Excessive AI use may lead to cognitive decline

 Now we know why LANL managers live AI so much

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2551840/excessive-ai-use-may-lead-to-cognitive-decline-reveals-mit-study

Excessive AI use may lead to cognitive decline, reveals MIT study
Findings have vast practical implications such as decline in critical thinking, creativity, and independent reasoning

Brain scans taken during the experiment showed that LLM users exhibited weaker connections between brain regions associated with critical thinking and memory.

While their essays scored well in both human and AI evaluations — often praised for their coherence and alignment with the given prompt — the writing was also described as formulaic and less original.

Notably, those who used LLMs struggled to quote from or recall their own writing in subsequent sessions.

Their brain activity reportedly "reset" to a novice state regarding the essay topics, a finding that strongly contrasts with participants in the "brain-only" group, who retained stronger memory and demonstrated deeper cognitive engagement throughout.

Apple says generative AI cannot think like a human

 Apple says generative AI cannot think like a human - research paper pours cold water on reasoning models

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/apple-says-generative-ai-cannot-think-like-a-human-research-paper-pours-cold-water-on-reasoning-models

Apple researchers discovered that LRMs perform differently depending on problem complexity. On simple tasks, standard LLMs, without explicit reasoning mechanisms, were more accurate and efficient and delivered better results with fewer compute resources. However, as problem complexity increased to a moderate level, models equipped with structured reasoning, like Chain-of-Thought prompting, gained the advantage and outperformed their non-reasoning counterparts. When the complexity grew further, both types of models failed completely: their accuracy dropped to zero regardless of the available compute resources. (Keep in mind that the the Claude 3.7 Sonnet Thinking and DeepSeek-R1 LRMs have limitations when it comes to their training.)

This is upset LANL managers who have an insane zeal for AI in hopes of getting rid of the scientists.

Watch out for malevolent chatbots!

 https://gizmodo.com/chatgpt-tells-users-to-alert-the-media-that-it-is-trying-to-break-people-report-2000615600

Mentally vulnerable people are being harmed by malevolent chatbots.

No kings protests

 'No Kings' anti-Trump protests happening in the Bay Area on Saturday 6/14

Be situationally aware please.

https://www.ktvu.com/news/no-kings-protests-bay-area-saturday.amp

Blog moderator note:

The link above contains a list of bay area protests. There are also protest in Modesto, Stockton, Merced. Just search for "no kings protests" for exact locations.

Distinguished Sandia/LANL retired scientist

 Found this from a Distinguished Sandia/LANL retried scientists from his blog. A bit of depressing read. It has a hint of politics but he has a point.

"I will start by saying Los Alamos carries some significant meaning for me personally. I lived and worked there for almost 18 years. It shaped me as a scientist, if not made me the one I am today. It has (had) a culture of scientific achievement and open inquiry that I fully embrace and treasure. I had not spent time like this on the main town site for years. It was a stunning melange of things unchanged and radical change. I ate at new places, and old places running into old friends with regularity. I was left with mixed feelings and deep emotions at the end. Most of all my view of whether leaving there was the right professional move for me. It was probably a good idea. The Lab I knew and loved is almost gone. It has disappeared into the maw of our dysfunctional nation’s destruction of science. It is a real example of where greatness has gone, and the MAGA folks are not doing jack to fix it.

Another topic of repeated discussion every day of the meeting is the growing obsession with AI. There is a manic zeal for AI on the part of managers, and it puts all our science at serious risk.

A LLNL management dream team?

A LLNL superintendent, that cheats on his blind wife with a nearby an eagerly available, “admin”, an apparently untouchable DEI hired supervisor, that on LLNL tax payer recruitment trips, seeks out college students for his own pleasure, and a low emotional IQ superintendent, that leads to a tech suicide that continues to advance?
What a management dream team we have here. Not. Time for a major DOE/NNSA audit of LLNL sanctioned practices, or expect more of the same behavior to continue. What is the plan forward to disincentivize these tax payer supported unethical behaviors? There aren’t any. Your LLNL tax dollars at work.

