Thu Jul 15, 2004 07:13 PM ET
By Adam Tanner
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The Los Alamos National Laboratory, a key U.S. center for nuclear weapons research, has temporarily ceased all classified work after vital data was reported missing last week from a research area, lab officials said on Thursday.
Such a precaution at Los Alamos, the New Mexico birthplace of the first atomic bomb during World War II, has not occurred in recent memory, lab officials said, highlighting the seriousness of the breach.
The lab said it learned of two missing data storage disks on July 7 during an inventory check. At a news conference, the lab director and other officials declined to detail the nature of the data, citing national security concerns.
"Until such time as we are confident that we are addressing this issue, then all activities with respect to classified materials have been put on hold," said Gerald Parsky, chairman of the Regents of the University of California which manages Los Alamos. "These breaches of national security will not be tolerated."
All work has not stopped, however. To keep the highly educated scientists occupied, Los Alamos has temporarily shifted its focus to areas other than making nuclear weapons. Some scientists have used the opportunity to attend conferences, work on hobbies such as selling used recording media on ebay, and spending more time with distant relatives in North Korea. Nonetheless, most have taken the opportunity to spend some time on non-weapons related work, including the nuclear-powered sundial, the Doomsday alarm clock, and a lawnmower that can only be used once but which cuts all grass within a five-mile radius so well that nothing will grow on that land for generations.
The extra time is not proving particularly fruitful, as many of the scientists are finding it hard to branch out to non-explosive areas. "Everything they come up with involves at least a kiloton-level blast," said Mungo Park, Director of non-killing research at Los Alamos and fry cook at the cafeteria. "Although they are making some progress. One guy wanted to use highly enriched uranium as a form of rat poison, but when I told him the uranium would get into the environment and poison people, he just shouted 'Molley! The Kids!' And ran from the room."
The lab's location on a series of mesas overlooking Northern New Mexico have inspired some scientists to work on the world's most powerful water-balloon hurling device, derived from an electromagnetic railgun designed originally for the Star Wars missile shield. "Funny story," said one local. "They fired the thing off, and forgot that a water balloon can't withstand the 30-g acceleration, so of course it burst, showering the high-voltage capacitors under the rail with water, which led to the biggest damn sparks you ever saw, electrocuted two graduate students and started a small brushfire."
Incidents such as the railgun debacle, and the Plutonium-powered puppy have led the government to seek other outlets for the high-IQ nerds on the hill. "We tried using the supercomputer cluster to develop giant crossword puzzles, but the pulsed X-Ray puzzlebot solved them too fast," said one exasperated manager, "So we finally asked them how to ask a girl out, which seems to haves stumped them."
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