Particle accelerators can be huge, limiting their deployment in industry and science. Researchers have developed a new technique to measure terahertz light in a way that preserves the correlations between position and time. This may pave the way to smaller particle accelerators.
Physicist Céline Bonfils studies the multiple influences affecting climate change. Her team identified these “fingerprints” in historical climate simulations to help separate the signals from the noise in observations.
Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced that 18 million node-hours have been awarded to 45 scientific projects under the Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) Leadership Computing Challenge (ALCC) program. The projects, with applications ranging from advanced energy systems to climate change to cancer research, will use DOE supercomputers to uncover unique insights about scientific problems that would otherwise be impossible to solve using experimental approaches.
Researchers using monitoring data from Alaska permafrost found that vegetation and the snowpack that accumulates in winter control the temperatures below ground and thus the flow of water in the ground. By highlighting the link between above- and belowground properties and processes, these results will help improve scientists’ predictions of how the Arctic interacts with overall climate change.
Ferroelectric materials based on the element hafnium show promise for data storage devices. They offer high speed, durability, lower operating power, and the ability to retain data when power is turned off. This research developed an innovative bulk hafnia-based ferroelectric material. Experiments with the material produced the first experimental evidence of room-temperature ferroelectricity in crystals made of a hafnium-based compound, bulk yttrium doped hafnium dioxide.
The rhizosphere, the underground ecological zone between and around plant roots, is difficult to study. Scientists have now developed a rhizosphere-on-a-chip with a transparent simulated soil structure that allows researchers to view how roots grow over time through the pores in the soil. Paired with specialized mass spectrometry techniques, scientist can also use the rhizosphere-on-a-chip to map the location of root-exuded molecules, like amino acids, without hurting the plant.
Today, U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm announced ten U.S. scientists and engineers as recipients of the prestigious Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award for their exceptional contributions in research and development supporting the Energy Department’s missions in science, energy, and national security. Established in 1959, the Lawrence Award recognizes mid-career U.S. scientists and engineers who have advanced new research and scientific discovery in nine categories representing the broad science and engineering missions of DOE and its programs. The awards are among the longest running and most prestigious science and technology awards bestowed by the U.S. Government.
Adding water to the catalytic reaction that converts methane into useful methanol makes the process more effective, but it creates challenges for industry due to steam from the water. Now scientists have identified a common industrial catalyst, copper-zinc oxide, that completes the conversion along different pathways depending on whether water is present or not. This could potentially keep methane, a potent greenhouse gas, out of Earth’s atmosphere and instead turn it into useful products.
Viruses play an essential role in regulating microbiomes. However, the use of metagenomics and metatranscriptomics have produced taxonomies of only a tiny proportion of the world’s viruses. In this study, researchers used a novel algorithm to compare and incorporate 715,672 metagenome viruses from environmental samples around the world. This expands the viral taxa available to researchers from about 8,000 to 723,672. The scientists then used the data to examine samples from two Populus tree genotypes.
The international KArlsruhe TRItium Neutrino (KATRIN) experiment in Germany recently reported a new upper limit on the mass of the neutrino. This limit—0.8 electronvolts (eV)—is the lowerst scientists have achieved. As the results are confirmed and refined, they will help scientists better understand the neutrino and its role in the evolution of the universe.
At Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Andreas Kemp studies the interaction of intense, extremely short laser pulses with matter. This new field of research studies extreme nuclear physics reactions at rates far higher than those of current accelerator experiments.
Fuel cells employ platinum as a catalyst. However, platinum degrades unevenly in fuel cells, resulting in still-usable platinum being discarded. To improve fuel cell durability and reduce waste, this research studied the causes of uneven platinum degradation, producing simple, effective strategies to reduce the waste of precious catalyst material and thereby encouraging the use of fuel cells in vehicles.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced the selection of 83 early career scientists from across the country to receive $110 million in funding for research covering a wide range of topics, from holography to particle accelerators. This year’s awardees represent 47 universities and 13 National Labs in 29 states. These awards are a part of the DOE’s long-standing efforts to develop the next generation of STEM leaders who will solidify America’s role as the driver of science and innovation around the world.
Researchers have created an injectable therapy for spinal cord injuries that uses specially engineered molecules that trigger a healing response in spinal cells. These molecules come together to form tiny fibers in a liquid solution. Scientists can control the motion of these fibers, allowing the fibers to connect more effectively with cells in the spine. The research may lead to a cure for spinal injuries in humans.
Previous research has found that heat waves and urban heat island effects reinforce each other’s effects. New research developed a method for modeling urban building energy demand and associated heat dispersal during heat waves.
Heating and cooling for buildings accounted for the United States’ biggest share (41 percent) of energy consumption in 2010, and energy use by buildings amounts to 40 percent of total U.S. carbon dioxide emissions. A new method allows researchers to test the design of neighborhoods and buildings to understand how they affect local and regional weather and energy use.
Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $1.89 million for 14 collaborative research projects in high energy physics that extend a robust history of collaboration with Japanese investigators.
In many streams and rivers, water moves between the open channel and the adjacent groundwater, enabling reactions that can remove or transform carbon, contaminants, and nutrients. Researchers developed a new modeling strategy to represent these effects in watershed-scale models. The new model addresses current models’ limited ability to simulate how carbon, nutrients, and contaminants move and transform in river corridors and allows for a new generation of research on river networks.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced $40 million to provide research opportunities to historically underrepresented groups in STEM and diversify American leadership in the physical and climate sciences through internships, training programs, and mentor opportunities. Beneficiaries will include Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs), and other research institutions. Harnessing America’s best and brightest scientific minds will be key to unlocking the climate solutions that will help achieve President Biden’s goal of a net-zero carbon economy by 2050.
The aboveground portions of plants release particles such as fungal spores, pollen, bacteria, viruses, algae, and cell debris that can act as the nuclei of cloud droplets and ice crystals. A multi-institutional team of researchers has reported the first characterization of biological particles produced over the life cycle of Brachypodium distachyon, a wild but commonly used model grass.
Nuclear fusion reactions in stars consume carbon-12 to produce oxygen-16, and the resulting ratio of carbon to oxygen shapes a star’s evolution. Physicists have not been able to measure this ratio with precision using existing experimental methods. A new method shines gamma beams on an oxygen-16 target and captures images of the outgoing reaction products to obtain higher-quality data on this reaction.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced $53 million in funding awards for diverse small businesses to pursue advanced scientific instrumentation and technologies to address climate change.
Fusion reactors face a challenge called “core-edge integration,” which involves maintaining a plasma that is hot at the core but not too hot to damage reactor walls. New research finds that a previously identified operating regime called Super H-mode can leverage the use of impurities such as nitrogen to address this challenge. The research also indicates that Super-H mode can be scaled up to future fusion plants.
The nuclei that smash together to produce fusion energy in a reactor originate from ionized neutral particles. The edges of fusion devices have large numbers of neutrals available to gain or lose electrons to become ions. These neutrals influence several important features of the plasma, including the rate at which the plasma fuels a reactor. A new pinhole camera system called Lyman-alpha Measurement Apparatus (LLAMA) on the DIII-D tokamak helped researchers better understand these neutrals.
Researchers have developed a new artificial intelligence (AI)-powered approach to analyzing X-ray diffraction (XRD) data. The X-ray Crystallography companion Agent (XCA) approach assembles a group of AIs that debate each other while analyzing live streaming X-ray data. Once the AIs cast their final votes, the XCA approach uses the vote tally to interpret what the most likely atomic structure is and to suggest how confident the researchers should be of the AI analysis. The AI analysis matches human effectiveness but takes just seconds.
Drizzle is an important factor in how clouds form and change and how water moves around the Earth. This is an extremely complex process, so scientists simplify it for climate models using parameterization. However, many models do not model drizzle formation with sufficient accuracy. This research used data collected in the field along with machine learning to create new methods to estimate drizzle formation. The results also reveal the importance of drizzle drop number concentration in drizzle formation.
Industry produces acetone and isopropanol using processes that release carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Researchers have now developed a new fermentation process that efficiently converts waste carbon oxide gases into acetone and isopropanol. This use of engineered bacteria advances progress on “carbon-negative” biomanufacturing for more sustainable industrial production and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $6 million in funding for seven projects in nuclear data for basic and applied nuclear science.
Quantum computers are prone to errors that limit their usefulness in scientific research. While error correction would be the ideal solution, it is not yet feasible due to the number of qubits needed. New research shows the value of an error mitigation approach called noise estimation circuits for improving the reliability of quantum computer simulations.
Scientists have developed a new theoretical model for preparing particle accelerator structures made of niobium metal. The model predicts how oxygen in the thin oxide layer on the surface of the niobium metal moves deeper into the metal during heat treatment. Tests indicate that the treatment should improve accelerator structure performance and make accelerators easier to build.
The Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Science has selected 80 graduate students representing 27 states for the Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) program’s 2021 Solicitation 2 cycle. Through world-class training and access to state-of-the-art facilities and resources at DOE national laboratories, SCGSR prepares graduate students to enter jobs of critical importance to the DOE mission and secures the U.S. position at the forefront of discovery and innovation.
New experiments have shown the source of the aurora borealis. Researchers have demonstrated Alfvén waves accelerating electrons under conditions that correspond to Earth’s magnetosphere. The new experiments show that electrons “surf” on the electric field of the Alfvén wave in a plasma. These electrons are the ultimate source of the light we call the aurora borealis.
Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $10 million in funding for traineeships in computational high energy physics. This funding will support graduate student research that trains the next generation of computational scientists and engineers needed to deliver scientific discoveries.
