Articles tagged with National Laboratories
Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory have discovered a new pathway for creating nanocrystalline-diamond thin films that can significantly improve the performance of certain types of integrated circuits. By reducing thermal budget, these materials can sustain higher current densities, leading to more efficient electronic devices.
Scientists have discovered molecular oxygen ions in the upper atmosphere of Saturn's moon Dione, which could be a crucial ingredient for life. The detection was made possible by instruments aboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft and suggests that icy moons like Europa may produce oxygen through sputtering processes.
A study led by Phil Duffy of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory found that previously rare high summertime temperatures are already occurring more frequently in some US regions. By mid-century, these extreme summer temperatures will occur in well over 50% of summers throughout the lower 48 states.
A team of researchers developed a computer model based on human neural structure and function to recognize shapes. The model, inspired by the hierarchical organization of the human visual cortex, successfully reproduced human performance in identifying shapes, opening up new ways to approach object detection problems.
Researchers have developed technology using microneedles to detect real-time chemical changes in the body, allowing for continuous monitoring. This innovation could enable personalized medical care and unlock new research opportunities.
Scientists create one of the world's smallest electronic circuits, just 150 atoms away, revealing positive and negative interactions between wires. This discovery in quantum physics could revolutionize integrated circuit design and heat management.
Researchers have discovered a new method for heating materials and creating new states of matter using proton beams. The high-intensity laser focus enabled the creation of well-focused proton beams with unexpected curved trajectories.
The US Department of Energy has announced nine winners of the 2011 Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award, recognizing their significant contributions to research and development supporting the department's missions. The award winners will receive a gold medal, citation, and $20,000.
Researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory and Indiana University analyzed the field's evolution, composition, and collaboration structure. The study concludes that sustainability science is both applied and basic, spanning worldwide institutions and governments. A global collaboration network emerged around 2000, defining the fie...
Researchers at Berkeley Lab introduce a maize gene to switchgrass, doubling starch content and making it easier to extract fermentable sugars. The results offer a promising new approach for improving dedicated bioenergy crops.
The Materials Project accelerates material discovery, enabling faster development of new materials used in clean energy technologies and common consumer products. Researchers can access a database of over 15,000 inorganic compounds to predict and discover new materials.
The article reveals how Los Alamos' decline is linked to misguided policies and mismanagement, rather than a culture of arrogance. The lab's scientists faced harsh conditions, including polygraph tests and shutdowns, after media scrutiny of one individual's actions was misconstrued as institutional failure.
Researchers at Berkeley Lab create a new device called the SheetRocker to study how shaking affects sheet formation in peptoid monolayers. They find that compression on the air-water interface produces free-floating, stable nanosheets in 95% yield, enabling scalable sensing and filtration applications.
The US Department of Energy has activated an ultra-high speed network connection at 100 gigabits per second, enabling researchers to share data up to 10,000 times faster than a typical home Internet connection. This technology has the potential to revolutionize internet innovations and pave the way for widespread commercial use.
Recent efforts by the US Department of Energy have analyzed remediation technology projects, technical reviews, and communication models to address nuclear waste management. The development of new tools and approaches is crucial to ensure continued safe and secure storage and disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level wastes.
The study reveals three distinct classes of protein motion: localized diffusion, methyl group rotations, and jumps. These motions are crucial for understanding protein functions critical to life, enabling scientists to design new biofuels and environmental remediation technologies.
Thirteen US Department of Energy researchers have been awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) for their innovative work in various fields. The award recognizes their contributions to advancing energy independence and national security, as well as their commitment to mentoring and community ser...
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists used an ultrafast spectroscopic technique to measure breakouts in aluminum thin films at high strain rates. The research tested fundamental scaling laws and revealed unexpected insight into shock wave phenomena.
The study combines advanced supercomputing with a quarter-century of worldwide news to forecast human behavior. It predicts civil unrest, country stability, and the movement of individuals across the globe.
Astronomers caught the PTF 11kly supernova within hours of its explosion, observing it with multiple telescopes and making it one of the most-studied supernovae in history. The early detection allows researchers to study the outer layers of the supernova and gain new insights into its origin.
Researchers discovered melanin can receive electrons, counteracting gamma radiation's oxidizing effects, resulting in electric current production. This finding has potential applications in the space industry, where equipment is exposed to high levels of radiation.
