POJOAQUE PUEBLO — The 41 posters displayed at the Buffalo Thunder Resort on Tuesday morning were more than a little intimidating for someone who last took a college science class when Ronald Reagan was president and whose knowledge of things like particle physics would fit in a nanotube.

The room was packed with a lot of men and women who looked pretty normal, except you knew they were the ones who put together these displays packed with graphs, pretty pictures and words you needed to look up. They were some of the Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists at the cutting edge of new discoveries that could change our world. Their task Tuesday was to explain their work to the lay person at the first-ever lab-directed research and development day for the public.

The scientists are researching ways to make materials last longer, deter nuclear attacks, make solar panels more efficient and understand the spread of avian flu — among a host of other projects.

The event was an adult version of a school science fair. Scientists stood by their posters ready to explain their research. There were no trophies or blue ribbons handed out, but organizers did ask people to vote on their favorite research poster.

At poster No. 16, cheerful researcher Manuel Hegelich dove into an explanation of his team's research on laser-driven ion accelerators. These could be used for a variety of purposes, from diagnosing cancer at an earlier stage to detecting nuclear materials at ports of entry.

Essentially, the team wants to combine two proven technologies — particle accelerators and carbon ion beams — into a portable and practical product, Hegelich said. Large particle accelerators, like FermiLab and CERN, for decades have helped scientists study subatomic particles, but they are huge and cost billions of dollars to build. Germany has used carbon ion beams in an accelerator to effectively treat two kinds of brain tumors. "But right now you need an accelerator the size of a football field to do that," Hegelich said.

The LANL team is experimenting with ways to build a carbon ion beam accelerator small enough to fit into a cargo container — or smaller.

Hegelich tapped a button on his laptop and pulled up pictures of a breast tissue scan. The one made with a typical CT scan was fuzzy. The one generated using the carbon ion beam was crisp and clearly defined. Even a layperson could see the advantages.

The research has involved 35 scientists from LANL and Germany. Three years in, they're ready to take their project to the next phase and in five years hope to have a refined product that a company might take interest in producing.

While the carbon ion team is looking to shrink big equipment into a smaller package, the Dark Matter team at poster No. 37 hopes to one day supersize its project and further explore the substance of the universe.

It turns out that a fourth of the universe is made up of matter that isn't the normal stuff found in the earth, stars and people. Scientists call it dark matter, but don't yet understand what makes it tick. Scientists have dubbed one type of dark matter WIMPs — or weakly interacting massive particles. (Smarty-pants scientists do have fun with names.)

WIMPs may sound wimpy, but they're heavyweights in the particle realm, some 20 to 1,000 times heavier than protons. The Dark Matter team developed a technique using argon to ferret out WIMPs. They're in the midst of building a little 5-foot-diameter machine called a MiniCLEAN to look for WIMPs using argon. They expect the machine to be ready by next year, and the scientists will take it 6,800 feet underground at a Canadian nickel mine to collect WIMP data. "It is funny to be looking for particles from outer space but deep underground," project manager Keith Rielage mused.

Rielage said the LANL research and development program helped them turn their idea into reality. Now they're racing against time and a bunch of other teams to prove their method is the best one for studying WIMPs. If they win, they'll seek backing to build a much larger MiniCLEAN.

Just down the row from the Dark Matter team was poster No. 40, with an anxious-looking scientist, Benwei Zhang, standing ready to explain the hunt for the shortest radiation length in nature. Zhang described the quark soup that formed less than a second after the Big Bang launched the universe and why understanding how the soup's ingredients relate will better explain nuclear interactions. The more he talked, the more excited he became about the research, like a kid talking about his favorite toy.

The LANL scientists seemed to relish explaining their work, even if they realized the listener was grasping only a tenth of what was said.

A few students and professors from Northern New Mexico College, some venture capitalists and a lot of LANL employees attended the event. It was a chance for them to see their colleagues' work and share ideas for future projects, said William Priedhorsky, director of the laboratory-directed research and development program.

Currently, 250 projects are funded under the laboratory-directed research and development program. It is funded by 6.5 cents on every dollar that comes into the lab, generating about $105 million a year. The project teams have three years to test their cool theories and prove out their ideas, Priedhorsky said. "They can't go on and on," he said.

After the three years, successful teams can seek funding from a federal agency, a company or, on rare occasion, another round of support from the lab.

To see a synopsis of the posters presented, visit www.lanl.gov/science/ldrd/.

Contact Staci Matlock at 986-3055 or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com.