ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — “Zombie” mammalian cells that may function better after they die have been created by researchers at Sandia National Laboratories and the University of New Mexico (UNM). The simple technique coats a cell with a silica solution to form a near-perfect replica of its structure. The process may simplify a wide variety of […]
Category Archives: Biology
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‘Zombie’ replica cells may outperform live ones as catalysts and conductors
February 7, 2013 – 5:00 am
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Engineering alternative fuel with cyanobacteria
January 7, 2013 – 9:45 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories Truman Fellow Anne Ruffing has engineered two strains of cyanobacteria to produce free fatty acids, a precursor to liquid fuels, but she has also found that the process cuts the bacteria’s production potential. Micro-algal fuels might be one way to reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign energy. Such fuels […]
Sandia probability maps help sniff out food contamination
September 27, 2012 – 8:47 am
Uncovering the sources of fresh food contamination could become faster and easier thanks to analysis done at Sandia National Laboratories’ National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center (NISAC). The study, in the International Journal of Critical Infrastructures, demonstrates how developing a probability map of the food supply network using stochastic network representation might shorten the time […]
Students painlessly measure knee joint fluids in annual Sandia contest
September 26, 2012 – 9:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Texas Tech University repeated last year’s victory in the novel design category of Sandia National Laboratories’ annual competition to design new, extraordinarily tiny devices, while Carnegie Mellon University won the educational microelectromechanical (MEMS) prize for the second year in a row. This year’s contest attracted engineering students from nine universities, nearly double […]
Sandia shows monitoring brain activity during study can help predict test performance
September 10, 2012 – 12:00 pm
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Research at Sandia National Laboratories has shown that it’s possible to predict how well people will remember information by monitoring their brain activity while they study. A team under Laura Matzen of Sandia’s cognitive systems group was the first to demonstrate predictions based on the results of monitoring test volunteers with electroencephalography […]
“Toxic” political discussions limit climate response, says invited speaker at Sandia
August 14, 2012 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The inability of natural and social scientists to convince political leaders that “we’re spinning a roulette wheel over climate change” puts humanity at “extreme risk,” said Massachusetts Institute of Technology management professor Henry Jacoby, former co-director of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, during a lecture […]
Alaskan North Slope climate: hard data from a hard place
August 13, 2012 – 5:00 am
Researchers examine clouds (from both sides now) and the structure of the atmosphere BARROW, Alaska — Sandia National Laboratories’ researcher Mark Ivey and I (science writer Neal Singer) are standing on the tundra at an outpost of science at the northernmost point of the North American continent. We are five miles northeast of Barrow, an Alaskan village […]
Predictions by climate models are flawed, says invited speaker at Sandia
July 25, 2012 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Richard Lindzen, a global warming skeptic, told about 70 Sandia researchers in June that too much is being made of climate change by researchers seeking government funding. He said their data and their methods did not support their claims. “Despite concerns over the last decades with the […]
Global warming unequivocal in its advance, says invited speaker at Sandia
July 24, 2012 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Global warming is unequivocal in its advance and will lead to more record-setting temperatures, said Warren M. Washington, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, in the seventh lecture of Sandia National Laboratories’ Climate Change and National Security series. The talk was given in mid-May. Washington, a pioneer in atmospheric […]
Sandia seeks commercial partners for revolutionary “SpinDx” medical diagnostic tool
July 12, 2012 – 8:43 am
Faster, less expensive device gives lab test results in 15 minutes at point-of-care LIVERMORE, Calif. — Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have developed a lab-on-a-disk platform that they believe will be faster, less expensive and more versatile than similar medical diagnostic tools. Lab officials are seeking industry partners to license and commercialize the SpinDx technology, […]
Climate change accelerating Southwest desertification, speaker says
May 10, 2012 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, NM — Jonathan Overpeck, professor of Atmospheric Sciences and Geosciences at the University of Arizona, brought a friendly smile, informative graphics and a warning about drought in the Southwest to Sandia’s Climate Change and National Security Speaker Series. Addressing “Climate Change and the Aridification of the North American Southwest and Beyond,” Overpeck placed water-glass […]
Miniature Sandia sensors may advance climate studies
April 10, 2012 – 5:00 am
Self-sealing valves also increase data reliability for airborne industrial and battlefield gas detection and point-of-contact medicine ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — An air sampler the size of an ear plug is expected to cheaply and easily collect atmospheric samples to improve computer climate models. “We now have an inexpensive tool for collecting pristine vapor samples in the […]
Sandia seeks better neural control of prosthetics for amputees
February 18, 2012 – 7:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M — Sandia National Laboratories researchers, using off-the-shelf equipment in a chemistry lab, have been working on ways to improve amputees’ control over prosthetics with direct help from their own nervous systems. Organic materials chemist Shawn Dirk, robotics engineer Steve Buerger and others are creating biocompatible interface scaffolds. The goal is improved prosthetics with […]
Anthrax-killing foam proves effective in meth lab cleanup
February 16, 2012 – 5:00 am
Sandia’s decontamination foam is now also a meth eraser Sandia’s decontamination foam, developed more than a decade ago and used to decontaminate federal office buildings and mailrooms during the 2001 anthrax attacks, is now being used to decontaminate illegal methamphetamine labs. Mark Tucker, a chemical engineer in Sandia’s Chemical & Biological Systems Dept. and co-creator […]
Sandia designs mobile facility to measure greenhouse gases
September 8, 2011 – 5:00 am
LIVERMORE, Calif. — Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have designed and built a mobile research facility to trace and identify the origin of greenhouse gases. In addition to pinpointing the chemicals’ location, the unique mobile facility can help researchers learn whether the gases are biogenic (coming from plant sources) or anthropogenic (coming from man-made sources). […]