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has been awarded a five-year, $18 million grant to lead the development of ultra-wide-area resilient electric energy transmission networks. The center aims to create a smart grid system that operates efficiently and reliably over long distances.
A new angle-resolved photoemission technique allows researchers to probe a depth of up to 20 times beyond the previous limit, providing more detailed information about electron motion and bonding in materials. This breakthrough enables studies of new types of materials for various applications.
The Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment has begun taking data to establish the last known mixing angle, θ13, with unprecedented precision. This breakthrough could explain why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe.
Los Alamos researchers successfully observed the elusive hydronium ion for the first time using neutrons, revealing its crucial role in enzyme-catalyzed reactions and protein transport. This breakthrough has significant implications for understanding biochemical systems and treating diseases such as acid reflux.
A new study provides a detailed account of the natural carbon cycle in agriculture, revealing that regions dependent on others for food release more carbon than they take in. The researchers developed a national crop carbon budget, finding that the crops absorb and return about 37% of the US's total annual carbon dioxide emissions.
Scientists have found a new mechanism that couples electric and magnetic properties in a material, enabling faster and energy-efficient logic, memory, and sensing technology. This breakthrough could lead to the development of multiferroic materials, which are rare in nature but can display both ferromagnetic and ferroelectric properties.
A new approach to growing graphene reduces problems plaguing researchers, clearing a path for sophisticated electronic devices. Hydrogen controls the graphene grain shape and size, enabling the creation of well-defined graphene grains with perfect hexagonal shapes.
In June 2010, Berkeley Lab scientists quickly developed a simplified conceptual model and a coupled numerical model to estimate oil flow from the damaged wellhead. Their simulations predicted an oil flow rate of 60,000 to 100,000 barrels per day, which was later confirmed by a final estimate in August 2010.
Researchers at Berkeley Lab have discovered a unique luminescence property in tetrapod nanocrystals that breaks Kasha's rule. The cadmium-selenide/cadmium-sulfide core/shell tetrapods emit light from multiple excited states, showing promising potential for optical sensing and LED applications.
Scientists at Berkeley Lab have devised a nanoscale testing technique for irradiated materials that provides macroscale materials-strength properties. This technique could help accelerate the development of new materials for nuclear applications, reduce material requirements, and extend the lifetime of nuclear reactors.
The Department of Energy has won 36 R&D100 awards for its groundbreaking projects in energy, environment and national security. These projects include advanced ceramic film capacitors, enhanced renewable methane production systems and photoacoustic spectroscopy systems for remote detection of explosives.
Brookhaven National Laboratory has won two R&D 100 Awards for its innovative imaging devices that enhance x-ray fluorescence techniques and multimodal optical nanoprobe technology. These advancements enable researchers to study materials with greater depth and coverage, reducing experimental time by hours.
Researchers used the Jaguar supercomputer to simulate the interactions within carbon-14 nuclei and found that strong three-nucleon forces extend its decay. This discovery helps explain why carbon-14 is a useful tool for dating ancient objects.
Scientists have created a novel form of carbon that acts like a super-absorbent sponge, soaking up electric charge. The material can be incorporated into supercapacitor energy-storage devices with remarkably high storage capacity and quick recharge time.
Researchers at JBEI have developed a library of microbial efflux pumps that can alleviate biofuel toxicity in E. coli, enabling improved biofuel production. The study identified two effective pumps, including one from Alcanivorax borkumensis, which increased limonene production by microbes.
Two PNNL researchers, Matthew Marshall and Alexandre Tartakovsky, have been awarded Early Career Research Awards to study microbial biofilms and develop new computer models. The grants will support their research in underground contamination and complex molecular processes.
Researchers develop surface-based assembly method to produce promising power sources with controlled electron transfer rates. By varying particle size and linker length, they enhance electron transfer rate and suppress fluctuations, leading to stable charge generation.
The University of Chicago's Flash Center has released a new version of supercomputer code, FLASH 4-alpha, with enhanced capabilities for simulating high-energy density physics experiments. This will enable researchers at universities and national facilities to investigate fundamental properties of matter under extreme conditions.
Researchers Peter Cummings and Michael Simpson propose that mimicking natural processes can lead to more efficient and reliable devices. By exploiting contrarian behavior and 'noise,' scientists can develop technology that outperforms traditional methods, as seen in the humble bacterial cell's ability to withstand modern medicines.
