December 15, 2000
Stories on wind power; renewable energy programs with Mexico; Trades Training Program; DOE-Navajo MOU, and more. . .
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2000 Issues
November 3, 2000
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.
October 20, 2000
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 6, 2000
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.
September 22, 2000
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 8, 2000
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.
August 25, 2000
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; Americans still worry about national security post Cold War.
August 11, 2000
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; You can't feel it, see it, or touch it, but by leaps and bounds it is becoming a dominant force in our lives.
July 14, 2000
Theft, vandalism, drugs, and violence on US school campuses, Four-state microsystems 'cluster of clusters' proposed, Group seeks to preserve history of Nevada test site.
June 16, 2000
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.
May 19, 2000
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 5, 2000
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.
April 21, 2000
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?
March 24, 2000
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 10, 2000
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.
February 25, 2000
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 11, 2000
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.
January 28, 2000
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.