0471040630. First printing. About fine in a fine dust jacket.

0471040630. First printing. About fine in a fine dust jacket.

ix, [1], 230 pages. Notes. Index. Journalist Jo Ann Shroyer's engrossing

ix, [1], 230 pages. Notes. Index. Journalist Jo Ann Shroyer's engrossing profile of life and work inside the world's most secretive science research center. A world unto itself, Los Alamos is haunted by its history, yet bustling with an astonishing range of forefront science projects, from cancer research to robotic ants. Shroyer's elegant writing offers a probing exploration of life within this mysterious complex. Derived from a Kirkus review: A thorough, sometimes unsettling look at the culture of nuclear science. Famed for its role in the development of the atomic bomb, Los Alamos a fascinating community. In New Mexico, writes journalist and first-time author Shroyer, the town is an island of wealth in a poor state, inhabited by well-educated, civic-minded members of the nuclear weapons enterprise. That business is changing, writes Shroyer; Los Alamos scientists now cooperate with Russian scientists to make sure that no other party develops nuclear weapons. The collapse of the Soviet Union has made the world not safer but more dangerous, she observes. Her look at the people in charge of seeing that these countries do not drop the big one is illuminating, and it puts a comprehensible face on a science that has inspired profound fear for generations. Shroyer's reports are not always reassuring. For one thing the technology is imperfect; as one scientist puts it, ``A cosmic ray can go through and flip a bit in the computer so that you get a completely screwball answer. '' All this doesn't seem to bother the residents of Los Alamos overmuch; after all, the local oldies' radio station, K-BOM, carries the slogan ``We're radio-active! '' A solid piece of reporting on a little-viewed corner of national life.