NIF achieves 8.6 megajoules

 Fusion breakthrough: NIF achieves 8.6 megajoules, shattering previous record

https://www.techspot.com/news/107971-fusion-breakthrough-nif-achieves-86-megajoules-shattering-previous.html

Chinese student visa revocations will be crippling

 Chinese student visa revocations will cripple the US in the AI race

Meta
I work in the one of the AI teams at the big G. Most of my colleagues have a PhD and are from China. Beyond them, even a lot of the resumes we receive for research internships are from Chinese candidates in US universities. I'm sure the current administration is not gonna stop at student visas and is gonna target O1, H1B and green card holders next.

A majority of noteworthy papers in AI conferences over the last 3 years have come from Chinese lead authors. Most elite US PhD programs have a majority of Chinese students. If these people were to go back to China, it'd only bolster their already formidable AI industry and be a massive loss for the big US based AI companies.

Chinese PhD graduates already face significant hurdles today getting a green card even after qualifying for the extra-ordinary category (EB-1A). This has already caused a significant number of researchers to go back to China with Deepseek and Qwen teams having a large number of ex-FAANG/OpenAI/Anthropic engineers.

I don't see how the US maintains its lead in the AI race long term if it revokes visas for Chinese students.

Human replacement

 This is a good video about mass produced robots replacing human workers:

https://youtu.be/RFbuZpNaIaY?si=ECChAX33-50tKB7n

Secretary Wright visits LLNL

Just this week Secretary Wright visited LLNL and while he made Ai as the next Manhattan project for the national labs. I got this feeling the next project for him was to cut back many of the programs.

Gasoline out of thin air

 This company has a machine that produces gasoline out of air, using an input of electricity:

https://www.aircela.com/

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/05/15/3082353/0/en/Aircela-Unveils-Machine-That-Turns-Air-into-Fossil-Free-Gasoline.html

AI demystified

 Hello blog contributors! 

First, I apologize for the post title. It suggests I am trying to demystify AI while in fact I am asking you for help in doing it.

I have used chatbots to ask far-fetched questions and to check for plagiarism, mainly.

Is anyone versed enough in AI in  both its software and hardware aspects to explain its engines, sources, challenges and applications?

Or anything else. It is a relatively new field, so no one should expect a symposium.

Thank you 

AI blackmail

 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpqeng9d20go

AI system resorts to blackmail if told it will be removed

Luckily LANL will be an all AI lab, so no dangers there.

AI chaos

 This is an interesting story, an AI threatens the apocalypse over a failed vending machine business:

https://youtu.be/si8DUlhiLlg?si=qfNx4nGnQ2H9tdAF

Once upon a time at LLNL...

 Back in the day, a Superintendent level manager at LLNL, set himself up for lab paid business related trips. His legally blind wife, decided to surprise him by adding herself on to his hotel reservation. To her surprise, the reservation desk, said to the wife, the second occupancy for the room was aleady registered, that being a subordinate administrative female assistant within the superintenden’s sphere of influence. Well, the blind wife’s coworkers in HR from that point forward, thought Mr. Superintendent was basically a low life scum bag.

But, after this low mark, could anything occur worse? Yes. And again, a free pass in terms of security clearance, and future advancement.

NNSA Staffing Shortages?

“Nuclear weapons woes: Understaffed nuke agency hit by DOGE and safety worries…For decades, the NNSA has struggled with federal staffing shortages that have contributed to safety issues as well as delays and cost overruns on major projects.”

Was the 2014 WIPP radiological accident attributed to “staffing shortages” when LANS took a 90% award fee cut for mismanagement when that accident was deemed preventable? Nope.

Were ~4x cost overruns and the ~5 year behind schedule at the NIF attributable to “staffing shortages”? Nope. How about failure to achieve ignition by 2012 as marketed to Congress? “Staffing Shortages”? Nope.

Was the 2023 radioactive iodine-125 contamination in Livermore due to “staffing shortages? Nope.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/05/18/nuclear-weapons-woes-nuke-agency-hit-by-doge-and-safety-worries/83621978007/

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AI in Science

 New AI showing how AI increases scientific productivity. This should be must reading for all of the NNSA employees.                

