We tend to talk a lot here at the Lab about how Lawrence Livermore is the
smartest square-mile on earth. I mean,
we do have the world's most energetic laser
and our supercomputer sierra is among
the world's fastest and most powerful
supercomputers. We conduct world-leading research in areas
like cancer drug
discovery and climate change and nuclear physics. Pretty much any scientific field
you could possibly think of. But work we've done here doesn't just stay
inside the fence so for this inside the lab we're gonna be talking about work
that has gone far outside the lab to produce some of the technology that you
use everyday including some really surprising things like
THE MOOD RING?!
yeah you heard me right well it may not actually be a piece of technology you
use every day starting off our list at the top five most surprising
technologies to come out of Lawrence Livermore is the mood ring you know that
quirky toy accessory that you can buy for cheap at the county fair and that
supposedly informs you how you're feeling it's actually a byproduct of
scientific research done here at the lab
here's what went down Bob Parker was an
LLNL researcher studying liquid crystals
these are the same materials used to
make LCD TV screens liquid crystals are a demonstration of a really cool state
of matter where a material as a whole behaves like a liquid but it's molecules
behave like crystals and those crystals can change conformation under different
conditions like exposure to different temperatures for example when the
crystals change structure in response to say temperature for example their
ability to absorb and refract different wavelengths of light changes so the
material as a whole changes color which is a property called thermo chromism
so Bob Parker thought these crystals were pretty friggin cool and he started
to experiment with them outside the lab - he actually made a bunch of stuff with
thermochromic properties like this thermometer the numbers on the
thermometer were made of this liquid crystal material and turned a certain
color when exposed to their corresponding temperatures on one day he
was approached by John Reynolds an entrepreneur who's perhaps biggest claim
to fame was inventing the ThighMaster John proposed putting this remarkable
material into a jewelry setting and voila your favorite tourist shop trend
was born now let's move on to number two which is actually something that is a
little more impactful in your day to day than the mood ring it actually has
probably saved your life but you've never seen it or most likely ever heard
of it it's a computer code called a Dyna 3d
it was created by John O Halquist
at LLNLL to simulate structural
engineering problems that were important
for stockpile stewardship at the time
but the source code was made public in
1978 and this is an incredibly important moment in computational
history because the code is so versatile it can be used to simulate a seemingly
endless variety of materials and 3d interactions and has gone on to
transform many industries including aerospace engineering this code was
actually part of NASA's development of the Mars Pathfinder particularly that
Rovers ability to use airbags during its landing on the surface of the Red Planet
but remember when I said it has probably saved your life and you didn't even know
it that's because it's used by the automotive industry to make sure that
vehicle designs are as safe as they can be the code can simulate a car's
behavior during a collision and car manufacturers then use that information
to inform vehicle design we use it to simulate all kinds of things like the
behavior of an airplane engine should a bird strike the aircraft and it helps us
design everything from new plastics to shipping containers to golf clubs to
sidewalks and it's still used here at the lab Dyna 3d was the precursor to a
LED a simulation code we still use here at LLNL to understand the complex
behavior of materials under extreme conditions number three brings us to
another life-saving application but this time in the field of medicine did you
know that we can paint chromosomes see chromosomes are where our cells store
our DNA it's all wrapped up and twisted tightly into these structures and humans
typically have 23 chromosomes and almost all of our cells but when something goes
wrong with our chromosomes something can go really wrong in our bodies like for
example when our cells divide they have to make copies of our chromosomes to
give to the new cell and sometimes that copy isn't perfect bits of one
chromosome can end up on an entirely different chromosome where they're not
supposed to be this is a mistake called translocation chromosome painting is a
technique developed by two Livermore scientists that allows different
chromosomes to be made to fluoresce different colors so we can easily
identify them and actually see those mistakes like translocation this has
allowed for better identification of diseases like specific cancers and
genetic abnormalities that are associated with very specific
chromosomal abnormalities so the people can get the right treatment for their
illness as soon as possible chromosome painting has continued to
develop over the last few decades and is
now called
or fish and is one of the
most important techniques used today for
diagnosis and management of genomic
diseases.
Something that's helping us
look a little further into the future is number four an innovative system
designed to help self-driving cars see by themselves
the current technology used by most autonomous vehicles is called
which uses a pulsed laser to measure distances
and then generate maps by which cars can
navigate but there's a problem with this
option this technology is bulky to carry around and can't identify specific single
objects and it takes a long time for the car to sort through all of the data
about the surroundings to generate the map Livermore's solution is called the
light field directing array or Lda which combines precision engineering and 3d
printing on the micro scale to make a system of miniature mirrors that are
constantly moving as they move in unison they can capture light bouncing off of
everything in the environment and they essentially are behaving like a single
larger device would and they can amass detailed information about environmental
conditions and objects as the car is moving. Researchers think that LDA tech
could let autonomous vehicles locate and avoid objects more rapidly and from a
greater distance bringing us just that little bit closer to a safer better
future for self-driving cars and last on our list but certainly not least I have
a question for you. Have you used Google Maps recently to get from point A to
point B? Because I used it today and that's thanks to you guessed it Lawrence
Livermore. Sure Google Maps is one of the places that global satellite imagery is
aggregated but where do those images come from? They are taken by satellite
networks many of which are based on work that originated here at the lab what
started as research into satellite technology as part of a defense program
initiative quickly became useful for civilian applications to the company
that resulted from this LLNL-based work doesn't just provide satellite images to
Google Maps. Their imagery can also be used to help tailor emergency response
and relief, to develop new communities using a better understanding of the past
and present conditions in a given area and to optimize communications networks
for the telecoms of the future.
I had such a hard time choosing what to cover
in this video you guys this is just a small handful of Livermore technologies
that have changed the world and will continue to do so in the future. There
are so many more that we could talk about so would you like to see another
edition of this surprising things to come out of the lab let us know it down
in the comments below or over on our social media channels we are at
Livermore Lab everywhere you can find us. Ieft some resources down in the
description of this video if you want to learn more about stuff like this in the
meantime and make sure you subscribe to this youtube channel to catch even more
videos about awesome lab technology check out our whole inside the lab
playlists catch up on any episodes you may have missed and as always thank you
so much for watching. I'll see you next time.