract the international pedigree of bomb disabler it does today. (September 22, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Early and often: That's Sandia's hiring plan for FY01 and beyond Over the next year, Sandia plans to hire more than 500 new employees, three-quarters of them technical staff or technologists. And that's just the beginning. (September 8, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia's 'potentially revolutionary' material-modeling software receives R&D 100 award Sandia's R&D 100 winner this year is a team led by Doug Bammann (8726), a principal member of the technical staff with expertise in theoretical and applied mechanics. The team created material-modeling software to optimize safe, fuel-efficient designs and to reduce waste in heat treatment of gears of automotive parts. The Sandia team is among 20 winners from DOE facilities in this year's competition for innovative technology sponsored by R&D Magazine. (September 8, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Hybrid cars coming: Sandia's lithium-ion battery research paves way toward American electric hybrids In 15 years Americans will be routinely driving hybrid electric cars performing at 80 miles per gallon. Today's internal-combustion-engine-only vehicle will become an artifact of history. (September 8, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Your input needed now for October employee security meeting Employee input is now being sought for a "town hall" security meeting in early October to make sure employees have the information they need to properly safeguard sensitive and classified information and materials at the Labs. The meeting will also give employees an opportunity to provide feedback directly to Sandia's upper management and security officials about what's working and what's not. (September 8, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Keeping track of the trackers: New ham radio/Internet link helps keep order in search-and-rescue missions A couple of hundred bucks' worth of old computer and radio equipment sitting on top of a metal cabinet tucked away in a tiny second-floor supply room at Sandia's Robotics building could someday help save lives. (September 8, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia research may resolve major issue impeding successful magnetic confinement fusion Sandia researcher Bill Wampler (1111) and a Labs/industry/university team have resolved one of many issues impeding successful magnetic confinement fusion. They discovered a way to keep the fusion plasma from eroding divertor walls inside tokamak fusion machines. (August 25, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Survey shows public concerned over national security, still supports nuclear arsenal The world is a more dangerous place than it was during the Cold War, and the US needs nuclear weapons and ballistic missile defenses to maintain its security. Further, while the stockpile should be smaller, funding should be allocated to maintain the quality of the deterrent. (August 25, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia's off-the-shelf 'home-grown' supercomputer may become 20th fastest in world One thousand three hundred new computers from Compaq Computer Corporation have arrived at Sandia to increase the power of a "home-grown" Sandia computational cluster that already, linking only 600 desktop computers, ranks 44th among the world's fastest supercomputers. (August 11, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia undertakes new initiative to improve way software is developed at Labs You can't feel it, see it, or touch it, but by leaps and bounds it is becoming a dominant force in our lives. "It" is software that is found in everything from personal computers to complex military systems. Because of this growing reliance on software and demands that it be fail-proof -- particularly in critical areas such as weapons -- Sandia has undertaken a new initiative to improve the way software is developed at the Labs. (August 11, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Four-state microsystems 'cluster of clusters' proposed Nearly 300 researchers and entrepreneurs gathered in Albuquerque to hear the case for establishing an industrial "cluster of clusters" that will energize communication and cooperation between microsystems specialists in New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah. The occasion was the second Southwest as a Region of Innovation conference, held at Albuquerque's Convention Center on June 27. (July 14, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Group seeks to preserve history of Nevada Test Site They shook the world for a living -- now they want to make sure they leave a mark. (July 14, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• School security summer workshop draws concerned educators to Dallas July 26-28 Theft, vandalism, drugs, and violence on US school campuses have principals, parents, and law enforcement officials wondering what they can do to make their schools safer for students during the coming school year. (July 14, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• New Sandia vertical cavity surface emitting laser promises to reduce cost of fiber optics connections Sandia researchers 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. (June 16, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandians answer the call to help Los Alamos colleagues As fire swept through the forest surrounding Los Alamos and White Rock last week and residents streamed down The Hill ahead of the flames and smoke, Sandia's Radiological Assistance Program (RAP) team headed to sites around the area to monitor for radioactive contamination. (May 19, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Robotics researchers work with APD to define the next generation of bomb squad technology He's fearless. He has no family. And he doesn't mind a dangerous mission. Eighteen months ago the Albuquerque Police Department welcomed into its bomb disposal unit the Remotec Andros 5A -- a commercial robotic vehicle with three cameras, a gripper, and a double-barreled bomb disabler originally developed by Sandia's Chris Cherry (5932). (May 19, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia-developed intelligent software agents challenge electronic intruders In the movie "The Matrix," malevolent but intelligent security agents -- personifications of computer programs able to learn -- defend an evil worldwide web. Now an intelligent software agent wearing a white hat and able to defend itself alone and in groups on today's World Wide Web has been created at Sandia. (Sandia counts among its credentials the fastest computer in the world [ASCI Red] and the fastest "home-assembled" computer in the world [C-Plant].) (May 19, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• New deployable thin-film, ultralight mirror may be future of space telescopes and surveillance satellites Researchers at Sandia 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. (May 5, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia researcher's device uses radio frequency heating to treat enlarged prostate Millions of older men who suffer from urinary obstruction and associated pain caused by an enlarged prostate gland could benefit from new radio-frequency-treatment technology developed at Sandia. (May 5, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Functioning nanostructures self-assemble out of ink Avoiding the need for molds, masks, and resists common to most lithographic processes, nanoscopic structures that self-assemble with functionality have been produced easily and cheaply from inkjet printers and lithographic pens by scientists at Sandia and the University of New Mexico. (May 5, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• A tough year for Sandia: Amid great science, Labs and its employees face problems, pressures, stresses, strains The past 12 months have been among the most difficult ever for Sandia. Ramifications of spy allegations that arose just over a year ago at another national laboratory cascaded throughout DOE and the national labs system and affected everyone from top management to staff-level employees. We sat down recently for the annual Lab News State of the Labs interview with Sandia President Paul Robinson and Executive VP Joan Woodard to get their take on the situation as they see it now. (April 21, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Epidemic outbreaks, biological attacks detectable by simple electronic reporting method In a Hollywood-style biological attack, Bruce Willis or, perhaps, George Clooney would be expected to render the 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. The program is expected to become operational within the next three months. (April 21, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Three-dimensional proof for Ising model impossible, Sandia researcher claims to have shown When a lake freezes over, how do trillions of randomly oriented water molecules know at almost the same time to align themselves into crystalline form? Similarly, when iron becomes magnetized, how do trillions of atoms know to align their spins almost instantly? (April 21, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia satellite launched successfully; technical difficulty worries MTI team The Multispectral Thermal Imager (MTI), the product of Sandia's first full satellite development program, was successfully placed into orbit early Sunday morning, March 12, by a Taurus rocket launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. (March 24, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia, tribes to test solar electricity generating system Sandia will join forces early next year with one or more Native American tribes to test a new solar electricity generating system that will be the power source for a water pump. The unit will be placed on Indian lands in the Southwest where it will pump water for agricultural purposes and be close enough to home for observation by researchers in Albuquerque. (March 24, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia, Russian lab to cooperate on radwaste cleanup A group of Sandia researchers will head for the Central Siberian city of Zheleznogorsk soon to expand a cooperative program with Russian counterparts in developing technology to clean up waste left by decades of plutonium production. (March 24, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia training the 'Cyber