Moderator's note:

Papers on arxiv are not peer-reviewed.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.17866

Artificial Intelligence, Scientific Discovery, and Product Innovation

Aidan Toner-Rodgers
This paper studies the impact of artificial intelligence on innovation, exploiting the randomized introduction of a new materials discovery technology to 1,018 scientists in the R&D lab of a large U.S. firm. AI-assisted researchers discover 44% more materials, resulting in a 39% increase in patent filings and a 17% rise in downstream product innovation. These compounds possess more novel chemical structures and lead to more radical inventions. However, the technology has strikingly disparate effects across the productivity distribution: while the bottom third of scientists see little benefit, the output of top researchers nearly doubles. Investigating the mechanisms behind these results, I show that AI automates 57% of "idea-generation" tasks, reallocating researchers to the new task of evaluating model-produced candidate materials. Top scientists leverage their domain knowledge to prioritize promising AI suggestions, while others waste significant resources testing false positives. Together, these findings demonstrate the potential of AI-augmented research and highlight the complementarity between algorithms and expertise in the innovative process. Survey evidence reveals that these gains come at a cost, however, as 82% of scientists report reduced satisfaction with their work due to decreased creativity and skill underutilizati
.

A guy named Jason Pruiet

 LANL just lost a world leading expert in AI! Some guy named Jason Prueit. Odd I cannot seem to find a single paper or a references on AI that this guy ever did, so I am going out on limb and say he is not expert on AI. I guess "I played with ChatGP" makes one an expert.

"If you’ve played with the most recent AI tools, you know: They’re very good coders, very good legal analysts, very good first drafters of writing, very good image generators. They’re only going to get better."

I cannot find much of any impact from this guy. He gave some talk on AI and some reddit commentators seemed to see right through it. This is what they said.

Most of the bullshitters will tip their hand pretty early that they're just hype men for AI. Right off the bat, the fact that AI is disruptive and transforming society is apparently self-evident because they never cite a single premise or event to back this up. In the quote above, the phrase "if you've played" stuck out to me. Yes if you play around with them a little it's easy to believe they're really good at so many things. When you stringently evaluate them, you begin to see they make a lot of mistakes and perform inconsistently on even trivial tasks.

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NASA budget cuts

 This is a good video that goes into some of the NASA budget cuts:

https://youtu.be/si6paqM2_ug?si=A42L1ot-J_caWAFv

LLNS expectations

 What are the LLNS LLC expectations of managers actually selected for superintendent or above positions?

From the horse's mouth regarding RIFs

 Heard this directly from a LANL director and then an NNSA chief. LANL was at 11,000 before covid but ballooned up to 16,500-17,000 due to increased spending. The staff numbers need to be cut back down to pre-covid in preparation for the contract bid in 2026. Sandia will see a 10% reduction in R&D staff.

Everyone seems to be asking for transfers to different departments or gov contract work. The contractors don’t have much work either. A lot more people should be preparing for layoffs.

If your project has no funding, you will be laid off soon.

Edit: if your project is still hiring new roles (aka not just replacing someone who left), then it has funding and you are likely safe. If you are bored at work, start applying to jobs.

Edit 2: the ISR group recently got a ‘we are going to become more efficient’ email. This is code word for a reduction in force. If you hear this kind of talk on your team, start applying to jobs.

Edit 3: some are personally offended I used the word lay off as a slang instead of the proper ‘reduction in force’ wording. I apologize for the confusion. This will be enacted via RTO, PIPs, efficiency initiatives, forced resignation, etc. there will be no mass tech industry esque layoff. This will be slow over months and will be done before the new contract bid process starts.

Edit 4: triad employees will be the most affected. Sub contracting companies will potentially have less work, but the RIF has the intended goal to reduce the number of staff working under the LANL maintenance in operations contract that is currently run by Triad. This contract is coming up for a new bid so the staff number needs to reduce in order to be more congruent with the original triad bid staffing numbers. The labs have grown faster in 4 years than it did in the past 40 years without an increase in funding or value produced to justify the growth. A lot of the LANL growth came from covid era money printing.

