The Manhattan Project town of Los Alamos now has America's highest share of doctorate holders. Nearly 1 in 5 adults has a PhD and almost 70% hold a bachelor's degree

J. Robert Oppenheimer and Major General Leslie R. Groves inspect Ground Zero after the Trinity Test in New Mexico, July 1945 (left), Members of the Los Alamos National Laboratory team behind the design, assembly and testing of the Autonomous Ion Mass Spectrometer (AIMS) Sentry instrument (right). Hidden among the mesas of northern New Mexico lies a community unlike any other in the United States. Los Alamos, once a secret town built to support the Manhattan Project during World War II, is now recognised as America's most educated county by one remarkable measure: nearly one in five adults aged 25 and older holds a doctoral degree. Its academic profile goes even further, with almost 70% of residents having at least a bachelor's degree, nearly double the national average. The transformation of this once-classified scientific outpost into a global hub for research, innovation and advanced education continues to shape its economy, workforce and reputation decades after the first atomic bomb was developed there.How the Manhattan Project turned Los Alamos into America's most educated countyLos Alamos was established in 1943 as the secret headquarters of the Manhattan Project, the top-sec...