Giant Magnetic Effects Induced in Hybrid Materials
For a magnetic thin film deposited onto a transition metal oxide film, the magnetic properties change dramatically as the oxide undergoes a structural phase transition. The hybrid between a simple magnetic material and a transition-metal oxide provides a "window" to understand the metal-to-insulator transition and offers dramatic tunability of magnetic properties. Potential applications are envisioned in the fields of information storage and power transmission.
Examining How Radiative Fluxes Are Affected by Cloud and Particle Characteristics
Climate models calculate a changing mix of clouds and emissions that interact with solar energy. To narrow the broad range of possible answers from a climate model, researchers analyzed the effect of several proven numerical stand-ins for atmospheric processes on the energy flux at the top of the atmosphere. They found that the flux is the main driver of surface temperature change.
Comparing Climate Models to Real World Shows Differences in Precipitation Intensity
Precipitation is difficult to represent in global climate models. Although most single-column models can reproduce the observed average precipitation reasonably well, there are significant differences in their details. Scientists evaluated several single-column models, providing insights on how to improve models' representation of convection, which is integral to storm cloud formation.
Genetics of Wood Formation
To begin to understand poplar growth, a possible bioenergy crop, scientists at North Carolina State University built a robust high-throughput pipeline for studying the hierarchy of genetic regulation of wood formation using tissue-specific single cells called protoplasts.
Major Advance in Artificial Photosynthesis Poses Win/Win for the Environment
By combining biocompatible light-capturing nanowire arrays with select bacterial populations, a potentially game-changing new artificial photosynthesis system offers a win/win situation for the environment: solar-powered green chemistry using sequestered carbon dioxide.
Packing Heat: New Fluid Makes Untapped Geothermal Energy Cleaner
More American homes could be powered by the earth's natural underground heat with a nontoxic fluid that could cut in half the amount of water needed for a new power generation method called enhanced geothermal systems.
Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Limits Soil Storage
Soil carbon may not be as stable as previously thought. Also, soil microbes exert more direct control on carbon buildup than global climate models represent.
Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider Smashes Record for Polarized Proton Luminosity at 200 GeV Collision Energy
Thanks to accelerator advances, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC, http://www.bnl.gov/rhic/), a powerful nuclear physics research facility at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, just shattered its own record for producing polarized proton collisions at 200-giga-electron-volt (GeV) collision energy. The improvement will generate high volumes of data rapidly, giving physicists time to achieve several high-priority science goals in a single run at RHIC.
New "Cool Roof Time Machine" Will Accelerate Cool Roof Deployment
A collaboration led by Berkeley Lab scientists has established a method to simulate in the lab the soiling and weathering of roofing materials, reproducing in only a few days the solar reflectance of roofing products naturally aged for three years. Now this protocol has been approved by ASTM International, a widely referenced standards body, as a standard practice for the industry.
New ORNL, N.C. State, LanzaTech DNA Dataset is Potent, Accessible Tool
Scientists focused on producing biofuels more efficiently have a new powerful dataset to help them study the DNA of microbes that fuel bioconversion and other processes.
STAR Heavy Flavor Tracker Detects Signs of Charm at RHIC
Thousands of times a second the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory re-creates the hot quark soup that existed at the dawn of the universe. Particles composed of heavy quarks can help reveal details about the quark-gluon plasma, and by extension, the early universe and the origins of matter.
Researchers Create a New Map of Invisible Dark Matter
Scientists on the Dark Energy Survey, including researchers from the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, have released the first in a series of dark matter maps of the cosmos. These maps, created with one of the world's most powerful digital cameras, are the largest contiguous maps created at this level of detail, and will improve our understanding of dark matter's role in the formation of galaxies. They may also shed light on an unknown form of energy, called dark energy, which is believed to cause the universe to expand at an accelerating rate.
Dark Energy Survey Creates Detailed Guide to Spotting Dark Matter in the Cosmos
Scientists on the Dark Energy Survey have released the first in a series of dark matter maps of the cosmos. These maps, created with one of the world's most powerful digital cameras, are the largest contiguous maps created at this level of detail and will improve our understanding of dark matter's role in the formation of galaxies.
On the Road to Spin-Orbitronics
Berkeley Lab researchers have discovered a new way of manipulating the magnetic domain walls in ultrathin magnets that could one day revolutionize the electronics industry through a technology called "spin-orbitronics."
Long-Sought Magnetic Mechanism Observed in Exotic Hybrid Materials
Scientists have measured a subatomic phenomenon first predicted more than 60 years ago. This so-called van Vleck magnetism is the key to harnessing topological insulators--hybrid materials that are both conducting and insulating--and could lead to quantum computers, spintronics, and superior semiconductors.
Bacteria Tracked Feeding Nitrogen to Nutrient-Starved Plants
An international team of researchers tracked nitrogen as soil bacteria pulled it from the air and released it as plant-friendly ammonium. This process--called biological nitrogen fixation--substantially promoted growth in certain grass crops, offering new strategies for eco-friendly farming.
Erupting Electrodes: How Recharging Leaves Behind Microscopic Debris Inside Batteries
Using a powerful microscope to watch multiple cycles of charging and discharging under real battery conditions, researchers have gained insight into the chemistry that clogs rechargeable lithium batteries in work appearing in the March issue of the journal Nano Letters.
A Potential Rosetta Stone of High Temperature Superconductivity
Just as the Rosetta Stone has the same message in three different scripts giving scholars insights into ancient languages, so cerium-cobalt-indium5 is offering insights into the interplay between magnetism, superconductivity, and disorder in three classes of unconventional superconductors.
Story Tips From the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory April 2015
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Researchers Use Mira to Peer Inside High-Temperature Superconductors
Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) are using supercomputing resources at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF), a DOE Office of Science User Facility, to shed light on the mysterious nature of high-temperature superconductors.
ORNL-Led Team Demonstrates Desalination with Nanoporous Graphene Membrane
Desalination is an energy-intensive process, which concerns those wanting to expand its application. Now, a team of experimentalists led by the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has demonstrated an energy-efficient desalination technology that uses a porous membrane made of strong, slim graphene--a carbon honeycomb one atom thick. The results are published in the March 23 advance online issue of Nature Nanotechnology.
Protein Shake-Up
A certain class of proteins has challenged researchers' conventional notion that proteins have a static and well-defined structure.
A Mathematical Explanation for the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam System Problem First Proposed in 1953
A team of researchers, led by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute professor Yuri Lvov, has found an elegant explanation for the long-standing Fermi-Pasta-Ulam (FPU) problem, first proposed in 1953, investigated with one of the world's first digital computers, and now considered the foundation of experimental mathematics.
Rise of Marine Diatoms Linked to Vast Increase in Continental Weathering
A team of researchers, including Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute professor Morgan Schaller, has used mathematical modeling to show that continental erosion over the last 40 million years has contributed to the success of diatoms, a group of tiny marine algae that plays a key role in the global carbon cycle. The research was published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Graphene 'Gateway' Discovery Opens Possibilities for Improved Energy Technologies
Graphene, a strong, lightweight carbon honeycombed structure, only one atom thick, holds great promise for energy research and development. Recently scientists with the Fluid Interface Reactions, Structures, and Transport Energy Frontier Research Center, led by the US Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, revealed graphene can serve as a proton-selective permeable membrane, providing a new basis for streamlined and more efficient energy technologies such as improved fuel cells.