Defenders' of tomorrow Sandia's top employee met its newest recently when Sandia President Paul Robinson toured the College Cyber Defenders' (CCD) program where Corbin Stewart (8910) had just been hired as a limited-term principal technologist. (March 24, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia scientists study 'natural' alternative to cleaning up uranium-contaminated sites An innovative "natural" alternative to cleaning up uranium-contaminated sites is being studied by Sandia scientists as a way to replace costly and sometimes ineffective traditional techniques. (March 10, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Women in technical management focus of project led by Joan Woodard Women in technical management are the focus of a project being led by Executive VP Joan Woodard that takes a serious look at how female managers fare at Sandia. (March 10, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Cancer cells detected in seconds by 'smart scalpel' A "smart scalpel" mechanism intended to detect the presence of cancer cells as a surgeon cuts away a tumor obscured by blood, muscle, and fat has been developed in prototype by Sandia scientists. (March 10, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• New semiconductor alloy's 'crazy physics' makes it a possible photovoltaic power source for satellites There's "crazy physics going on." That's what Sandia researchers say about a new semiconductor alloy, indium gallium arsenide nitride (InGaAsN), they are developing for possible use as a photovoltaic power source for space communications satellites. (February 25, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia completes ground-up redesign of new DOE Armored Tractor DOE special agents who transport weapons cargo across the country in armored 18-wheelers are getting new, more comfortable rides this year as the first of 51 improved Armored Tractors (ATs) rolls off the production line. (February 25, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia-led study recommends predictive modeling tools to head off future power failures Now that the Y2K transition is safely past, you might want to put those extra candles and flashlight batteries back in the bottom drawer . . . but don't. The nation's electric power grid is growing increasingly complex and interconnected, with a greater number of power buyers and sellers making a burgeoning number of transactions. And restructuring of the electric utility industry is bringing uncertain changes in the way the grid is managed. (February 11, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• EUVL retains promise for next-generation chips Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography (EUVL), the advanced microchip patterning technology at Sandia, was endorsed for continued development by the Sematech industrial consortium at a December workshop on lithography, the process by which designs are projected on silicon wafers. (January 28, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia joins charge into 21st century's nanotech revolution Sandia and several other DOE national labs will venture further into the truly tiny realm of atomic and molecular maneuvering following an announcement of a "National Nanotechnology Initiative" by President Clinton last Friday. (January 28, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Researchers model neutron generator in hostile radiation environment Virtual testing of nuclear weapons is reaching new highs as researchers in Simulation Technology Research Dept. 15341 successfully expand the capabilities of the Integrated-Tiger Series (ITS) Monte Carlo radiation transport computer code to simulate a neutron generator in a hostile environment. (January 28, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandians take new approach to studying human failure in engineered systems Taking a lesson from nuclear weapons surety, Chris Forsythe and Caren Wenner of Sandia's Statistics and Human Factors Dept. 12323 have come up with a new approach to studying how and why engineered systems fail due to the actions or inaction of humans. (January 28, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• Avalanche victims found four times faster with new Sandia-developed 'swarm' algorithm technique If a skier or snowboarder is buried under an avalanche -- and a record number of snow-sports enthusiasts died last year in avalanches in the United States -- a major problem for rescuers is how to find the unfortunate person before suffocation or frostbite and hypothermia do. Death can come in half an hour. (January 28, 2000. Click on headline for full story)
• MDL team delivers first in-house fabricated 'mark quality' ICs Foresight by the designers -- and funders -- of Sandia's Microelectronics Development Lab (MDL) in 1988 paid off handsomely in 1999. More than a decade after the facility scrubbed the air in its 13,000 square feet of clean room space for the first time, Sandia has delivered 114 in-house-manufactured microelectronic components for W76-2F redesign Joint Test Assemblies (JTAs). The delivery of the in-house-produced "mark quality" components -- a first for the MDL -- convincingly validates the original MDL plan that called for it to be able to serve as a backup production facility for vital weapon components. (December 17, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandians to spend New Year's readying first-ever Labs-integrated satellite for launch Launch preparations for the Department of Energy's Multispectral Thermal Imager (MTI) satellite begin during the holidays when the Sandia-integrated satellite -- the Labs' first -- arrives at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., from Sandia/New Mexico. (December 17, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Z helps astronomers interpret Chandra satellite data In an inconspicious, flat-roofed building in Sandia's Area 4, a machine that creates temperatures rivaling those of the sun is helping physicists examine up-close what happens to iron in the grip of black holes and neutron stars. (November 19, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia geothermal technology plays key role in killing out-of-control natural gas well Sandia-developed geothermal drilling technology played a key role earlier this year in helping "kill" a wildcat natural gas well in California that blew out and remained out of control for six months.

  (November 19, 1999. Click on headline for full story)

• Sandia micromirrors may be part of Next Generation Space Telescope Sandia-developed micromirrors, each slightly larger than a cross section of a human hair, may one day be part of the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST), the successor to the Hubble that will peruse the universe looking for remnants from the period in which the first stars and galaxies formed. (October 22, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandians' pursuit of ideal engine cycle for electricity generation wins honors As he investigated creating electricity with a crankshaft engine/generator that burns hydrogen fuel, Peter Van Blarigan of Engineering for Emerging Technologies Dept. 8118 wondered if there was a better way to generate electricity in an internal combustion device. (October 22, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Turbulent times in Washington make for an interesting year at Sandia Sandia has always done interesting work, but, as Paul Robinson made clear in his Oct. 13 employee dialogue sessions in New Mexico -- repeated in California the next day -- the Labs these days is certainly living in interesting times, as well. (Oct. 22, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Portable chemical sensor system promises new way of detecting underwater explosives A portable chemical sensor system the size of a soccer ball being developed by Sandia scientists promises a new way of detecting and identifying even the smallest traces of explosives under water -- whether in a rice paddy or deep under the ocean. (October 8, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Rapid-fire thermonuclear explosions for Z pinches may be possible A simple theoretical concept to solve the staggeringly difficult problem of maintaining intact electrical transmission lines around rapid-fire, laboratory-produced thermonuclear explosions has been proposed by Sandia researchers. (Sept. 24, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Researchers use cluster analysis to identify explosions Sandia researchers Chris Young (6116) and Dorthe Carr (5736) have applied a concept long used in biology for classifying organisms, cluster analysis, to a new discipline -- seismology. (Sept. 24, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Five-level layering promises more reliable, complex micromachines An advanced five-level polysilicon surface micromachining process pioneered at Sandia's Microelectronics Development Laboratory (MDL) promises that microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) of the future will be more reliable and capable of doing increasingly complicated tasks. (Sept. 10, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Software crisis? What crisis? Colloquium speaker offers his 'superdistribution' solution The crisis in software: You've probably never heard of it, never given it a thought, but glimmers of the crisis are evident when your PC crashes with monotonous frequency despite the fact that your hardware is the burliest stuff on the market. When something goes wrong with your system, you just know it's software-related -- and it usually is. (Sept. 10, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Extraordinary meteor flash caught on videotape, thanks to unique Sandia all-sky-viewing project Late on the night of Sunday, Aug. 15, the Albuquerque sky lit up just for an instant as bright as day. Eyewitnesses -- and there were thousands who were out and about at 11:18 p.m. that night -- didn't know quite what to make of the event, but everyone who saw it knew they'd witnessed something extraordinary. (Sept. 10, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Big wigs, big blasts initiate Operation Riverside In an abandoned city landfill, the odor of gunpowder wafted past a crowd of 150 people, a few in gray corporate suits, but most wearing black caps and T-shirts identifying them as members of police departments ranging from Los Angeles to New York. (August 27, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• MESA -- Sandia's largest project ever -- wins DOE nod for conceptual design The largest construction project ever proposed by Sandia -- the Microsystems and Engineering Sciences Application (MESA) facility -- has received DOE approval for the Laboratories to proceed with a conceptual design. (August 27, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Group celebrates super switch's 100 million pulses They weren't popping champagne corks, but there was celebration nonetheless in Department 15333 earlier this month when researchers achieved a milestone with a High Gain PhotoConductive Semiconductor Switch (PCSS).