New materials will enable novel technologies to turn sunlight into electricity and fuels. Combinations of molecules and tiny nanoparticles make these materials a reality. Scientists have found a way to track electrons along their round trip from the molecules to the nanoparticles and back, helping to find where electrons can travel and where they get stuck, information that is crucial to finding better combinations for innovative materials.
The Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Science will sponsor the participation of 922 undergraduate students and 64 faculty members in three STEM-focused workforce development programs at 17 DOE national laboratories and facilities during Summer 2022. Awardees represent academic institutions from across America—including community colleges and historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and other Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), and institutions in jurisdictions that are part of the Establishing Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR)—highlighting DOE’s commitment to supporting a highly skilled, diverse workforce that is equipped to tackle the science, energy, environmental, and national security challenges of today and tomorrow.
In a test of the photon entanglement that makes quantum communication possible, researchers built a quantum local area network (QLAN) that shared information among three systems in separate buildings. The team used a protocol called remote state preparation, where a successful measurement of one half of an entangled photon pair converts the other photon to the preferred state. The researchers performed this conversion across all the paired links in the QLAN—a feat not previously accomplished on a quantum network.
Peatlands store a significant amount of carbon, and researchers expect that peatland plants respond to warming climates will influence future carbon uptake and storage. To better understand this mechanism, especially below ground level, researchers conducted experiments on ecosystem warming. They found that warming and the resulting soil drying significantly increased the growth of fine roots, which may indicate peatlands’ ability to adapt to changing conditions.
Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $10 million for basic research in the design, development, and scalability of randomized algorithms for scientific computing.
Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $20 million in basic research to explore potentially high-impact approaches in extreme-scale science and scientific computing.
To engineer proteins for specific functions, scientists change a protein sequence and experimentally test how that change alters its function. Because there are too many possible amino acid sequence changes to test them all in the laboratory, researchers build computational models that predict protein function based on amino acid sequences. Scientists have now combined multiple machine learning approaches for building a simple predictive model that often works better than established, complex methods.
Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $40 million for fundamental mathematics research on problems of interest to the DOE that require the integration of multiple mathematical topic areas. The Mathematical Multifaceted Integrated Capability Centers (MMICCs) supported by this funding opportunity will enable five-year, multi-institutional collaborations for cross-cutting mathematics.
Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $26 million for research to advance scientific data management and visualization. Foundational research in data management will address challenges stemming from the increasingly massive data sets produced by scientific experiments and supercomputers. Innovative and intuitive data visualization approaches will support scientific discovery, decision-making, and communication based on that data.
Spatially isolated “hot spots” and brief “hot moments” shape methane emissions from tropical forest soils. In this research, scientists used model simulation to understand how microbes and soil variables contribute to the soil’s methane production and consumption. The models indicate that drought alters the diffusion of oxygen and microbes into and out of soil, leading to increased methane release from the entire hillslope during drought recovery. This finding is important for understanding sources of methane, an important greenhouse gas.
Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $1 million in funding for three awards to advance research and development (R&D) to translate newly developed radioisotopes into evaluation for potential use in preclinical and clinical trials. This funding is part of a key federal program that produces critical isotopes otherwise unavailable or in short supply for U.S. science, medicine, and industry.
Yongqin Jiao is a Group Leader in the Biosciences and Biotechnology Division at Lawrence Livermore National Lab. With her Early Career Research Program award, she investigated how the bacterium Caulobacter crescentus survives in high levels of uranium and its potential use for bioremediation.
In an important milestone for the Energy Exascale Earth System Model, researchers have developed and evaluated an entirely new global atmosphere model. The model has a resolution 30 times finer than global climate models. This resolution will produce much more detailed climate simulations.
Astatine-211 (At-211) shows promise for targeted alpha therapy, which may do more damage to cancer cells and cause less harm to the rest of the body than current cancer therapies. Researchers have developed a novel method of separating At-211 and shipping it in a safe, secure resin column. The approach will allow isotope producers to ship larger quantities of At-211 with less risk and loss to decay.
While the people of Ukraine have many needs, the Department of Energy (DOE)’s Office of Science (SC) can provide a safe and supportive environment for students, post-doctoral researchers, and scientists to continue their research in mission-relevant disciplines.
One of the challenges of fusion tokamaks is how to keep the core of a plasma hot enough that fusion can occur while preventing the tokamak walls from melting from that heat. This problem is even more difficult if instabilities at the plasma edge release energy in short bursts instead of a steady flow. Experiments on the DIII-D tokamak have demonstrated that enhancing energy flow in the plasma edge due to turbulent fluctuations can bleed energy smoothly out of the plasma, leading to improved future fusion plant efficiency.
Mixed-phase clouds that contain both ice and water particles are extremely complex. Researchers using data from the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement facility have found a key to understanding how mixed-phase clouds in the Arctic form ice. That key is the role of drizzle droplets as they freeze then shatter. The results will help improve simulations of mixed phase clouds in climate and earth system models.
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