UPDATE 2:30 p.m.: The town of Los Alamos is being evacuated.

Lab officials assured that radioactive materials are being protected from the almost 50,000-acre Las Conchas fire.

The fire has closed in on Los Alamos National Laboratory property—within a mile—but hasn’t reached the lab yet.

Spokesperson Kevin Roark said in an interview with the Alibi that there are a variety of nuclear facilities at LANL and several metric tons of uranium, plutonium, americium and others. These materials are kept in the most secure facilities at the lab, he said—deep inside vaults within concrete and steel buildings. “There is no threat from wildland fires,” he said.

During the Cerro Grande fire eleven years ago, the blaze ate up 7,500 acres of LANL property, Roark added, and there was no release of nuclear or hazardous material.

The Cerro Grande fire raged for more than a month in 2000, burned Bandelier National Monument and left 400 people in Los Alamos without homes.

There were concerns after the fire about the airborne release of contaminants, but Roark says monitoring showed that Cerro Grande was no more or less radioactive than any forest fire. Read a full assessment of the aftermath by the Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety and the Nuclear Policy Project.

The fire also caused erosion and runoff, and contaminants threatened the Rio Grande. But Roark assures: “There were not appreciable levels of radioactivity in the runoff.” After the Cerro Grande fire, LANL installed structures to prevent heavy runoff in the future, he added.

Comparing the two fires to try and predict impact is highly speculative, he pointed out. “The [Las Conchas] fire has not reached lab property.”

• Boycotting fireworks ... (Wednesday) [ Mon Jun 27 2011 5:24 PM ]
  

Geraldine Ferraro is dead.

Elizabeth Taylor lives on in pictures.

Parliament has voted no confidence in Canada's conservative govt. Here's how that works.

Bill Maher has found the perfect anti-Obama GOP presidential candidate and his name is Karab Amabo.

The FBI still doesn't know who was behind the anthrax-letters in 2001.

Sucker Punch: the newest worst-movie ever. Movie review.

Police in Texas took a woman into custody for driving without a license. The cops left her two year old kid behind in the car.

Brett Michaels claims his stroke was caused by a Spinal Tap styled stage mishap. AND he's suing over it. W/ video!

Gandhi was in love with a German bodybuilder named Hermann.

"Where there's smoke, there's fried chicken." Latest Rio Grande Sun Police Blotter.

Two guys in Mississippi got into a shootout over dog shit.

Get a %25 discount at a Santa Fe smoke shop if your pic... uh, mugshot, appears in the "Jailbyrd" free newspaper.

Some of the rebel forces battling Gaddafi are affiliated with Al Qaida....

Radioactive sea; CNN's Nancy Grace argues with a weatherman about "made in Japan" radiation coming to the U.S.

The Beardpick Challenge.

The Internet Archive has a great collection of films, including these Civil Defense films with marionettes.

On this day in 1885, the Second Louis Riel Rebellion began at Duck Lake in Saskatchewan, Canada.

• Unlike Gandhi (Pattriot) [ Sun Mar 27 2011 10:10 PM ]
  

Howard Dean defends Obama's decision to attack Lybia Libya: This time our government isn't lying to us.

South Dakota now requires a three day wait before an abortion.

Albuquerque is losing money on red light cameras.

Homeland Security says they could strip search every airline passenger if they wanted to.

13 illegal immigrants arrested in California wearing US Marine uniforms.

Explosion at a Jerusalem bus stop.

Seven black men shot and killed so far this year in Miami.

Another thing to worry about: the status of US nuclear spent-fuel storage.

Fox News is sending security guards do its war reporting.

The town of Bernalillo files suit against NM Gas Company to recover damages from last month's gas outages.

Santa Fe Police Chief Aric Wheeler is resigning from his position.

Maybe you should help James O'Keefe pay off his credit card debt.

Should you give money to homeless people?

Was God's wife edited from the Bible?

Finish those episodes of Dexter and Weeds quickly, Showtime won't be renewing it's contract with Netflix to stream them instantly.

Iran unveils its flying saucer to the world.

Elderly man stoned to death for making gay advance.

Beloved old-timey actress Elizabeth Taylor is dead at 79.

Whatever you do, don't take a picture of this guy's mohawk.

Someone found a 50-million-year old piece of lizard skin.

I'm not sure what to think about the costume for the new Wonder Woman TV show.

Meet Lu Mao, the 132 pound 3-year-old.

Barella redesigns its spaghetti box to announce it is redisgning its spaghetti box.

Dr. Phil's six biggest scandals.

Is your blog among the 100 web sites the movie and music industry want shut down?

I guess yesterday's rumors of Charlie Sheen coming back to Two And A Half Men weren't true.

The Lord of the Rings is finally being released on Blu-Ray this summer (not that I have a Blu-Ray player).

For some reason I really identify with Paranoid Parrot.

Coming soon: Koala burgers.

Twenty-five police officer fails.

Seven supermarket rip-offs.

I haven't watched the Masters of the Universe in a long time, but I don't remember He-Man being all sweary.

Happy Birthday Akira Kurosawa!