(August 27, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Miniaturization of chemical preconcentrators brings better bomb-detecting and drug-sniffing devices You might call it an "electronic dog." Researchers in Contraband Detection Dept. 5848 are working this summer on a hand-carried gadget that, like a trained police dog, could sniff out the vanishingly faint odors of drugs and bombs at airports, border crossings, military installations, and schools. (August 13, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Remote sensor will analyze gas from one to two miles away Imagine a soldier on a battlefield looking through a pair of binoculars and detecting from afar the nature of gas being emitted in a smoke cloud. There's no need to obtain a sample of the gas or even get close to it. Instead, the detection is made from a safe one or two miles away. (August 13, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Quantum dots' repulsion helps determine lasing characteristics, Sandia researchers find In the children's pastime of connect-the-dots, images form as dots are linked. (August 13, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Virtual reality training tool pits rescue teams against computerized terrorist attack In the emergencies of tomorrow -- when rescue personnel may need to treat mass casualties following release of a nerve agent in a shopping mall, theme park, or subway, for instance -- there will be no second chances. Rescuers who become victims of a terrorist attack can't save lives. (July 30, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• American, Russian nuclear labs work together to develop artificial knee for landmine victims A letter expressing "deepest gratitude" from a Russian landmine victim fitted with a newly developed artificial foot demonstrates one reason for the initiation of a second prosthetics project between Sandia and the Ohio Willow Wood Company. (July 30, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Labs team ponders future safety of Yucca Mountain How safe will a potential Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository be in 10,000 years? That's the question scientists have been trying to answer for almost two decades. (July 30, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia research group synthesizes nonradioactive substitute to aid nuclear waste clean-up Synthetic goods are generally modeled on scarce but desirable materials -- diamonds, fine wools, even fruit juices. (July 16, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia research projects earn three R&D 100 awards Three Sandia research groups have won R&D 100 awards in the 1999 competition, according to editors at R&D Magazine, which sponsors the annual contest. (July 16, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia researchers develop world's fastest encryptor The world's fastest encryption device, developed at Sandia, which encrypts data at more than 6.7 billion bits per second --10 times faster than any other known encryptor -- may soon be protecting data being transmitted from supercomputers, workstations, telephones, and video terminals. (June 18, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia computing team wins SuParCup Gold Medal for parallel crash simulations A Sandia team received the gold medal (first place) prize in the SuParCup high-performance computing competition last weekend (June 12) in Mannheim, Germany. The prize is awarded for "an outstanding contribution in the field of parallel computing." (June 18, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Researchers push Z machine to new limits to test radiation effects Sandia researchers Chris Deeney (1644), Christine Coverdale (15344), and Victor Harper-Slaboszewicz (15344) pushed the Z machine to new limits last month when they used the world's most powerful X-ray source to test effects of radiation on materials in experiments designed to mimic the response that would occur near a nuclear explosion. (June 4, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Improved equipment battles 'dark side' of telemedicine Telemedical devices already for sale in local drug stores include glucometers, helpful for diabetics, that monitor blood-sugar levels, store the data, and send it encrypted to physicians via the Internet for diagnosis -- a savings in time and effort for everyone concerned. (June 4, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Like Superman, Mark Rodriguez peers inside lithium ion battery with X-ray vision As part of Sandia's efforts to build a better lithium ion battery, Mark Rodriguez of Materials Characterization Dept. 1822, along with David Ingersoll and Jill Langendorf of the Lithium Ion Battery R&D Dept. 2521, have developed a method to view real-time changes batteries undergo as they charge and discharge. (June 4, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Winds and tides toss up retiree's messages on distant shoresSo, what are the odds, would you think? If you were to toss a message in a bottle into the wine-dark sea, do you think you'd ever get a reply? "Nah, not in a million years," the realist in you says. (June 4, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia's Classified Waste Landfill project uncovers artifacts of Labs' early days There's a fascination in uncovering things long-buried, an eager anticipation, a sense -- a hope? -- that uncovered objects brought into the light have within them the power to shed light -- on who we are, where we come from, why we're where we are. (May 7, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• First shipment to WIPP marks end of a 25-year era, and a new beginning, for Sandia For the big rig carrying the first containers of transuranic waste to DOE's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., in the late hours of March 25 and early hours of March 26, 1999, it was an easy, mostly downhill trek. (April 9, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Skunk Works artiste: Sandia robot paints first F-117 Nighthawk at Lockheed Martin's development facility: A robotic system developed at Sandia has successfully painted the first F-117 Nighthawk fighter inside a hangar at Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Projects group, better known as the "Skunk Works," in Palmdale, Calif.(March 26, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Self-assembled nanospheres may help against disease or terrorism, or as fillers and coatings: Self-assembling nanospheres that fit inside each other like Russian dolls are one form of a broad range of submicroscopic spheres created in the past 12 months at Sandia. The achievement, which has medical, industrial, and military potential, is featured in the March 18 issue of the journal Nature.(March 26, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia ships pieces of nuclear history to TVA: It was meant to light the way toward a brave new world of oceangoing commerce: Proud freighters ploughing the seas as their nuclear reactors silently, cleanly, and efficiently converted water to steam to turn banks of mighty turbines.(March 26, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Sensor to become 'canary in a mine' for lab on a chip: Acoustic wave chemical sensors, each no bigger than a shirt button, promise to play an important role in Sandia's initiatives to develop integrated microsensor systems that can detect minute traces of dangerous chemicals.(March 26, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Roadmap envisions future of robotics, defines steps to get there: In the year 2020 microscale robots with the ability to crawl, fly, and swim will work together to perform monitoring, surveillance, and intelligence operations. Larger robots will clean up radioactive spills, removing humans from hazardous situations. Still others will assemble weapons components that are now tediously built in clean rooms by people using microscopes and tweezers.(March 12, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Labs' decontamination foam may be tomorrow's best first response in a chem-bio attack: Emergency personnel responding to a terrorist release of chemical or biological warfare agents will be faced with a dilemma: If they enter the scene without knowing the dangers, they might become victims. If they wait to evaluate, more people might die -- or worse, an agent could spread and cause widespread casualties(March 12, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Mysterious nanopatterns probed by Sandia team:Get organized! Scientists have found that nanometer-scale islands of metals and semiconductors deposited on a crystal surface self-organize into ordered arrays. When this process takes place on a single-atom-thick film of silver sprinkled with sulfur, a lacework pattern emerges with surprising precision.(March 12, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Fuzzy' algebra offers hard-core data for nuclear weapons safety probabilities: One day about five years ago a safety analyst presented Arlin Cooper of High Consequence Surety Engineering Dept. 12331 an analysis of the safety probability of a nuclear weapon precise to three decimal points. Arlin, who routinely reviews safety analyses, was astounded. How, he asked, could anyone know so exactly how safe a device was when so many variables -- like the possibility of human error or faulty parts-- were uncertain? (February 12, 1999. Click on headline for full story)
• Portable structure tester may bring better-built homes, shopping malls, skyscrapers: Insurance adjusters who reenter an area the day after a hurricane never know specifically how a structure was destroyed. Did a window pane shatter, creating a momentary pressure surge inside that pushed the roof off like a pop-gun cork? Or did a gust of wind pry up the eaves of a house and peel away the roof like a sardine can lid? (January 29 1999. Click on headline for full story.)
