Science / Technology / Engineering

June 30, 2008 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) and Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) will host a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Field Hearing at the Sandia Science & Technology Park, International Programs Building, on Wednesday, July 2 from 10 a.m. to noon.

June 23, 2008 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Recent findings by medical researchers indicate that naturally occurring nanotubes may serve as tunnels that protect retroviruses and bacteria in transit from diseased to healthy cells — a fact that may explain why vaccines fare poorly against some invaders.

June 5, 2008 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —A mechanical micromuscle with nanoscopic movements and a micro-creep-and-stress tester, both designed by students, were the big winners in Sandia National Laboratories’ fourth annual University Alliance Design Competition for microelectromechanical systems (MEM

June 5, 2008 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories is accepting applications for the 2008 Dream Catcher Science Program.

May 21, 2008 • LIVERMORE CALIF. — Materials researchers across the globe have fervently been working to find the ideal hydrogen storage material, one that will safely and efficiently provide the needed range and running time for fuel cell vehicles. But a separate issue — hydrogen “embrittlement

May 21, 2008 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Three new companies have each been awarded new contracts to provide Sandia National Laboratories' total of approximately 1,200 staff augmentation workers.

May 20, 2008 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories and Kirtland Air Force Base may soon share a wind farm that will provide as much as one-third of the electricity used by the two entities.

May 14, 2008 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —While Sandia National Laboratories spends a large portion of its funding within New Mexico, its economic footprint is thought to be much larger than the actual dollars it pays out. In fact, economic impact models have suggested that the effect Sandia has on the

May 6, 2008 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Morgan Sparks, a former director of Sandia National Laboratories, inventor of the first practical transistor and a longtime civic leader in Albuquerque, died on Saturday May 3 at his daughter's home in Fullerton, Calif. He was 91 years old.

April 30, 2008 • LIVERMORE, CALIF. —Carbon nanotubes, described as the reigning celebrity of the advanced materials world, are all the rage. Recently researchers at Rice University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute used them to make the “blackest black” — the darkest known material, reflecting

April 29, 2008 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories will hold a banquet to honor recipients of this year’s Excellence in Science Teaching awards (ESTe) Thursday, May 1, at the Embassy Suites & Conference Center, 1000 Woodward Place N.E. The banquet will begin with a reception at 6 p

April 29, 2008 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — DOE photovoltaic funding for years has gone to programs that promise more efficient conversion of sunlight to electricity, or in aiding solar start-up companies. It’s called “technology push.”

April 28, 2008 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — NASA has once again turned to Sandia’s National Solar Thermal Test Facility — aka the Solar Tower — to help evaluate new technology for future space shuttle missions. NASA’s most recent testing series in early March evaluated the HYpersonic AeroTHermodynamic I

April 24, 2008 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — It was hard to understand how a graphene sheet — a featureless, flat sheet of carbon atoms — lying on an equally featureless iridium surface, somehow converted itself into a kind of muffin tin that formed “muffins” made from newly arrived iridium atoms.

April 23, 2008 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —Next time you visit the gas station and fill your tank with $3.50 or more a gallon gasoline, reflect on this. Nine years ago you could have bought that same gas for 98 cents a gallon.

April 15, 2008 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories recently licensed its safer fuel air diversionary device technology to Defense Technology Corporation of America, located in Casper, Wyo.

April 14, 2008 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman has selected the Sandia National Laboratories’ MESA project team as recipients of the Secretary’s Achievement Honor Award.

April 8, 2008 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman presented the Sandia/LANL Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies (CINT) with the Department of Energy Award for Achievement at the bi-annual DOE project management workshop in Washington, DC. held in late March.

April 7, 2008 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Can biofuels be made cheaply enough to lower the cost of driving a car? Are green roofs worth the cost? Can nanotechnology lead to better vaccines? And what is extreme ball lightning?

April 3, 2008 • LIVERMORE, CALIF. — Sandia research is having significant impact on the emerging bioenergy arena through its work in protein purification and analysis. Recent developments in this technology space are recognized in the 2008 Volume 8 edition of Lab on a Chip – a leading microfluid

April 1, 2008 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A crisis is looming over water shortages worldwide. By 2025 more than half the nations in the world will face freshwater stress or shortages and by 2050 as much as 75 percent of the world’s population could face freshwater scarcity.

March 31, 2008 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Researchers in the Power Sources R&D group at Sandia National Laboratories have been driving nails into batteries, heating them to extreme temperatures, overcharging them, and putting them into some of the most adverse conditions possible to see how much abuse

March 28, 2008 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —One sign of changing times is that Sandia National Laboratories has been polled one of the top-10 U.S. work places for post-doctoral students in the life sciences.

March 24, 2008 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —Sandia National Laboratories Fleet Services Department has exceeded fuel and energy efficiency standards set by the Department of Energy, one of a few organizations to do so in the nuclear weapons complex.

March 20, 2008 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —Russian researchers, wanting to reduce the number of accidents at nuclear materials facilities in their country, have teamed up with several human factors and cognition experts from Sandia National Laboratories to figure out ways to determine on any given day i