• Spelling (AmyO) [ Wed Mar 23 2011 12:11 PM ]
  
• Thanks for Correction! (AmyO) [ Thu Mar 24 2011 12:15 PM ]
  

One of the damaged Japanese nuclear reactors exploded. Officials say everything is OK -but here's some iodine anyway.

High Water Everywhere.

"Qadafi will prevail." Here's a list of the 112 ways to spell his goddamn name.

Newt Gingrich says he cheated on his wife because he was working too hard for America.

Intellectual property law and American world hegemony.

Super cool Australian mugshots from the early 1920's.

Amnesty International is on Robert Gates' ass over Wikileaker Bradley Manning's living conditions/torture which involves "forced prolonged nudity."

A Texas state representative has introduced a bill making non-medically necessary abortion illegal.

Daylight Saving Time, not Daylight Savings Time. Reminder.

South by Southwest. The meat market badge.

On this day in 1957, Steve Harris, Bassist and chief songwriter for Iron Maiden was born.

• Mugshots (geoffreyplant) [ Sat Mar 12 2011 3:44 PM ]
  
• help, fashion police (Nick Brown) [ Sun Mar 13 2011 9:21 AM ]
  
• Busted (geoffreyplant) [ Tue Mar 29 2011 8:15 PM ]
  

Sgt. Torry Chambers arrested and accused of raping female inmates at MDC.

Guv-elect pulls a secretary of education from Florida.

President Obama signs the Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal.

Toys that cause lasting psychological problems.

A nuclear treaty between the United States and Russia may pass today.

World's ugliest cat?

CIA launches WikiLeaks Task Force (WTF).

There's not an ap for WikiLeaks.

9/11 first responders pissed at Republicans.

What happened to the Lakers?

Teens not having as many babies these days.

Is America the sick kid?

50 rad things from 2010

Leslie Nielsen died. So did director Irvin Kershner.

Watch the Johnson / Finnegan football fight.

There were bomb attacks on two Iranian nuclear scientists.

A French electrician has come forward with 271 never-before-seen works by Picasso.

Maybe the vikings visited the new world and brought back a beautiful native bride.

Wikileaks strikes again. Hard.

Michael Brea: Demon Hunter.

A deadly otter attacked a college kid.

Angeles Duran owns the sun. She is not stupid. She knows the law.

Spiderman on Broadway: the cure for liking Spiderman.

Dr. Laura has taken her racist rants to satellite radio.

“Cyber Monday” is a term that was first kicked around in 2005.

Experts maintain the biggest enchilada now lives in Mexico, though it’s not necessarily the most delicious.

The perfect Albuquerque crime involving a Toys 'R' Us and a garbage bag goes hideously wrong.

54 people's lives were ruined in a joint effort between APD and themselves.

Johnny Mango talks about renaming.

Happy birthday, C. S. Lewis. Here, he explains the wardrobe with a nice chianti.

South Park

 

This Friday marks the 65th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, with the anniversary of Nagasaki's bombing on Monday. To protest the continued procurement of nuclear weapons, Think Outside the Bomb are camping near Los Alamos. Their website, thinkoutsidethebomb.org has directions to the camp if anyone out there is looking to make their weekend in the woods more politically active.

If you're not real outdoorsy, check out John Hersey's Hiroshima. It's an amazing book, which appeared as an article in the New Yorker's August 31, 1946 issue. In fact, it was such a powerful story, editors dedicated the entire issue to it, forgoing their cartoons or any other articles.

Another of my faves about the aftermath of World War II is John W. Dower's Embracing Defeat. It's not an uplifting book but it creates a vivid post-war world in your mind.

Of course, 65 is often cited as retirement age (though that's not exactly true these days), which gives Think Outside the Bomb's protest a little more of a "Happy Retirement Fat Man and Little Boy" feel.

• Dig the retirement angle. (miha) [ Tue Aug 3 2010 4:00 PM ]
  

A most triumphant rendering of the Higgs Boson particle

The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) reported yesterday that it had analyzed high-energy particle collisions that took place in the Large Hadron Collider (or LHC—the proton-smasher under the French-Swiss border that will either unlock the mysteries of the universe or bring about the fall of mankind, depending on who you listen to) and reconstructed a “Beauty Particle” based on data gathered from collisions using the LHC. It’s an indication that the collider is functioning correctly and is well on its way to full operational capacity.

The particle has already been discovered, so the world-record 7 teraelectron volt collisions between proton streams have not propelled the scientific community into a new age of discovery just yet. However, the creation of this particle is one of the first steps in the LHC's LHCb (the “b” stands for beauty) experiment that is supposed to determine why the universe contains so little antimatter. The LHCb experiment is one of six planned experiments using the LHC.

Much of the world has been on edge waiting for the scientists working with the LHC to iron out problems that have delayed the start of high-energy proton collisions, since the collider is supposed to answer fundamental questions about the universe. Much of the rest of the world has also been on edge for a very different reason—namely, that by venturing further than science has dared to go, the LHC might accidentally destroy the world. CERN published a page on its website to refute the seven most popular theories for how the LHC will destroy the Earth. Things got so wild that some theoretical physicists hypothesized that the Higgs Boson (the “God particle” that scientists believe gives particles mass and which the LHC is designed to discover) is traveling back in time and breaking the machine to prevent itself from being discovered.