• Robocasting: Joe Cesarano develops breakthrough way of fabricating ceramics: Sandia engineer Joe Cesarano (1831) has developed a revolutionary new way of fabricating 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. The material, which flows like a milkshake even though the water content is only about 15 percent, is deposited in thin sequential layers onto a heated base. (January 29 1999. Click on headline for full story.)
• Tiny 'Micro Guardian' promises to safeguard nuclear weapons in big way: One of the most complicated micro-systems Sandia has ever built, the "Micro Guardian" trajectory safety subsystem, will be tested in the next few weeks for the first time after more than a year of research and development. (January 15, 1999. Click on headline for full story.)
• On a roll: Building on teamwork, W76 recertification program moves from one success to another: Sandia's four-year-old W76 Neutron Generator Recertification Program -- a key player in DOE's overall stockpile stewardship effort -- has met with such a high degree of recent success that the British hired this diverse Labs group to do the recertification work on the neutron generator assembly in a similar British nuclear weapon. And now, DOE has assigned the program's team, led by Norm Schwentor (14302), to work on a similar effort for the W78 Minuteman warhead. (January 15, 1999. Click on headline for full story.)
• Sandia to radiation harden Intel's 'crown jewel' Pentium processor for space and defense needs: It didn't come wrapped in pretty paper and a bow, but the US government got a welcome holiday-season "present" from Intel on Dec. 8, when the chip-making giant and the Department of Energy jointly announced that the company is providing a no-fee license to Sandia to redesign Intel's Pentium® processor into a radiation-hardened chip for space and defense uses. The new radiation-hardened Pentium (RHP) will provide a nearly tenfold increase in processing power over the highest performing rad-hard chips in use today. (December 18 1998. Click on headline for full story.)
• Labs sky-watching gear helping study long-term global climate change from remote Pacific island: El Nino was every weatherman's favorite scapegoat in 1998, taking the blame for eight months of meteorological mayhem across much of the Northern Hemisphere. But for those trying to forecast the weather beyond the middle of next week, El Nino is at least an accessory in the greatest climate caper of all. (December 18 1998. Click on headline for full story.)
• Lithium battery research may bring electric cars, smaller batteries to our future: Efforts by a team of Sandians from Centers 1800, 6100, and 1500 to improve the lithium ion battery may mean that one day soon people will be driving affordable electric cars and operating their CD players and cellular phones on smaller, longer lasting batteries. (December 4, 1998. Click on headline for full story.)
• Program that 'sees' beyond three dimensions may save lives by better classifying data : Data classification, often considered a humdrum task, really is no such thing when the stakes are high enough. Quick, errorless identifications are needed of chemicals released on a battlefield, explosives found in an airport, or substances collected on interplanetary explorations where no options exist for astronomers to have a second look. Physicians analyzing complicated medical images and certain environmental analyses also require accurate, quick answers. (December 4, 1998. Click on headline for full story.)
• Three innovative Sandia projects win DOE Basic Energy Sciences materials awards: Research on thin transparent coatings that mimic seashells, how atoms move on a surface, and microlasers that analyze single human cells won Sandia three DOE Basic Energy Sciences awards for materials research for 1998. (December 4, 1998. Click on headline for full story.)
• DOE joins state of Alaska in promoting fuel cell energy for remote arctic villages: Sandia has assembled what may be the country's largest collection of hydrogen-powered proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells from different companies.The fuel cells and associated hardware from three vendors are destined for the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, where they will be tested and hardened for arctic climates for eventual deployment in remote villages. Fuel cells produce electricity and heat by combining hydrogen and oxygen to create water. (December 4, 1998. Click on headline for full story.)
• E-mail failure, subsequent recovery lead to some hard-won lessons learned: Sometimes "lessons learned" come easy. Sometimes they come hard. The more-than-week-long e-mail outage that directly affected some 2,200 Sandians was a lesson learned the hard way. (December 4, 1998. Click on headline for full story.)
• Sandia and Compaq Computer Corp. team together to set world record in large database sorting: Just as scientists need very fast number-crunching computers to replace physical testing with computer models, business people need a corollary procedure: very fast data sorting -- the ability to manipulate huge amounts of data rapidly. (November 20 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia photonic crystal confines optical light: In perhaps their greatest success, Sandia researchers Shawn Lin (1712) and Jim Fleming (1723) have created a three-dimensional photonic crystal that confines light at optical wavelengths. The proof-of-principle device may prove commercially important to the fiber-optics communications industry because the technique it embodies appears to be the cheapest, most efficient way to bend light entering or emerging from optical cables, says Shawn. (November 20 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• CoMPASS enterprise modeling lends new direction, speed to engineering revolution: The weapons complex is turning to information technology to hasten a revolution in engineering. This approach promises significant gains in efficiency, says Len Napolitano, Manager of Advanced Concepts Dept. 8130. He heads a project that is creating a distributed, integrated model of the DOE weapons complex. The model will be used to help predict the consequences of decisions about issues ranging from dismantlement requirements to refurbishment schedules to capital investments, helping decision-makers evaluate whether the complex can meet changing demands with anticipated resources over the next 10 to 30 years. (November 20 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• New technology cleans up residue from Sandia's early Cold War weapons test program: They'd mount the weapon on a rocket-fired centrifuge and spin it like crazy, putting its systems under tremendous g-forces. They'd push, push, push the weapon, trying to discover the outer edges of its particular envelope. (November 20 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• Three DOE labs eye radiography solution to weapons safety issues: A DOE- sanctioned race among three national labs promises to help resolve the issue of how to assure the reliability and safety of nuclear weapons in the national stockpile without the use of nuclear testing. (November 6, 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• Our man in Iraq: Jim Lee spends 67 intense days combing 47 sites as a UN weapons inspector: Jim Lee may be a good ol' boy from East Texas, but he never thought he'd step into anything like this. Jim, Manager of Accident and Consequence Analysis Dept. 6413, spent 67 days earlier this year as an arms inspector in Iraq, ranging the countryside not in a Chevy pickup but a UN-flagged Nissan Pathfinder, looking for ominous signs of life in Iraq's aborted nuclear weapons program.(October 23, 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• Nobel connections: Sandia has ties to two 1998 Nobel laureates in physics and chemistry
• World's smallest combination lock, developed at Sandia, promises to foil computer hackers: The world's "smallest combination lock," a minuscule mechanical device developed at Sandia, promises to build a virtually impenetrable computer firewall that even the best hacker can't beat. (October 9, 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia Washington workshop participants say 'surety' message needs refining, but idea sound: They gathered at the National Academy of Sciences building in Washington, D.C., to decide whether to adopt a new, infant sibling into the family of scientific understanding. (October 9, 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• Compact 'enhanced fidelity instrumentation' will boost confidence level of weapons flight tests: Maintenance of the nation's nuclear stockpile demands a rigorous testing program. The test regime, or stockpile surveillance, includes periodic flight testing of instrumented test models of a given weapon -- as close to the real thing possible -- called Joint Test Assemblies, or JTAs. Stockpile surveillance tests (non-nuclear), while always vital, have assumed paramount importance in the present climate, with no new weapons in the pipeline and the average age of weapons in the stockpile the oldest in history. (October 9, 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• Labs' photonic crystal bends microwaves around tight corner: On the heels of his July 16 Nature paper with Jim Fleming (1723) on their artificial silicon lattice that efficiently bends infrared light (Lab News, Sept. 11), principal researcher Shawn Lin (1712) strikes again in a paper in today's (Oct. 9) issue of the journal Science. In it, Shawn, Edmond Chow (1712), and Vince Hietala (1716) explain how they used another lattice -- this one made of alumina -- to bend microwaves around 90-degree corners within radii smaller than a wavelength.(October 9, 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia expertise helps nations of former Soviet Union safeguard stockpiled nuclear materials: Chester Hine, an engineer in International Projects Dept. 5823, will never forget visiting a research reactor at a small institute in the former Soviet Union where he encountered nuclear material stored in a dilapidated wooden shed. (September 25, 1998, click on headline for full story)
• Sandia human resources team visits Chelyabinsk-70, Moscow to help Russian labs address 'people' issues: A team of Sandia human resources experts and their counterparts and technical managers at two Russian weapons laboratories have completed an "historic" series of workshops intended to help the Russians come to grips with modern human resources issues. (September 25, 1998, click on headline for full story)
• Working photonic lattice, a dream for a decade, fabricated at Sandia: By interlocking tiny slivers of silicon into a lattice that, under a microscope, appears to be formed by toy Lincoln logs, Sandia scientists believe they have solved a major technical problem: how to bend light easily and cheaply without leaking it, no matter how many twists or turns are needed for optical communications or (potentially) optical computers. (September 11,1998. Click on headline for full story)
