New Mathematics Accurately Captures Liquids and Surfaces Moving in Synergy
A new mathematical framework developed at Berkeley Lab, published in the June 10 issue of Science Advances, allows researchers to capture fluid dynamics coupled to interface motion at unprecedented detail. The framework, called "interfacial gauge methods", developed by Robert Saye, a Luis W. Alvarez Fellow in the Mathematics Group at Berkeley Lab, rewrites the equations governing incompressible fluid flow in a way that is more amenable to accurate computer modeling.
A New Way to Control Oxygen for Electronic Properties
Researchers at Argonne found they could use a small electric current to introduce oxygen voids, or vacancies, that dramatically change the conductivity of thin oxide films.
Messina Discusses Rewards, Challenges for New Exascale Project
The exascale initiative has an ambitious goal: to develop supercomputers a hundred times more powerful than today's systems. Argonne Distinguished Fellow Paul Messina, who has been tapped to lead a DOE/NNSA project designed to pave the way, speaks on the potential for exascale and the challenges along the way.
Massive Trove of Battery and Molecule Data Released to Public
The Materials Project, a Google-like database of material properties aimed at accelerating innovation, has released an enormous trove of data to the public, giving scientists working on batteries, fuel cells, photovoltaics, thermoelectrics, and a host of other advanced materials a powerful tool to explore new research avenues.
Provisional Names Announced for Superheavy Elements 113, 115, 117, and 118
The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) Inorganic Chemistry Division has published a Provisional Recommendation for the names and symbols of the recently discovered superheavy elements 113, 115, 117, and 118.
ORNL Research Finds Magnetic Material Could Host Wily Weyl Fermions
An elusive massless particle could exist in a magnetic crystal structure, revealed by neutron and X-ray research from a team of scientists led by the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee.
New Chemical 'Sponges' Designed to Soak Up Toxic Cancer-Fighting Drugs After Targeting Tumors
Researchers at Berkeley Lab are developing and testing materials for a new device that can be inserted via a tiny tube into a vein and soak up cancer-fighting drugs after they deliver a dose to tumors--and before they can widely circulate in the body.
Copper Is Key in Burning Fat
A new study led by a Berkeley Lab scientist and UC Berkeley professor establishes for the first time copper's role in fat metabolism, further burnishing the metal's reputation as an essential nutrient for human physiology.
Story Tips from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, June 2016
New battery technology a boost for Formula E race cars; New ORNL roof coating helps keep roofs cool; ORNL technique reveals defects in solar cell material; ORNL finding shows promise for alternating current conduction for oxide electronics.
Echo Technique Developed at SLAC Could Make X-Ray Lasers More Stable
Researchers from the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China have developed a method that could open up new scientific avenues by making the light from powerful X-ray lasers much more stable and its color more pure.
Scientists Use a Frozen Gas to Boost Laser Light to New Extremes
Researchers at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University and Louisiana State University have achieved an even more dramatic HHG shift by shining an infrared laser through argon gas that's been frozen into a thin, fragile solid whose atoms barely cling to each other.
New Alloy Promises to Boost Rare Earth Production While Improving Energy Efficiency of Engines
Researchers have developed aluminum alloys that are both easier to work with and more heat tolerant than existing products.
Quantum Dots, Plasma Tubes, and Supernovas - News from DOE Office of Science Labs
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Scientists Find Surprising Magnetic Excitations in a Metallic Compound
Scientists have found magnetic excitations in a metallic compound whose main source of magnetism is the orbital movement of its electrons. Their discovery challenges conventional wisdom that these excitations are only found in materials whose magnetism is dominated by the spin of its electrons.
A Plasma Tube to Bring Particles Up to Speed at SLAC
A team led by scientists from the University of California, Los Angeles and the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has reached another milestone in developing a promising technology for accelerating particles to high energies in short distances: They created a tiny tube of hot, ionized gas, or plasma, in which the particles remain tightly focused as they fly through it.
3-D Simulations Illuminate Supernova Explosions
Researchers from Michigan State University are using Mira to perform large-scale 3-D simulations of the final moments of a supernova's life cycle. While the 3-D simulation approach is still in its infancy, early results indicate that the models are providing a clearer picture than ever before of the mechanisms that drive supernova explosions.
Spinning Electrons Yield Positrons for Research
A team of researchers has successfully demonstrated a new method for producing a beam of polarized positrons, a method that could enable a wide range of applications and research, such as improved product manufacturing and polarized positron beams to power breakthrough scientific research.
Physicist Fatima Ebrahimi Conducts Computer Simulations That Indicate the Efficiency of an Innovative Fusion Start-Up Technique
Physicist Fatima Ebrahimi at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and Princeton University has for the first time performed computer simulations indicating the efficiency of a start-up technique for doughnut-shaped fusion machines known as tokamaks. The simulations show that the technique, known as coaxial helicity injection (CHI), could also benefit tokamaks that use superconducting magnets.
Through a Glass, Warmly: Argonne Nanomaterials Can Help Make Windows More Efficient
A team of researchers at Argonne National Laboratory is using nanomaterials to get closer to one of the holy grails of building efficiency technologies: single pane windows with efficiency as good or better than multi-pane low emissions (Low-E) windows. The team recently received a $3.1 million award from DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to develop a technology that could help achieve that goal.
ORNL Researchers Use Strain to Engineer First High-Performance, Two-Way Oxide Catalyst
In most cases, a catalyst that's good at driving chemical reactions in one direction is bad at driving reactions in the opposite direction. However, a team led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory has created the first high-performance, two-way oxide catalyst.
Tasty Fat: X-Rays Finding the Blueprint of Why Fat Is Yummy
Over three years, a University of Guelph team has brought increasingly complex samples of edible fat to the APS for research. They are using the data from the APS USAXS facility to characterize the nanoscale structure of different kinds of edible fats and applying the data to a model that predicts the effect of processes like heating and mixing on fat structure. If food manufacturers understand the unique structures of different fat compositions, they can better mimic the desirable tastes and textures of unhealthy fats with healthier alternatives, potentially impacting diseases closely tied to diet.
Cuing Environmental Responses in Fungi
Sensory perception lies at the heart of adaptation to changing conditions, and helps fungi to improve growth and recycle organic waste, and to know when and how to infect a plant or animal host. New results from a comparative fungal genome analysis conducted by a DOE JGI-led team shed light on the evolution of sensory perception in fungi.
Scientists Create "Magnetic Charge Ice"
A team of scientists working at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and led by Northern Illinois University physicist and Argonne materials scientist Zhili Xiao has created a new material, called "rewritable magnetic charge ice," that permits an unprecedented degree of control over local magnetic fields and could pave the way for new computing technologies.
Revealing the Nature of Magnetic Interactions in Manganese Oxide
A mathematical approach for studying local magnetic interactions has helped scientists understand the magnetic properties of a material with long-range magnetic order.
A Rallying Call for Microbiome Science National Data Management
Massive amounts of data require infrastructure to manage and store the information in a manner than can be easily accessed for use. In a paper published May 16, 2016 in Trends in Microbiology, DOE Joint Genome Institute researchers call for the formation of a National Microbiome Data Center to efficiently manage the datasets accumulated globally.