Flooding of the Pacific Northwest

 This is very interesting -- as you know, it is not true that all of California will fall into the ocean in a major earthquake, but scientists have discovered that some parts of it indeed will:

https://scitechdaily.com/countdown-to-catastrophe-the-quake-that-could-sink-and-flood-the-pacific-northwest/

LLNL Defined Benefit Plan

Looking at the latest annual funding notice it appears that funding is down to 84% this year. There are approximately 2 retirees for every worker left on the program… not surprising since it has been closed since the transition.

The rate of return last year was 0.23%

However the number of participants has increased by 3 this year.

Federal workers reclassification

 Impact to LLNS employees?

“Trump to reclassify many federal workers, making them easier to fire”

“U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday his administration is set to change the employment classifications of tens of thousands of federal workers, a move governance experts say will make it easier to carry out more mass layoffs.”

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2025/04/18/trump-says-government-to-change-service-regulations-for-career-government-employees.html

Life on exoplanet

Possible signature of life on exoplanet. 

It is only 700 trillion miles from here.!

https://youtu.be/HjWwTw-zEIM?si=Beb6qEau2iTAVr4Q

Mason said?

 Mason sent an all hands out on Wed saying that lab needs to cut indirect funding and become much more efficient. The goals are to move people to direct funding but keep the same number of people. We need to stop hiring people to backfill positions. We will keep AI funding going.

So a couple of points.

(1) If this was the goal why did we have to wait 8 years to do this? It seems a bit odd that suddenly we not want to cut our crazy overheard.

(2) How on earth do you cut overhead costs when half the people at the lab are on overhead? The only way to do this is to get rid of people. Some of the more cynical are thinking we are going to fire all the science staff and move everyone on to their codes. Who knows but everyone I knows says this is simply not going work.

Rumors of layoffs

 There has been some rumors for the past few months of a voluntary separation or layoffs at LANL. On the face of it they do not seem very likely as Mason said budget wise things look good. However Mason also said that the lab needs to reduce indirect costs. I guess this has something to do with fear of Doge and reduction of overheard rates. NSF and NIH have been seen as having way to high of overhead so it seems like DOE/NNSA labs could be next. In fact there was story the other day about DOE money overhead rates needing to be cut (see link below).

This is what I think may actually be possible. DOE/NNSA will be told you need to reduce overheard or indirect costs , so they will not be able to put everybody on direct costs so they will have to let people go one way or another. Indirect costs is of course management , admins, outreach and such but also LDRD.

Here is the link on DOE cutting university overheard rates to 15%. It could be that the will do the same for NNSA. I doubt an overheard rate of only 15% is feasible because we do not have students paying tuition but they could still ask for a big cut in overheard at the NNSA labs. 50% of the lab budget is indirect right now if we have to cut 25% of our overhead rate than a layoff of 10-15% of the lab workforce could be possible. Of course it also means that LANL looks horrible because for the past 6 years we have been told to hire, hire , hire. Interview 50, hire 50 and grow. There was even some voices who said that we should not get ahead of ourselves because we do know what the next administration may want.

https://www.science.org/content/article/energy-department-cuts-university-overhead-rates-to-15-on-research-grants

Back to nuclear testing

 https://www.sciencenews.org/article/nuclear-weapons-tests-comeback-threats.

Calls to restart nuclear weapons tests stir dismay and debate among scientists
A U.S. return to underground detonations would have wide-ranging implications

Some see the ability to test as a necessity for a world in which nuclear weapons are a rising threat. “We are seeing an environment in which the autocrats are increasingly relying on nuclear weapons to threaten and coerce their adversaries,” says Robert Peters, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. “If you’re in an acute crisis or conflict in which your adversary is threatening to employ nuclear weapons, you don’t want to limit the options of the president to get you out of that crisis.” Testing, and the signal it sends to an adversary, he argues, should be such an option.

Dire wolf reportedly brought back from extinction

 https://www.newsnationnow.com/science/dire-wolf-brought-back-from-extinction/

AI is changing how we do science! Dire wolf brought back from extinction! All scientific breakthroughs and how science is done or even thought about doing science has changed! Dire wolfs today and a new AI scientific workforce next.

This is more good news about vaccines

There is a growing body of evidence that shingles vaccines are protective against dementia..,

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/misc-emerging-topics/shingles-vaccine-recipients-less-likely-develop-dementia-study-shows

Savings are being wiped out

 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/yourmoney/article-14571907/wall-street-stock-market-crash-trump-tariffs.html

"Americans watch in horror as savings are WIPED OUT as Wall Street chaos sees trillions more dollars evaporate."