• MicroNavigator team moving to take IMEMS technology from prototype to product: Mike Daily of Integrated Microsystems Dept. 1738 and a team of more than 40 in Sandia's Microelectronics Development Laboratory (MDL) are moving full steam ahead to bring a prototype three-axis accelerometer chip and the processes required to make it to product status. (September 11,1998. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia program encourages use of renewable energy technologies in eight Mexican states: Marcos Alvarez, a cattle rancher in the desert of Baja California, Mexico, faced a dilemma each year that cost him many thousands of pesos and the loss of some of his herd. (September 11,1998. Click on headline for full story)
• Bracing ourselves against terrorism, natural disasters, and deterioration: Deadly attacks on US targets: Two US embassies in Africa, the US Capitol Building, Khobar Towers, the Oklahoma City federal building, the World Trade Center. Costly natural disasters: Hurricane Andrew, $16 billion; Northridge, Calif., earthquake, $25 billion; the northeast-US blizzard of '93, $1.6 billion. Add in fires, mud slides, tornadoes, riots, vandalism, and deterioration due to aging, and you've got what amounts to a significant, and growing, national concern. (August 28,1998. Click on headline for full story)
• Labs brings rural community leaders to Albuquerque to help boost economic development statewide: Business leaders and state and local officials from across New Mexico gathered in Albuquerque on Monday to discuss how technologies can help bring educational services, improved health care, and jobs to rural communities statewide. (August 28,1998. Click on headline for full story)
• Tests ensure satellite electronics endure long-term radiation exposure: In May a satellite hovering high above Kansas failed, causing the first-ever national paging outage, affecting up to 45 million pager users in the country. The PanAmSat Corp.-owned Galaxy IV satellite, which was insured for more than $160 million, may never be returned to service, leaving a spacecraft weighing almost three tons and with a wingspan of 81 feet spinning above the central US. (August 14 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• Sounds of drilling heard again at Mammoth Lakes: For the first time since 1993 the sounds of drilling in the Long Valley Exploratory Well near Mammoth Lakes, Calif., are being heard as researchers resume their quest to discover how deep magma flows under the tree-lined mountain terrain. (August 14 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia Mentorship Program pays off for New Mexico Tech student, who finds a career through Sandia work: When Sandia scientist Tim Boyle (1846) met Bernadette "Bernie" Hernandez (1846) four years ago, she was a Rio Grande High School senior looking for a part-time job. What she found in Tim's laboratory was a career. (August 14 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• National study sponsored by Sandia shows public believes US still faces nuclear threats: The Cold War has been over for more than seven years, but most Americans continue to believe the US remains at risk of nuclear conflict, and they support maintenance of a stockpile of nuclear weapons to ensure the safety of the country. (July 31, 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia is raising a home-grown computational plant: The plant resembles a pumpkin vine whose crop is high-performance computing. In place of pumpkins are microprocessor nodes, hooked together with vine-like networks. (July 31, 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia's three 1998 R&D 100 award-winning technologies detect the mostly invisible: Every 12 months R&D Magazine names its choices for the year's 100 most outstanding technical advances. (July 17, 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• As microcircuits heat up, inexpensive Sandia substrate may keep tomorrow's chips cooler: In a few years a dime-size microchip may be home to as many as 10 million transistors. But the electrical resistance created as all those snug circuits zap electrons back and forth is causing even today's microprocessors to get hot -- really hot. (July 17, 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• Scientists mimic structure of seashells to make tough coatings:: Humanity has valued seashells for their beauty and utility for thousands of years. But even alchemists never tried transmuting base materials into the microscopic interlayering necessary to create a shell's strength, hardness, and toughness. (July 17, 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• A matter of timing: Labs' micromachine prototype performs job of quartz crystals: Within the next few years, your watch, television, and computer may all contain microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), micron-size machines being developed at Sandia. (July3, 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia research agreement with Numotech to help create home-use oxygen-healing facility: In the presence of wheelchair-bound Bill "Willie" Shoemaker - America's winningest jockey until an auto accident severely injured his spine in 1991 - Sandia representatives last Friday signed a $5.76 million cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) with California-based Numotech, Inc., a company that conducts research about wounds and designs new treatments. (June 19, 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• 'Protonic' memory chip wins a 1998 Discover Award: During an Academy Awards-style ceremony at Epcot Center recently, the innovators of Sandia's memory-retentive computer chip received one of ten Discover Awards for Technological Innovation. The awards are presented annually by the editors of Discover magazine for the year's top inventions. (June 19, 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• Patented pothole patcher patches potholes pronto: Leo Mara usually commutes on foot the two miles from his home to work at Sandia. But one day, as he inched along a bumpy road in his van past a repair crew, he dreamed of a bus-sized vehicle that would fix potholes as it drives over them. That dream is now the laboratory technician's first patented invention. (June 19, 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia gearing up for 50th anniversary celebrations, observances in 1999: A Sandia National Labs 50th anniversary logo has been developed for use throughout 1999 - the Labs' anniversary year. (June 19, 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandians write book on Civil War in New Mexico: During his many long work-related trips to Washington over the past several years, John Taylor, Manager of Nonproliferation Initiatives Dept. 5335, squeezed in time to pore through 135-year-old journals, letters, and military records at the National Archives. (June 19, 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia Science and Technology Park soon a reality: A fast-track project that began in May to build the first facility in the new Sandia Science and Technology Park should be finished by October and operating soon thereafter. The formal groundbreaking ceremony for the new EMCOREwest building took place May 28, at the Albuquerque site just northeast of Kirtland Air Force Base's Eubank gate. (June 5, 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandia's precision MEMS reliability tests advance future of micromachine systems: Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), those microscopic marvels that promise to revolutionize the electronics industry, are useless unless they are reliable. So says Bill Miller, Manager of Reliability Physics Dept. 1728, whose 18-member group is charged with determining the reliability of Sandia's MEMS. "We constantly ask the questions - how reliable are they and can we use them in real applications," Bill says. (June 5, 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• Tracking disease outbreaks may help detect rogue bioweapon research: When an outbreak of a rodent-borne disease now known as the hantavirus killed more than a dozen people in the southwestern United States in spring 1993, the US had some explaining to do. The outbreak was sudden, it was often fatal, and it was confined to a region where plenty of military research takes place. To some it looked like the US might have been experimenting with biological agents forbidden under current treaties, and that the bug somehow had gotten out among the populace. (June 5, 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• Visiting Scholars Program at Cooperative Monitoring Center aims to help make world a safer place: In another time and place Nazir Kamal, an international relations expert from Pakistan, and Pravin Sawhney, a journalist and former major in the Indian army, might have found themselves on the opposite sides of the political fence. But at Sandia's Cooperative Monitoring Center (CMC), where they participate in the two-year-old Visiting Scholars Program, they are working together as a team to help resolve historical conflicts between their two countries.(May 22, 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• 'Accidents are unacceptable': Sandia lends its safety, reliability expertise to the FAA: Sandia's role in helping the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) design a new systematic approach to airline safety was highlighted during an FAA news conference last week in Washington, D.C. The FAA expects the new program to help its nationwide team of 3,700 airline inspectors more effectively track safety trends and spot problem areas in the nation's fleet of aging commercial aircraft. (May 22, 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• Refrozen food detector patented by Sandia group: If frozen food thawed on the cross-country truck transporting it, was then refrozen, and you bought it, how would you know it wasn't fit to eat? Perhaps by a color change in a very inexpensive thaw indicator placed in the package. (May 22, 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• Students shed Cold War mentality in cyber-age Russia pen-pal program: Their parents spent their school-age years learning to mistrust Russians. But for the 19 second graders in Janet Sanchez's Petroglyph Elementary School classroom, Russians aren't reason to "duck and cover." They're pen pals, friends, summer camp companions, perhaps. They're a good reason to check your classroom's e-mail. (May 8, 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• CRADA to fast-track commercialization of new, more sensitive radiation detector: A frequent collaborator and customer of Sandia's nuclear materials monitoring user facility has entered into a cooperative research and development agreement to make more sensitive room-temperature radiation monitors. (May 8, 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• 'Human presence detector' device fails controlled tests conducted by Sandia: A Sandia double-blind test of an instrument that its manufacturer said could detect the presence of human beings at a distance through any material found no evidence that it could do so.
