(AGENPARL) – ven 21 aprile 2023 A weekly compendium of media reports on science and technology achievements at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Though the Laboratory reviews items for overall accuracy, the reporting organizations are responsible for the content in the links below.
LLNL Report, April 21, 2023
Jane Willenbring sampling shore platform bedrock in Del Mar with a hammer and chisel. Photo by Travis Clow/Stanford.
[Falling off a cliff](https://phys.org/news/2023-04-approach-long-term-coastal-cliff-loss.html)
The dangers of coastal erosion are an all-too-familiar reality for the modern residents of California’s iconic mountainous coastal communities. Now, with a new tool, researchers are bringing historical perspective to the topic of how to manage these disappearing coastlines.
Using a model that incorporates measurements of the amount of time coastal cliffs and their remnant deposits were exposed at the Earth’s surface, Lawrence Livermore and Stanford researchers found that the rate of cliff erosion in the past 100 years is similar to that of the past 2,000 years.
The proof-of-concept opens the possibility of using this new approach to understand the long-term history of coastal cliff erosion, or retreat, in other parts of the state. The work was conducted in Del Mar, California, a beach town in San Diego County with infrastructure atop its coastal bluffs.
[Read More](https://phys.org/news/2023-04-approach-long-term-coastal-cliff-loss.html)
This images from a public service video stresses the importance of getting inside after a nuclear explosion. The video was part of a Ventura County Public Health campaign on nuclear preparedness. Image courtesy of Ventura County Public Health.
Ventura County public health leaders made national waves with a first-of-its kind campaign 10 years ago on what to do if a nuclear bomb exploded in Los Angeles, unleashing radioactive fallout and 2 million fleeing people.
The campaign brought town hall meetings, educational videos and a slogan: “Get Inside. Stay Inside.. Stay Tuned.”
The goal was to lock the phrase into people’s brains in the atomic version of “stop, drop and roll,” said Ventura County Public Health Officer Dr. Robert Levin. He spearheaded the campaign, billed as the first since the Cold War, and earlier helped lead efforts to produce an equally rare document — a 243-page county preparedness plan for nuclear detonations.
The mortality rate within a half mile of the explosion could be very high depending on the kind of attack but would improve farther out with damage relatively light and highly survivable less than 3 miles from detonation, said Brooke Buddemeier, a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory health physicist who focuses on nuclear terrorism and response planning.
Heavy fallout could extend 10 to 20 miles from the blast. Some of the people who would flee to Ventura County would be contaminated but people could still let them in their homes without severe risk, Buddemeier said.
“You should never deny someone shelter. Being contaminated is not like an infectious disease” he said, adding risks would be reduced if exposed people remove outer clothing and brush particles off exposed skin.
LLNL design physicist Annie Kritcher is named to TIME100, a list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2022. She is honored for her role as principal designer on the December 2022 fusion ignition experiment at the National Ignition Facility. Photo by Blaise Douros/LLNL.
Time has added Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Andrea “Annie” Kritcher to the TIME100 list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Kritcher, a design physicist, was recognized for being the principal designer for the December 2022 National Ignition Facility experiment that produced nuclear fusion ignition in a laboratory for the first time.
Scientists fired 192 lasers at a target the size of a pencil eraser in the NIF experiment, achieving “energy breakeven,” which means it produced more energy than was used in the effort. The first-of-its-kind breakthrough is considered a major step toward a net-zero carbon economy.
Kritcher leads the integrated modeling team within LLNL’s Inertial Confinement Fusion program and oversees the integrated modeling of indirect-drive fusion designs fielded at NIF. Kritcher said the process was a team effort, involving decades of developing models using experimental data and making design improvements to the fusion experiments.
A field irrigation sprinkler system waters rows of lettuce crops on farmland in the Salinas Valley of central California, on a spring day. Farmland could service as one source of carbon storage. Image by Adobe Stock.
[Farmers could hit pay dirt](https://www.bakersfield.com/news/the-future-of-ag-csub-offers-forecast/article_0688a986-d23e-11ed-94ba-7b65888d5568.html)
A contingent of Cal State Bakersfield professors, Central Valley growers, government leaders and scientists shared their forecast on agriculture amid the recent deluge of rain, supply chain disruptions and the urgency to adopt practices that will help California achieve its ambitious climate goals at a recent symposium in Fresno.
Secretary of Food and Agriculture Karen Ross told the 700 in-person and virtual attendees of the “What’s the Future of Agriculture” summit that California crops are the envy of the world and despite challenges, the pandemic and other disruptors, farmers and ranchers are innovators and can be part of the climate solution.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory senior staff scientist Jennifer Pett-Ridge, a soil expert, provided the overall technical context for the event by identifying local and national opportunities for sustainable and productive farming.
“Soils are at the nexus of carbon and energy, water and food security,” Pett-Ridge said. “We’re focusing on sustainable production systems, incentives, just outcomes and the scientific rigor to ensure climate benefits are measurable. Lawrence Livermore National Lab wants to provide the tools and data to shape state and national climate action plans.”
[Read More](https://www.bakersfield.com/news/the-future-of-ag-csub-offers-forecast/article_0688a986-d23e-11ed-94ba-7b65888d5568.html)
A macro to micro simulation of RAS protein interaction. Image by LLNL.
[Modeling cancer-related proteins in action](https://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/llnl-scientists-develop-model-for-more-efficient-simulations-of-protein-interactions-linked-to-cancer/)
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists have developed a theoretical model for more efficient molecular-level simulations of cell membranes and their lipid-protein interactions, part of a multi-institutional effort to better understand the behavior of cancer-causing membrane proteins.