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From the early days of nuclear stockpiling to new focuses on cyberprotection in the Digital Age, Sandia National Laboratories has played a vital role in national security for 60 years, local, state and federal leaders acknowledged Thursday. The 60th birthday of the Albuquerque, N.M.-based facility, which includes the Livermore campus, was marked with a commemorative ceremony that drew representatives from the Department of Energy, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office, the United States Congress and the state Legislature. For many, it was a rare glimpse into the birthplace of myriad science-based technologies over the past six decades. Lab Director Tom Hunter spoke at the event, commenting on the changes that have occurred since May 13, 1949 - the date then-President Harry Truman called for the operation of Sandia Laboratory in a letter to AT&T.

From the early days of nuclear stockpiling to new focuses on cyberprotection in the Digital Age, Sandia National Laboratories has played a vital role in national security for 60 years, local, state and federal leaders acknowledged Thursday. The 60th birthday of the Albuquerque, N.M.-based facility, which includes the Livermore campus, was marked with a commemorative ceremony that drew representatives from the Department of Energy, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office, the United States Congress and the state Legislature. For many, it was a rare glimpse into the birthplace of myriad science-based technologies over the past six decades. Lab Director Tom Hunter spoke at the event, commenting on the changes that have occurred since May 13, 1949 - the date then-President Harry Truman called for the operation of Sandia Laboratory in a letter to AT&T.

John Fleck at the Albuqeurque Journal's blog noted an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education that says that switching over control of national labs to the Department of Defense could have an adverse effect on the caliber of scientists who could be brought in to the labs for their research. Some experts who have studied or worked with the labs fear that change could reduce the quality of research. "They've already made it much harder for themselves to attract good people," said Hugh Gusterson, a professor of anthropology and sociology at George Mason University who has spent years studying the culture of scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, talking about the management changes. A further shift, he said, "will just compound the difficulty."

"The NNSA announced last week that it had gotten rid of some contaminated "excess tools" at Sandia National Labs in California under a "low-cost plan" that saved taxpayers about $4 million -- the cost of disposing of the equipment at the Nevada Test Site. The savings came about because an Oak Ridge company -- Toxco Materials Management Center -- agreed to take title to Sandia's hot tools, with plans to clean them up and sell them."

If your kid accidentally blew apart a building, would you give them less supervision? This hands-off approach is exactly what the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is doing by giving the contractors who manage the nation's eight nuclear weapons sites (Los Alamos National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Nevada Test Site, Sandia National Laboratory, Savannah River Site, Pantex, Y-12, and the Kansas City Plant) a six-month break from many regularly scheduled oversight reviews.

If your kid accidentally blew apart a building, would you give them less supervision? This hands-off approach is exactly what the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is doing by giving the contractors who manage the nation's eight nuclear weapons sites (Los Alamos National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Nevada Test Site, Sandia National Laboratory, Savannah River Site, Pantex, Y-12, and the Kansas City Plant) a six-month break from many regularly scheduled oversight reviews.

A study scheduled to be presented at a meeting of the Nevada Test Site Community Advisory Board May 6 shows the maximum possible exposure to a normal shipment of radioactive material -- from a truck parked at a rest area -- would be one-sixth the ordinary background radiation level in Nevada for a whole year. Ruth Weiner, with Sandia National Labs, will present an assessment of the risks of exposure to shipments of radioactive material to the CAB at 6 p.m., May 6 at the Bob Ruud Community Center. She is part of a program named RADTRAN.

"Realizing that there is mounting doubt on the Hill in the wisdom of spending billions of dollars on four new buildings for the creation of new components for nuclear weapons, the directors of three national laboratories are going on the offensive. As Politico reports, the directors of Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Sandia National Laboratories have challenged the findings, and frankly, the credibility, of one of the most independent and respected technical expert groups, JASON. Last year, JASON found that the life of the nation's nuclear warheads, including plutonium pits and HEU (highly enriched uranium) secondaries, can be extended safely and certifiably for decades without replacement."