  (April 24, 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• Sandians seek tiny chemistry lab on a chip: Much the way the invention of telescopes and radio powerfully extended what we can see and hear, the faint but informative presence of trace chemicals may one day be discerned by sensors on bands of small vehicles that cooperatively canvass the countryside. (April 24, 1998. Click on headline for full story)
• Wear-resistant, diamond-like coating created by Sandia
  Eliminate stress, the saying goes, and you live longer. Apparently the same is true of certain diamond coatings. A team of Sandia scientists has developed a simple, inexpensive way to relieve the normal internal stresses of amorphous (noncrystalline) diamond films - a significant advance in producing wear-resistant coatings. (April 10, 1998 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Sandia formally proposes to design accelerator expected to produce high-yield fusion
  Permission to prepare a conceptual design for a next-generation accelerator, X-1, was formally requested this week by Sandia President C. Paul Robinson in a letter to DOE headquarters. If funded, X-1 would be expected to reach initial operating capability by about 2007 and high-yield fusion by about 2010 as well as provide important data for the nation's stockpile stewardship program. (April 10, 1998 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Powerful new laser imaging technique pinpoints nitric oxide emissions formation
  Combustion researchers are completing another chapter of the story regarding diesel emissions by showing when and where nitric oxide (NO) forms inside an operating diesel engine. John Dec of Combustion in Engines Dept. 8362 has already shed light on fuel distribution and soot formation during diesel combustion, changing old assumptions with new data from laser diagnostics. (A special research engine equipped with quartz windows in the combustion chamber is used for these investigations.) Recently, John and colleagues turned to NO, which is either formed rapidly in the flame zone, or more slowly in the adjacent gases as a result of high temperatures generated by combustion. (April 10, 1998 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Sandians can't let Y2K stop nuclear detonation detection
  If anybody is motivated to deal with Year 2000 problems, it's the Sandians working on the US Nuclear Detonation Detection System. They have to be. If the system stops working, the US loses its ability to use satellites to monitor for nuclear test ban treaty violations. (April 10, 1998 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Sandia beating swords into plowshares - really
  Sandia is getting into agriculture, but don't look for crops or herds or flocks back toward Coyote Canyon. Rather, Sandians will be promoting sustainable development through the use of 20 years of experience in waste management and environmental risk. (April 10, 1998 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Labs patents cool tool to produce better microchips
  A device expected to be potentially less expensive and more effective than any on the market in helping cool silicon wafers during the chip manufacturing process has been patented in prototype by researchers at Sandia. (March 27, 1998 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• NASA, Sandia drawing nearer an expanded and more formalized research relationship
  A high-level delegation of Sandians, including Executive VP John Crawford, Division 1000 VP Bob Eagan, and directors from centers in several divisions, traveled to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory earlier this month to help forge a new relationship between NASA and Sandia. And this week, Bob led a similar delegation on a visit to Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland to continue a round of high-level exchanges of information. (March 27, 1998 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Cooperative Monitoring Center welcomes world arms control experts to Albuquerque next week
  Some 180 internationally known experts representing the United Nations, NATO, and about 40 countries will gather in Albuquerque April 3-5 to discuss the spread of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons and the technologies required to monitor them. (March 27, 1998 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Nation's investments in stockpile stewardship paying off, Paul Robinson tells Senate Armed Services subcommittee
  Congress' investments in science-based stockpile stewardship have already begun to show results, Sandia President and Labs Director C. Paul Robinson told a Senate Armed Services subcommittee in Washington last week. He urged continued strong support. (March 27, 1998 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Actor Charlton Heston lends big voice to Sandia's little machines in new video production
  Sandia's micromachines are tiny little marvels, but now they have a spokesman who is bigger than life. Charlton Heston, one of the world's most recognized, admired, and honored actors, provides onscreen and voice-over narration for Sandia's new microsystems (i.e. micromachines and integrated microelectronics) promotional video. (February 27, 1998 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Z machine on another dramatic climb toward fusion conditions
  Researchers at Sandia's Z - the former dark horse among accelerators meant to produce conditions required for nuclear fusion (Lab News, Aug. 1, 1997) - have increased the machine's X-ray power output by nearly 10 times in the last two years. (February 27, 1998 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Sandia is 'very sound,' Paul Robinson tells audience of community leaders at State of the Labs talk
  The state of the Labs? Healthy, financially stable, and advancing the technology for national security. That was the gist of the message delivered by Labs President C. Paul Robinson and Executive VP John Crawford during the annual community "State of the Labs" address on Feb. 19. (February 27, 1998 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Archimedes in action: Assembly planning software gets a job in private industry
  Archimedes is alive and well and about to go to work big time for private industry. Not the Greek mathematician and inventor, of course, but Archimedes 3.0. (February 27, 1998 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Sandia scientists develop first reproducible quantum transistor
  Improvements in the transistor of the future may not rely on decreasing its size but rather on a radical change in operation made possible by a quantum mechanical transistor created at Sandia. (February 13, 1998 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Paul Robinson joins President Clinton aboard Air Force One
  Flying toward Albuquerque on Air Force One, Sandia President and Laboratory Director C. Paul Robinson spoke earnestly with President Bill Clinton. Among the topics of the 30-minute discussion: science-based stockpile stewardship, the START II Treaty, labs funding, and counterterrorism. (February 13, 1998 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Disabling the Unabomber's final bomb: Objective was not just to defuse it, but to surgically defuse it, says Chris Cherry
  One night in April 1996 Sandia bomb-disablement expert Chris Cherry got an urgent call at home in Albuquerque. It was the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI, investigating Unabomber suspect Theodore Kaczynski's cabin in Montana, had found a bomb. The investigators said they could not continue on into the cabin. (February 13, 1998 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Thousands of ice comets bombarding the atmosphere? High-altitude plumes from meteoroids invoked instead
  Intense controversy over the past decade has swirled around the assertion by two space scientists that thousands of house-sized snowballs, or icy comets, are striking Earth each day. Their claim that up to 30,000 such small comets strike Earth's atmosphere every day is derived from observations by the Dynamics Explorer-1 satellite of transient dark spots, or holes, in the upper atmosphere's far-ultraviolet dayglow emission. (January 30, 1998 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Cooperative monitoring goes online as field trial expands to storage magazines