Researchers discovered that domain walls in ferroelectric materials act as dynamic conductors, enabling tunable and metastable memory functionality. This discovery could lead to a new paradigm of electronic memory storage.
The STAR experiment has produced 18 examples of the nucleus of antihelium-4, making it the heaviest antiparticle ever detected. The discovery sheds light on the universe's matter-antimatter imbalance and could lead to breakthroughs in searching for antimatter in space.
Los Alamos scientists have developed a way to avoid using expensive platinum in hydrogen fuel cells, potentially solving an economic challenge that has hindered widespread use of large-scale systems. The new non-precious-metal catalysts yielded high power output, good efficiency, and promising longevity.
Researchers used computational simulations to explore hydrocarbon formation from methane under high pressure and temperature conditions. They found that hydrocarbons with multiple carbon atoms can form from methane at temperatures greater than 1,500 K and pressures 50,000 times those at the Earth's surface.
Scientists have found that molecules in thin films remain frozen at a temperature where the bulk material is molten. This phenomenon, known as surface freezing, occurs at the buried interface between bulk liquids and solid surfaces, with temperatures ranging from 10 to 30 degrees Celsius above the melting point of the bulk material.
A team of scientists has found that the pseudogap in high-temperature superconductors is not a gradual transition to superconductivity, but rather a distinct phase of matter. This discovery challenges current understanding and opens up new possibilities for achieving superconductivity at higher temperatures.
Steve Plimpton's development of LAMMPS molecular-dynamics software has led to over 65,000 downloads and 1,000 journal articles citing the code. The open-source software can model materials at various scales, from atomic to macroscopic systems.
The eSiMon Dashboard allows researchers to monitor and analyze simulations in real-time, providing a user-friendly interface for collaboration and data visualization. Key features include web-based access, variable annotation, and publication-quality image and video generation.
New research reveals ancient 'megadroughts' in the Southwest US, which may be followed by a cooler period. The study used sediment cores to analyze past climate conditions and found similarities with present-day warming trends.
The article highlights the importance of soil in addressing societal and ecological pressures. Soil scientists recommend refocusing research on urgent issues, broadening their vision to entire ecosystems, and improving communication to protect the planet's fragile home.
Researchers developed a technique to visualize plasmonic fields at the nanoscale, focusing on the position of plasmonic modes just a few nanometers apart. This advance enables the study of high-speed data transmission and ultrafast detector arrays.
Researchers use X-ray laser to determine 3D structures of proteins and capture single-shot images of viruses, paving the way for snapshots and movies of molecules and microbes in action. The technique has the potential to decipher tens of thousands of protein structures and study infectious diseases.
The BigBOSS Collaboration will use 500 nights of observing time on the Mayall Telescope to create a massive galaxy-redshift map, reaching back 10 billion years to investigate dark energy. The instrument will enable precise measurements of thousands of astronomical objects, providing unprecedented opportunities for scientific research.
Gabor Somorjai has been recognized with the prestigious BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award for his groundbreaking work in surface chemistry and catalysis. His research has led to significant advancements in fields such as pharmaceuticals, agriculture, and automotive industries.
The SRNL filter design uses a patented rotary microfilter to separate solid material from radioactive liquid waste, reducing costs and infrastructure for high-level waste disposal. The adapted system is now being tested at the Hanford Site and made available for other potential users.
Researchers have re-examined the assumption that organic molecules in the air evaporate quickly, discovering that they actually evaporate much slower than expected. This finding could significantly impact climate and air quality models, suggesting that there may be no missing source of atmospheric organics.
Researchers at Berkeley Lab coaxed polymers to braid themselves into complex structures, mimicking biological materials' hierarchy and precision. The findings could lead to new applications in drug delivery, molecular sensing, and more.
Researchers have successfully demonstrated a solution-based method for inducing the self-assembly of flexible polymer membranes with highly aligned subnanometer channels. The new technique uses organic nanotubes and block copolymers to fabricate porous thin films with tailored channel sizes and shapes.
Researchers at Berkeley Lab and Cal Tech have developed a new type of damage-tolerant metallic glass that outperforms any known material. The glass's unique composition promotes extensive plasticity, allowing it to bend rather than crack under stress.
JBEI has been named the 2010 Government Institutional Research Facility of the Year by Biofuels Digest. The institute's success is attributed to its co-location of researchers from various institutions and academic disciplines, resulting in significant scientific advancements.