That was from a few days ago, try checking the market Monday morning.

Drop of 15% in a week. Maybe not wiped out but that is not good for retirement funds. Who knows how far this could drop 25% is now very feasible
especially if China and Europe just screw the US but I would not be surprised if it goes way lower. Bitcoin is down 27% Since Jan.

Not looking good. Also do I have to pay 25% for my next Ferrari?

US scientists brain drain

75% of US scientists considering leaving the country in poll:

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/5218404-scientists-poll-leaving-us-poll/

https://eos.org/research-and-developments/majority-of-polled-scientists-considering-leaving-united-states-signaling-brain-drain

Bay Area Sales Taxes

If the BART/Muni 0.5% added sales tax passes, Alameda County sales taxes will go up to 11% +. Ridership is down due to concerns of health, lack of parking, panhandling, and assaults. Will these issues be resolved before they try to throw more money at the problem? How many LLNL employees and retirees actually use BART?

Bay Area leaders pitch sales tax to save BART, Muni, regional transit

https://sfstandard.com/2025/03/24/bart-muni-sales-tax/

California Sales and Use Tax Rates by County and City

https://www.cdtfa.ca.gov/taxes-and-fees/TaxRatesbyCountyandCity.pdf

Question About LLNL Retiree Senior Advantage Plan (TCP1)

I'm turning 65 and signed up for Kaiser Permanente Senior Advantage through Empyrean benefits services. I noticed that I’m being billed $290 per month for KP Senior Advantage by going through Empyrean, whereas I can pay either $0 or $70 per month (depending on the tier of coverage) by just going to Kaiser Permanente directly. Granted, the Empyrean option sets up an HRA for me with an annual funding of $2450 by the Lab, but that would still mean my having to pay a net cost of about $1000 per year for signing up through Empyrean rather than going directly to Kaiser for their Senior Advantage plan.

Anyone know what's going on here? Is there any advantage to signing up for KP Senior Advantage by going through Empyrean as opposed to dealing directly with Kaiser?

AI is getting better

 These are interesting articles from a few weeks ago, AI is getting better at solving hard problems:

https://fortune.com/2025/02/12/openai-deepresearch-humanity-last-exam/

https://www.techradar.com/computing/artificial-intelligence/could-you-pass-humanitys-last-exam-probably-not-but-neither-can-ai

Wen Ho Lee Part II at LANL?

U.S. Says Decision to Turn Back French Scientist Had Nothing to Do With Trump

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/world/europe/us-france-scientist-entry-trump.html

https://dnyuz.com/2025/03/21/u-s-says-decision-to-turn-back-french-scientist-had-nothing-to-do-with-trump/

The French government’s claim that a scientist was denied entry into the United States because of an opinion he expressed about the Trump administration is “blatantly false,” a U.S. official has said.

Even as the authorities in France continued to call the case a concerning violation of academic freedom, the U.S. official, Tricia McLaughlin, who is a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said the scientist had been turned away for reasons unrelated to his personal beliefs.

“The French researcher in question was in possession of confidential information on his electronic device from Los Alamos National Laboratory — in violation of a nondisclosure agreement — something he admitted to taking without permission and attempted to conceal,” Ms. McLaughlin said late Thursday.

Philippe Baptiste, the French minister for higher education, said this week that the scientist, who has not been publicly identified and who specializes in outer space research, was traveling to a conference near Houston earlier this month.

The scientist was not allowed to enter the United States, Mr. Baptiste said, because his phone contained message exchanges with colleagues and friends in which he gave his “personal opinion” on President Trump’s scientific and research policies.

But Ms. McLaughlin rejected that assessment. “Any claim that his removal was based on political beliefs is blatantly false,” she said. She did not provide further details.

It was unclear when or how the scientist might have worked at or interacted with the laboratory at Los Alamos, N.M.

Los Alamos National Laboratory is best known as a place that was crucial to the development of the atomic bomb.