  "Good job," remarked a Russian visitor upon leaving an old storage magazine at Sandia/California that had been instrumented with the latest monitoring systems. The visitor, one of five from Russia's Arzamas-16 and Mayak nuclear research facilities, had just participated in a ribbon-cutting ceremony capping a year of successful lab-to-lab collaboration in nuclear material monitoring technology. (January 30, 1998 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• New portable voltage standard heads to NASA facilities following Sandia training
  A three-day hands-on course held recently at Sandia's Primary Standards Laboratory has provided the training necessary for technicians to operate a new transportable voltage standard at NASA facilities throughout the US. (January 30, 1998 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• 'Lab-on-a-chip' efforts show progress
  The effort by Sandia researchers to build a self-contained chemistry laboratory in a handheld device received high marks as well as guidance in the project's second review by an independent panel at Sandia/California in December. (January 16, 1998 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Digital paleontology: Producing the sound of the Parasaurolophus dinosaur
  It's a roar from the past. The distant past. The Late Cretaceous to be exact. Scientists at Sandia and the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science have collaborated to recreate the sound a dinosaur made 75 million years ago. (December 19, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Research on novel radiation-detection CZT crystal presented at materials science meeting
  Devising a way to cast a wider net to spot faint radiation sources with room-temperature detectors is a little like searching for a Hope diamond. (December 19, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Blue-chip NASA delegation hears two days of 'impressive' briefings on Labs' capabilities
  An initiative to encourage more cooperative research and development efforts between Sandia and NASA got a big boost last week. A blue-chip delegation of scientists and administrators from NASA facilities across the country spent two days at the Labs learning about Sandia's capabilities in a wide range of technical disciplines. Although there have been NASA-Sandia interactions in the past, this meeting was the most in-depth, comprehensive briefing to date. (December 19, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Labs developing means to sniff out mines chemically and electronically
  Sandia has joined the effort to rid the world of what Ron Woodfin (2522) describes as "the worst form of pollution mankind has ever come up with" - land mines. Ron oversees much of Sandia's exploratory work in land-mine detection and demining, which ranges from chemical sensing to laying down a quick-hardening foam to clear a path for military vehicles. Sandia also is developing robotic vehicles and backscattered X-ray technologies that can be used to support the demining effort. (December 5, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Stockpile stewardship support is bipartisan now, Domenici says, but budget battles will continue
  US Senator Pete Domenici is pleased that support for DOE's stockpile management/ stewardship program appears to be growing and becoming increasingly bipartisan, but he also believes it will be a continuing battle in Congress and with future presidents to maintain the necessary financial support. (December 5, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Sandia method to destroy old munitions is scaled up for pilot plant at Army's Pine Bluff Arsenal
  Technologies developed in the laboratory to destroy wastes without hazardous emissions are being applied in a pilot-scale plant under construction at the Army's Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas. There, up to 80 pounds per hour of obsolete munitions, slurried in water, will be destroyed in a supercritical water oxidation (SCWO) system. The SCWO system pressurizes and heats the slurry, which fuels an oxidation reaction. The wastes are destroyed within seconds, producing such innocuous end products as carbon dioxide, water, and salts. (December 5, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Intense hopes: Ten companies team to commercialize Sandia's powder-to-parts net shaping technology
  Commercialization of a possibly pivotal manufacturing technology - computer-controlled lasers that, in hours, weld air-blown streams of metallic powders into custom parts and manufacturing molds - is the goal of 10 companies teaming with Sandia in a new cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) funded for $3 million over the next two years. (December 5, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• The end of an era: Sandia's 17-meter Vertical Axis Wind Turbine comes down after two decades
  It went up two decades ago with the optimism and determination of a nation seeking greener, more reliable ways of meeting its growing energy needs. It came down this week with a sense of nostalgia, and, yes, some disappointment. (November 21, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Sandia microtransmission becomes a reality
  First there were microengines. Now researchers at Sandia have built microtransmissions. A micromachine and its attached microtransmission easily could be overlooked among, say, grains of sand. (November 21, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Games? Hardly. Combat simulator helps NATO group test base security
  It's not exactly the celebrated Star Trek holodeck, but it's pretty darned realistic. That's what participants in a NATO exercise discovered this month at Sandia using Joint Tactical Simulation (JTS) software to evaluate NATO base security issues. (November 21, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Sandia, Lockheed Martin earn award for Outstanding Business in Philanthropy
  Sandia employees' long-standing traditions of caring and giving to others in need and improving the community's quality of life received a very high honor this week. (November 21, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Swords to plowshares: Sandia delivers prosthetics work for Russian weaponeers
  A Sandia-originated consortium that links an Ohio manufacturer of prosthetic devices for amputees with Russian scientists formerly devoted to perfecting nuclear weapons has been accomplished by an insight of Sandia chemist Mort Lieberman (2418), who currently serves as liaison and co-director for the project. (November 7, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Novel laser net shaping approach reduces time for fabricating parts
  A novel way to fabricate parts, called Laser Engineered Net Shaping (LENS), is being developed through a $500,000 cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) between Sandia and a New Mexico company, Optomec Design Company. (November 7, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Sandians use Nevada Test Site facility to examine emissions from explosives and propellants
  Trying to determine the nature of the air and ground emissions released during disposal of excess munitions through open burning or open detonation, researchers from Sandia and other labs have begun a series of tests inside a sealed, underground chamber at the Nevada Test Site. (Oct. 24, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Shifting weights, not firing jets, to improve accuracy of reentry vehicles, orbits of satellites
  A missile or space ship, spinning like a football or Olympic diver as it reenters Earth's atmosphere, ordinarily is designed to be perfectly balanced - with tight control over the distribution of mass within it - to avoid flight stability problems. (Oct. 24, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Labs leaders pair with 20 schools in new Campus Execs program
  Eleven top Labs executives have enrolled in a new program to strengthen Sandia's research and recruiting activities at 20 universities. (Oct. 24, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• New Sandia CD-ROM reveals nitty gritty details of downhole oil well environment
  What goes on deep underground as an oil well "sucker rod string" plunges down thousands of feet of tubing during pumping? In a word: stress, lots of it. The string is strained, compressed, buckled, and bent as it works against the resistance of crude oil surrounding the rod on each downstroke. And that's just the downstroke. (Oct. 24, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Think safety, reliability, simplicity to avert 'perpetual state of glitch,' science writer tells software engineers
  "Yesterday, my kitchen crashed."

