Lobos overcome early deficit to claim fifth straight win Sports, B-1
Monday, March 3, 2014
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LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY
Analysis offers alternatives for future plutonium pit production
Report: More could be produced for less by modifying existing LANL facilities or moving work elsewhere By Staci Matlock
The New Mexican
Los Alamos National Laboratory is the only place making plutonium pits for nuclear warheads, and the lab has spent years and millions of
Locals try their hand at cursive at pen fair
taxpayer dollars trying to figure out a way to produce more for the U.S. Department of Defense. A new analysis by the Congressional Research Service says there are several cheaper options available than building new billion-dollar underground
plutonium production facilities. “Several options have the potential to produce 80 pits per year and permit other plutonium activities at relatively modest cost, in a relatively short time, with no new buildings and with minimal environmental impact,” said the report by Jonathan E. Medalia, specialist in nuclear weap-
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‘On the brink of disaster’ Ukraine puts its military on high alert and appeals for international help to avoid what it fears is a wider invasion by Russia. PAge A-3
Teen survivor helps author cancer study
Promises and peril of tech
Work by Elana Simon, an 18-year-old from New York, is bringing new attention to a mysterious disease.
Ultra connectivity brings both benefits and potential dangers.
LIFe & SCIeNCe, A-9
TeCH, A-8
‘12 Years’ takes top Oscar
Event celebrates art of handwriting, writing as form of self-expression By Robert Nott The New Mexican
Annabelle Farmer, 15, expressed disappointment that schools rarely teach cursive handwriting anymore. “It’s important that everything you do be as good as it can be in appearance,” she said while displaying her cursive skills in a workshop during the annual Santa Fe Pen Fair on Sunday. She and her sister, Natasha, 17, were working on their slant lines under calligraphy artist Sherry Bishop’s watchful eyes. Bishop said the craft of penmanship connects the “head, heart and hands” in an act of selfexpression that cannot be duplicated by the typing of a computer keyboard. The pen fair, in its 19th year, featured the wares of about 20 pen companies. Neal Frank, owner of Santa Fe Pens in Sanbusco Market Center and host of the event, said people remain enamored with pens despite the easy access of technological devices. “Businesspeople still realize that a handwritten note to a client carries more weight than an email, text or even a fax,” he said. He said that when it comes to pens, the world is divided into two sets of people: “those who know and appreciate a good pen and those who stole their pen from the bank.” Margaret Wood is not a pen thief. She bought a Mark Twain Pen, first patented with Twain’s OK in the late 1890s, from dealer Ross Cameron during Sunday’s fair. “I like the history and aesthetics of it,” she said.
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Director Steve McQueen, left, celebrates with the cast and crew of 12 Years a Slave as they accept the award for best picture during the Oscars ceremony Sunday in Los Angeles. JOHN SHEARER/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Historical drama named best picture, a first for a film by a black director
By Jake Coyle
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — Perhaps atoning for past sins, Hollywood named the brutal, unshrinking historical drama 12 Years a Slave best picture at the 86th annual Academy Awards.
ROBERT NOTT/THE NEW MEXICAN
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Calendar A-2
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The British director dedicated the honor to those past sufferers of slavery and “the 21 million who still endure slavery today.” “Everyone deserves not just to survive, but to live,” said McQueen, who promptly
INSIde
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PAge A-4
Institute team takes close look at city life on the urban continuum
O
Calligraphy artist Sherry Bishop says the craft of penmanship connects the ‘head, heart and hands’ in an act of self-expression that cannot be duplicated by the typing of a computer keyboard.
Steve McQueen’s slavery odyssey, based on Solomon Northup’s 1853 memoir, has been hailed as a landmark corrective to the movie industry’s long omission of slavery stories, following years of whiter tales like 1940 best-picture winner Gone With the Wind.
ver the past few centuries, human societies have changed dramatically. We travel, make things, treat illnesses and communicate in ways our ancestors could have never imagined. All this has led some to conclude that human societies are fundamentally different today than they were in the past, but I’m not so sure. Some research I’ve been doing lately suggests just the opposite: Our technologies might have changed in amazing ways, but our societies still follow some of the same basic rules that shaped ancient civilizations. I’ve had the privilege of seeing this first hand in several ways. As an archaeologist, I have studied continuities between the past and
Comics B-12
Life & Science A-9
ABOUT THe SeRIeS
Scott Ortman
Science in a Complex World
The Santa Fe Institute is a private, nonprofit, independent research and education center founded in 1984, where top researchers from around the world gather to study and understand the theoretical foundations and patterns underlying the complex systems that are most critical to human society — economies, ecosystems, conflict, disease, human social institutions and the global condition. This column is part of a series written by researchers at the Santa Fe Institute and published in The New Mexican.
present, particularly here in New Mexico. My collaborations with contemporary Pueblo people, in particular, have helped me see that the political debates we read about in the news every day have been part of all human societies all along,
El Nuevo A-7
Opinions A-11
Editor: Ray Rivera, 986-3033, rrivera@sfnewmexican.com Design and headlines: Kristina Dunham, kdunham@sfnewmexican.com
Police notes A-10
even those organized on a smaller scale. More recently, I’ve worked on a team that’s found an even deeper connection between ancient civilizations and the modern world.
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u List of winners. u Academy stakes claim to social advocacy.
Today Partly sunny. High 56, low 32. PAge A-12
Pasapick www.pasatiempomagazine.com
Frontier Battles and Massacres: A Historical and Archaeological Perspective The Southwest Seminars lecture series continues with Frances Levine, New Mexico History Museum director, 6 p.m., Hotel Santa Fe, 1501 Paseo de Peralta, $12 at the door, 466-2775, southwestseminars.org.
Two sections, 24 pages 165th year, No. 62 Publication No. 596-440