Los Alamos lab creates homeland security office

"This new organization will allow us to better focus longstanding efforts toward evolving national needs," said Don Cobb, the laboratory's associate director for threat reduction.

Also on Thursday, Los Alamos officials demonstrated current and developing technologies for use in the war on terrorism, the Albuquerque Journal reported. One of the technologies on display was a self-evolving computer program called GENIE. The program can tailor itself to examine a wide array of sources for information.

"The computer learns to how to find what you want," said Steven Brumby, a Los Alamos scientist working on GENIE. "It's kind of freaky technology. A lot of people think it sounds too much like science fiction."

GENIE, which stands for Genetic Imagery Exploitation, was first used to track the path of a wildfire in Los Alamos in 2000, according to the Journal. The program could be used to scan luggage for weapons and to alert security officials to potential threats, Brumby said.