Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy (DOE), located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the American southwest. Best known for its central role in helping develop the first atomic bomb, LANL is one of the world's largest and most advanced scientific institutions.[5]
For the World War II-era laboratory in Los Alamos, see Los Alamos Laboratory.
Los Alamos was established in 1943 as Project Y, a top-secret site for designing nuclear weapons under the Manhattan Project during World War II.[note 1] Chosen for its remote yet relatively accessible location, it served as the main hub for conducting and coordinating nuclear research,[6] bringing together some of the world's most famous scientists, among them numerous Nobel Prize winners.[7][8] The town of Los Alamos, directly north of the lab, grew extensively through this period.
After the war ended in 1945, Project Y's existence was made public, and it became known universally as Los Alamos. In 1952, the Atomic Energy Commission formed a second design lab under the direction of the University of California, Berkeley, which became the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL).[9] The two labs competed on a wide variety of bomb designs, but with the end of the Cold War, have focused increasingly on civilian missions. Today, Los Alamos conducts multidisciplinary research in fields such as national security, space exploration, nuclear fusion, renewable energy,[10] medicine, nanotechnology, and supercomputing.
While owned by the federal government, LANL is privately managed and operated by Triad National Security, LLC.[7][11]
Los Alamos National Laboratory's mission is to "solve national security challenges through simultaneous excellence".[28] The laboratory's strategic plan reflects U.S. priorities spanning nuclear security, intelligence, defense, emergency response, nonproliferation, counterterrorism, energy security, emerging threats, and environmental management. This strategy is aligned with priorities set by the Department of Energy (DOE), the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), and national strategy guidance documents, such as the Nuclear Posture Review, the National Security Strategy, and the Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future
Los Alamos is the senior laboratory in the DOE system, and executes work in all areas of the DOE mission: national security, science, energy, and environmental management.[29] The laboratory also performs work for the Department of Defense (DoD), Intelligence Community (IC), and Department of Homeland Security (DHS), among others. The laboratory's multidisciplinary scientific capabilities and activities are organized into six Capability Pillars:[30]
Los Alamos operates three main user facilities:
As of 2017, the Los Alamos National Laboratory is using data and algorithms to possibly protect public health by tracking the growth of infectious diseases. Digital epidemiologists at the lab's Information Systems and Modeling group are using clinical surveillance data, Google search queries, census data, Wikipedia, and even tweets to create a system that could predict epidemics. The team is using data from Brazil as its model; Brazil was notably threatened by the Zika virus as it prepared to host the Summer Olympics in 2016.[32]
With support of the National Science Foundation, LANL operates one of the three National High Magnetic Field Laboratories in conjunction with and located at two other sites Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida, and University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida.
Los Alamos National Laboratory is a partner in the Joint Genome Institute (JGI) located in Walnut Creek, California. JGI was founded in 1997 to unite the expertise and resources in genome mapping, DNA sequencing, technology development, and information sciences pioneered at the three genome centers at University of California's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), and LANL.
The Integrated Computing Network (ICN) is a multi-security level network at the LANL integrating large host supercomputers, a file server, a batch server, a printer and graphics output server and numerous other general purpose and specialized systems. IBM Roadrunner, which was part of this network, was the first supercomputer to hit petaflop speeds.[39]
Until 1999, The Los Alamos National Laboratory hosted the arXiv e-print archive.[40] The arXiv is currently operated and funded by Cornell University.
The coreboot project was initially developed at LANL.[41]
In the recent years, the Laboratory has developed a major research program in systems biology modeling, known at LANL under the name q-bio.
Several serials are published by LANL:[42]
LANL also published Los Alamos Science from 1980 to 2005, as well as the Nuclear Weapons Journal, which was replaced by National Security Science after two issues in 2009.
Controversy and criticism[edit]
In 2005, Congress held new hearings on lingering security issues at Los Alamos National Weapons Laboratory in New Mexico; documented problems continued to be ignored.[43][44]
In November 2008, a drum containing nuclear waste was ruptured due to a 'deflagration' according to an inspector general report of the Dept. of Energy, which due to lab mistakes, also occurred in 2014 at the Carlsbad plant with significant disruptions and costs across the industry.[45]
In 2009, 69 computers which did not contain classified information were lost.[46] The same year also saw a scare in which 1 kg (2.2 lb) of missing plutonium prompted a Department of Energy investigation into the laboratory. The investigation found that the "missing plutonium" was a result of miscalculation by LANL's statisticians and did not actually exist; but the investigation did lead to heavy criticism of the laboratory by the DOE for security flaws and weaknesses that the DOE claimed to have found.[47][48]
Institutional statistics[edit]
LANL is northern New Mexico's largest institution and the largest employer with approximately 8,762 direct employees, 277 guard force, 505 contractors, 1,613 students, 1,143 unionized craft workers, and 452 post-doctoral researchers.[49] Additionally, there are roughly 120 DOE employees stationed at the laboratory to provide federal oversight of LANL's work and operations. Approximately one-third of the laboratory's technical staff members are physicists, one-quarter are engineers, one-sixth are chemists and materials scientists, and the remainder work in mathematics and computational science, biology, geoscience, and other disciplines. Professional scientists and students also come to Los Alamos as visitors to participate in scientific projects. The staff collaborates with universities and industry in both basic and applied research to develop resources for the future. The annual budget is approximately US$2.2 billion.