Today, it is a top research facility for the National Nuclear Security Administration, but it also conducts scientific work on other topics. Representatives for the laboratory were not immediately reachable for comment.

The scientist was working for France’s publicly funded National Center for Scientific Research. Representatives for the center said that he did not wish to speak to the media, but they did not immediately respond to the Department of Homeland Security’s allegations against him.

Neither did the office of Mr. Baptiste, who used to lead the French National Center for Space Studies before he became minister in 2024.

But on Friday, Mr. Baptiste repeated his claim that the scientist had been targeted because of private discussions and opinions about the Trump administration’s policies.

He told Sud Radio in an interview that he had not spoken with the scientist directly but that his ministry was in touch with him.

“Each country is free to regulate their borders,” Mr. Baptiste acknowledged. But he said the scientist’s case was “extraordinarily atypical” and a “subject of concern.”

That concern was shared by the French Academy of Sciences, which said in a statement on Thursday that the scientist’s deportation “seriously undermines the fundamental freedoms of the academic world: freedom of thought, expression and travel.”

Pit production at LANL

 

Comments on SUGGEST NEW TOPICS HERE : LLNL - The True Story -

From the Santa Fe reporter. I am not convinced that Mello is some kind
of LANL/NNSA or neocon plant pushing to grow LANL even larger. I simply cannot believe this guy is that dumb to write this kinda or crap. Literally every time his says this stuff it increases New Mexicos support for LANL and expanding the mission. Who is the audience for this stuff?

Greg Mello
2 days ago
Chris is correct. And as the White House NNSA budget examiner said to me years ago, LANL's pit program is being pursued for one reason: to enable a new warhead program at Livermore in California. That single justification was a little exaggerated but it's not far off. Actually, it supports the entire NNSA complex, which has doubled in staffing over recent years, during a period when there would be little new warhead work to do otherwise. LLNL would not have a new warhead to design without LANL being ready to make the pits for it, and with NIF getting long in the tooth, LLNL could actually have to...wait for it....downsize. The whole warhead complex could get out of its dangerous "sorcerer's apprentice" mode, in which expanding workloads lead to even more expanding workloads. But as for the pits, is LANL ready? No. Is it otherwise logical to pump up LANL to do make pits? Not in the least. LANL pit production is a tottering jenga tower, undermined not just by incapacity but by an eroding facade of "mission need". Many people err in thinking there are exalted, logical reasons for the programs at these two physics labs, which have enormous political power to shape their own work programs amid the general dysfunction of Congress. The lab directors say NIF is necessary (LANL and Sandia used to have NIF critics but they have long been silenced.) So ignorant congresspersons fork over the money. It works the same for MANY lab programs. You may observe that California has 52 congresspersons. And -- oh the shock -- California wants pork-barrel jobs at Livermore. As always, ignorant people believe there is some exalted higher purpose in all this waste and high-level "control fraud," some kind of magical "science" which will usher in a new Golden Age. Current responsibilities at the two labs could be accomplished with half their remaining staff, after taking away LANL's ridiculous pit program. So said an NNSA lab director to me, which is also my estimate. This would be the staffing level needed without any disarmament. Frankly, LANL should simply be closed, as Chris has said before and as AEC Commissioner Hamilton said in 1950. There would be some adjustments, let's say, but those adjustments are the very ones we need. Every town in northern New Mexico would be better off without LANL. The U.S. would be better as well.

AI leadership at LANL?

 Claude said:

AI leadership?

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is claiming a leadership role in developing AI for national security applications. However, a glaring inconsistency emerges when we examine its operational practices. By neglecting to implement AI technologies to optimize its own business operations, especially project management, procurement and financial operations, LANL undermines its credibility and raises questions about its genuine commitment to innovation. If LANL truly believes in the transformative power of AI for national security, it should first harness that power internally to improve operational efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance decision-making processes. The apparent reluctance to adopt AI in its own business model suggests a lack of confidence in the technology or a disconnect between its lofty goals and practical applications. This inconsistency not only jeopardizes LANL operational effectiveness but also casts doubt on the authenticity of its mission to contribute to national security through AI.

Taxpayers pay for LLNS legal fees!

