Lab’s prestigious machinist apprenticeship program expands with new NNSA grant

With a new grant from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s machinist apprenticeship program is taking the next step in its storied history by expanding its cohort to at least five apprentices per year —the most since the 1980s. Since the program’s inception in 1954 — just two years after the Lab was founded — nearly 200 apprentices...

Platform tests colorectal cancer therapies in vitro

Colorectal cancer (CRC) — cancer of the colon or rectum — is the third-most common cancer in both men and women in the United States and the second-most common cause of cancer-related death in developed countries. Although surgery is highly successful for patients with a localized disease or disease confined to a narrow region (stages I–III), a total of 60% of CRC patients are diagnosed with...

New composite may be key to improved hydrogen storage

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) computational scientists worked with experimental collaborators at Lawrence Berkeley and Sandia national laboratories to design metal amide-based composites capable of overcoming key kinetic limitations in their performance as hydrogen storage materials. Hydrogen possesses the highest energy density of any chemical fuel and can be sustainably...

LLNL’s prototype telescope now fully operational aboard the International Space Station

When SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on March 16, it delivered several thousand pounds of supplies for the crew as well as new hardware. The hardware included the U.S. Space Force’s Space Test Program Houston 9 (STP-H9) platform, which houses a prototype telescope designed and built by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Space Science and...

A passion for physics drives Danny Attiyah

This summer, Danny Attiyah, a third-year Ph.D. student at the University of California, Irvine, will develop theory, create simulations and put those simulations to the test in a long experimental run. “I’m excited to go from theory to experimental results during my internship,” he said. Attiyah, who grew up in Southern California, was drawn to math as a student. But when he took his first...

Two LLNL scientists named Optica Senior Members

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists David Gibson and Paul Pax have been named senior members of Optica (formerly OSA). Senior membership status recognizes members with more than 10 years of professional experience in optics or an optics-related field. The 2023 class joins a distinguished group of scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs and innovators who have demonstrated...

LLNL team reaches milestone in power grid optimization on world’s first exascale supercomputer

Ensuring the nation’s electrical power grid can function with limited disruptions in the event of a natural disaster, catastrophic weather or a manmade attack is a key national security challenge. Compounding the challenge of grid management is the increasing amount of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind that are continually added to the grid, and the fact that solar panels and...

DOE honors two early-career Lab scientists

Two scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) are recipients of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science Early Career Research Program award. Daniel Casey and Gauthier Deblonde are among 93 awardees receiving the recognition. Under the program, typical awards for DOE national laboratory staff are $500,000 per year for five years. “Supporting America’s...

Summer interns persevere to arrive at LLNL

Every year, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) welcomes hundreds of interns for an experiential, hands-on approach to learning. Working with some of the brightest minds in their fields, LLNL’s interns have the opportunity to explore new projects, build their skills, connect with mentors and integrate into Lab culture — resulting in a meaningful experience that both supports the Lab...

UC Merced & UC Riverside tackle Data Science Challenge on machine learning-assisted heart modeling

For the first time, students from the University of California (UC) Merced and UC Riverside joined forces for the two-week Data Science Challenge (DSC) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, tackling a real-world problem in machine learning (ML)-assisted heart modeling. Held in the Livermore Valley Open Campus’s newly remodeled University of California Livermore Collaboration Center from...

Toolkit can help manage induced-seismic hazards for carbon storage

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has partnered with another national lab and a seismic instrumentation monitoring company to develop a physics-based seismic-forecasting software platform to help operators and regulators better understand and manage seismic hazards at carbon storage sites. LLNL scientists have worked with researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory...

All eyes on Lauren Devine

Lauren Devine is a third-generation American with proud Ashkenazi Jewish roots in Germany and Russia on her mother’s side. Devine prioritizes spending time with her family on the high Jewish holy days but does not necessarily count herself as religious. “I think a lot of folks forget that being Jewish isn’t only about Judaism,” Devine said. “We are a biological race of human beings and it’s...

Meet the people behind the scenes of LLNL’s historic ignition shot

Part 12 of a series of articles describing the elements of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s fusion breakthrough. When Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) blasted its way into history by reaching fusion ignition on Dec. 5, 2022, the milestone marked the culmination of more than 60 years of accomplishments since the advent of lasers. The achievement came thanks to the efforts...

Explainable artificial intelligence can enhance scientific workflows

Machine learning techniques are increasingly being used in the sciences, as they can streamline work and improve efficiency. But these techniques are sometimes met with hesitation: When users don’t understand what’s going on behind the curtains, they may lack trust in the machine learning models. As these tools become more widespread, a team of researchers in Lawrence Livermore National...

W87-1 Modification Program enters Phase 6.3, Development Engineering

The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Department of Defense (DoD) recently approved the W87-1 Modification Program to enter Phase 6.3, Development Engineering, through the Nuclear Weapons Council. During this phase of the nuclear weapons lifecycle process, NNSA will continue to work closely with DoD to conduct experiments, tests and analyses to...

From '60 Minutes to 'SNL,' fusion ignition news thrusts LLNL into the zeitgeist

Part 11 of a series of articles describing the elements of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s fusion breakthrough. The headlines told the story: “Scientists Achieve Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough With Blast of 192 Lasers,” The New York Times. “U.S. announces milestone on fusion energy, sparking hopes for clean power,” The Washington Post. “Breakthrough in nuclear fusion technology...

Jon Benjamin named DOE Facility Management Contractor Small Business Program Manager of the Year

Jon Benjamin, manager of the Small Business Program in Supply Chain Management (SCM) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, recently received the Department of Energy's Facility Management Contractor Small Business Program Manager of the Year award for fiscal year (FY) 2022. Presented at the DOE Small Business Forum and Expo in New Orleans, this award is in recognition of the significant...

Radiography innovation shows new promise with experimental dense plasma focus milestone

In early May, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Megajoule Neutron Imaging Radiography Experiment (MJOLNIR) team’s dense plasma focus (DPF) achieved greater than 1012 neutrons in a single deuterium gas shot — an achievement that expands the possibilities for understanding lightning-fast phenomena that can’t be seen with the naked eye. As an alternative to X-ray visualization, neutron...

Machine learning reveals refreshing understanding of confined water

A new study provides surprising behavior of hydrogen bonding of water confined in carbon nanotubes. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists combined large-scale molecular dynamics simulations with machine learning interatomic potentials derived from first-principles calculations to examine the hydrogen bonding of water confined in carbon nanotubes (CNTs). They found that the...

Greenland melted recently, shows high risk of sea level rise today

A large portion of Greenland was an ice-free tundra landscape — perhaps covered by trees and roaming wooly mammoths — in the recent geologic past (about 416,000 years ago), according to a new study in the journal Science. The results shed light on the stability of the Greenland ice sheet, which was long assumed to have been frozen continuously over the last two and a half million years...