  That excerpt from a humorous account of the perils of owning a "smart house" was one of several examples cited by Ivars Peterson to demonstrate the myriad ways software glitches can ruin a perfectly good day. (Oct. 24, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)

• Latest entrepreneurs 'leave' Sandia with a flourish
  With one of the two authors of national technology transfer-enabling legislation looking on, Labs Director C. Paul Robinson recently signed the paperwork sending three more Sandians off on entrepreneurial leave to use Sandia-developed technology in launching their own company. (Oct. 24, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Explosion over El Paso: Natural or manmade?
  A large explosion reported over El Paso last week brought Sandians Mark Boslough and Dave Crawford to the scene immediately. They drove into Texas with Doug Revelle - a researcher from Los Alamos whose infrasound monitors detect naturally exploding fireballs as well as breeches in the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty - and two researchers from UNM's Institute of Meteoritics. (Oct. 24, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• NIJ funds development of affordable evidence detector
  Placing the "perp" at the scene of the crime can be difficult for police because some evidence can be hard to find - fingerprints, semen, urine, and other organic substances. (Oct. 10, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Super-sensitive coating improves detection of dangerous molecules
  A coating that allows miniature sensors to detect dangerous, even lethal, air- or water-borne molecules much more quickly has been created in a joint project of Sandia and the University of New Mexico. (Oct. 10, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Cassini mission ready; Sandia helped assess nuclear power source risks
  When the Cassini spacecraft is launched next week from Kennedy Space Center for its seven-year flight to Saturn, it will lift off in the wake of a vitriolic public debate about the safety of using nuclear fuel as a source of energy for space missions. (Oct. 10, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Remote sensing with unclassified satellite images
  Vipin Gupta (8112) was surprised how much he could determine from unclassified satellite photos when, as a postdoctoral fellow, he decided to determine their utility in verifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. (Oct. 10, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Robotics Expo finds Congress, business want a major US intelligent-machines industry
  NASA's Sojourner robot, which Sandia helped deliver to the Martian surface this past summer, is akin to the Wright Brothers' first airplane when viewed in the context of where the robotics and intelligent-machines industry is headed, says the space agency's chief technical officer. (Oct. 10, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Federal Aviation Administration names Sandia, eight universities to pilot new 'Center of Excellence' for airworthiness assurance
  The Federal Aviation Administration has selected Sandia and eight universities to pilot its new Airworthiness Assurance "Center of Excellence," a research and development partnership intended to bring government, university, and airline-industry R&D resources to bear on improved commercial aircraft safety. (Oct. 10, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Passion for technology can outweigh lack of business experience, says start-up Sandia entrepreneur
  Tim Cooley has a message for all would-be, maybe, and thinking-about-it Sandia entrepreneurs: dive in. The water may not be warm, exactly, but it is exhilarating. (Oct. 10, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Historic collaboration pursues breakthroughs for 21st-century microchip fabrication
  For the three participating national labs, announcing an extreme ultraviolet lithography partnership was a celebration of doing what might once have seemed impossible: working together in a seamless fashion as a single entity to solve a major problem with leaders of a major industry. (Sept. 26, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Congressional Expo in D.C. Sept. 30 to highlight future of intelligent machines
  The potential of intelligent machines, not only as people helpers but as the product of a whole new multibillion-dollar industry, will be the focus of a daylong expo on Capitol Hill Sept. 30. Sponsored jointly by Sandia, DOE, and the Robotics and Intelligent Machines Cooperative Council (RIMCC), the Congressional Expo on Intelligent Machines is expected to attract the attention of Congress, industry, and Washington-area media. (Sept. 26, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Sandia's Web developers design DOE's new education outreach site
  Department of Energy Headquarters tapped Sandia's Web development expertise recently in putting together a new Internet site for teachers and students that supports Energy Secretary Federico Peña's education outreach initiatives. (Sept. 26, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Black church leaders solicit Sandia's help in protecting people and property from arson, vandalism, violence
  Practicality. Affordability. Two things schools and churches ought to consider when they buy a security system intended to protect people and property from arson, vandalism, and other crimes, according to Mary Green. (Sept. 26, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Largest-ever CRADA brings $200 million microelectronics investment
  A microelectronics industry consortium, including chip makers Intel Corp., Advanced Micro Devices, and Motorola, this week announced the largest-ever funds-in cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) with Sandia, Lawrence Livermore, and Lawrence Berkeley national laboratories. (Sept. 12, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Sandia begins testing explosives portal at Albuquerque airport
  Beginning next week, some airline passengers visiting the main security checkpoint at the Albuquerque International Sunport will be asked to try out tomorrow's technology for combating terrorism - Sandia's "explosives-detection portal" under development for the Federal Aviation Adminstration (FAA). (Sept. 12, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• FORTE first satellite to be controlled from Sandia
  Each time the 468-pound FORTE satellite sweeps overhead, all eyes inside Sandia's satellite ground station look down. What Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories scientists are looking at are the reams of data being downloaded from the 7-foot-long satellite, orbiting 500 miles above the Earth. Four times a day the scene is repeated as FORTE passes within communicating distance of the Sandia ground station. Although Sandia has developed and monitored satellites in the past, this is the first time the Labs has actually controlled a satellite's operations. (Sept. 12, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Celebrating a dream: CNSAC ceremonies open center for waging peace, preventing international conflict
  It is an 11-year dream finally come to fruition. It is a celebration of Sandia and its mission to "wage peace." It is a high-tech center and a home to what we see as "the greatest arms control program in the world." (Sept. 12, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Sandia retiree publishes book on Chicago Day at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893
  The 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago celebrated the 400th anniversary of Columbus's arrival in the New World and symbolized the burgeoning economic and industrial strength of the United States. (Sept. 12, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• 2020 Vision educational activity expands to more classrooms
  Tomorrow's decision-makers - today's teen-agers - provided Sandia their views of the future recently as a part of 2020 Vision, a program sponsored by Sandia/California's Science & Technology Outreach Department and the Senior Advisor for National Security. More than 250 senior high school students participated in this second year of the program, and six of those students came to Sandia one day this summer to share their ideas with national security researchers. (Sept. 12, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• CNSAC brings under one roof Sandia's major national security program areas
  The Cold War is over. Now it's time to preserve the peace. That's the essence behind the mission of Sandia's newest building - the Center for National Security and Arms Control (CNSAC), Bldg. 810, in the center of Tech Area 1.

  Dedication ceremonies celebrating the new building and its role in preserving national security were scheduled to be held Thursday (Aug. 28). The event also observed Sandia's rich heritage as a weapons and national security DOE laboratory that dates back nearly 50 years. (Aug. 29, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)

• Dealing with the terrorist threat: World's top bomb squads practice the occult art of bomb disablement
  Clipping the red wire, or the blue (which is it?), seconds before detonation - that's for Hollywood. Real bomb disablers rely less on luck and more on sound tactics and proven technology. That's because recent terrorist-style bombings in the US and abroad have featured explosive devices as extraordinary as the religious fervor or political zealotry that spurred their creation. And as the world's criminals and terrorists have become more technologically sophisticated, so have their bombs. (Aug. 15, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Patented device detects blood disorders near-instantly
  A revolutionary handheld device that in a few moments can detect and then track disorders of the blood has been patented in prototype by scientists at Sandia and the National Institutes of Health. The device immediately detects sickle-cell anemia as well as nanometer-scale changes in cell structure like those imposed by the AIDs virus. (Aug. 15, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)
• Fire tests help ensure safety of nuclear material shipping casks; subjected to 2,200-degree blaze
  Nuclear material shipping casks transported inside standard steel shipping containers can survive large fires and still protect their contents and prevent radioactive material releases, according to preliminary results from recent Sandia fire-endurance tests. (August 15, 1997 issue; click on headline to see full article)