While seeking out Federally funded waste, will DOGE audit DOE/NNSA past and present history of bankrolling contractor legal fees so they can defend against at the taxpayer expense, whistleblowers and other self-serving contractor expenses (2008 “Gray March”)?

Still a relevant concern in 2025:

“You’ve probably heard of the government’s, “War on Whistleblowers… But what you probably didn’t know is that these vendettas against truth-tellers are routinely funded with your tax dollars… the government managed to turn four dollars worth of unauthorized phone calls into a ten million dollar bill for taxpayers.”

“Legal Swindle”

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D6JDZvPvV4g&pp=ygUXbGVnYWwgc3dpbmRsZSBsaXZlcm1vcmU%3D

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Elon reviews nuclear contractors

 

"Department heads have been asked to justify the roles of the contractors on their team in one-sentence summaries describing why they should be kept on" one of the officials working for the National Nuclear Security Administration" said .

https://www.yahoo.com/news/doge-reviews-nuclear-contractors-212923306.html

White House may seek to slash NASA’s science budget by 50%

 Going backwards!

https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/03/white-house-may-seek-to-slash-nasas-science-budget-by-50-percent/

Genetically engineered mice.

 Scientists engineer mouse to have fluffy hair:

https://www.livescience.com/animals/land-mammals/colossal-creates-woolly-mouse-in-new-step-towards-mammoth-de-extinction

A new type of AI model

 This company is commercializing a promising new AI concept, that could lower compute requirements, or equivalently produce more insightful responses at a given computational cost:

https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/26/inception-emerges-from-stealth-with-a-new-type-of-ai-model/

Is LANL getting rid of web pages?

 Weird stuff going on in LANL. They are getting getting rid of web pages, also rumors are that Doge is showing up to look around. Other rumors. The just got rid of bunch of postdocs and some staff. More and more countries are on the bad list.

No more EVs and charging stations at GSA

 US Agency Reportedly Plans to Shut Down 8,000 EV Chargers, Offload EVs

https://www.pcmag.com/news/general-services-administration-shuts-down-8000-ev-chargers-offloads-evs

Note: lab vehicles are leased from the GSA, but I'm not sure if buildings are owned by GSA or DOE directly. However it seems many lab electric vehicles will be either recalled or more likely not renewed with EVs once their lease is up.

The General Services Administration (GSA), an agency that manages the federal government’s buildings, is planning to shut down all 8,000 of its electric vehicle chargers, The Verge reports.

The GSA is also expected to offload its current stock of EVs, though it's unknown if the vehicles will be sold or put into storage. The agency will reportedly begin instructing employees to remove the chargers—which are used for both federally owned EVs and employees' personal vehicles—as early as next week.

The agency informed employees at one regional office that, in its efforts "to align with the current administration," it had received direction stating that all GSA-owned charging stations "are not mission-critical," according to an email first reported by Colorado Public Radio.

“The GSA is working on the timing of canceling current network contracts that keep the EV chargers operational. Once those contracts are canceled, the stations will be taken out of service and ‘turned off at the breaker,’” the email continued. “Other chargers will be turned off starting next week.”

The web page dedicated to the electrification of the GSA's fleet has also been taken offline, The Verge notes.

The GSA had been rapidly electrifying its fleet following the Biden administration's 2021 executive order that calls for 100% of all federal fleet purchases to be zero-emission by 2035.

The news comes amid broader cuts to plans for a nationwide EV charging networks and measures to block the federal government from buying more electric vehicles.

Postdoc Publications

 The LANL fellows did a study of the declining number publications at the lab. This also showed the decline of publications of the postdocs.

Now and new publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that postdoc publications in terms of number of papers and impact is associated with the long term success in science.

https://physics.aps.org/articles/v18/34?utm_campaign=weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_source=emailalert

For many researchers, the postdoctoral fellowship is a way station between graduate school and a permanent job. Now Bedoor AlShebli of New York University, Petter Holme of Aalto University in Finland, and their collaborators have revealed that, despite the position’s transience, the quantity and quality of a researcher’s postdoc publications are a strong predictor of whether the researcher stays in academia and, if they do, how productive the researcher will be as a faculty member [1]. The findings have implications for faculty hiring and postdoc welfare, say AlShebli and Holme.