2015 | U.S. DOE Office of Science (SC)

Construction Completed, PPPL is Set to Resume World-Class Fusion Research Later This Fall

After more than six years of planning and construction — including three years of building and 574,000 hours of labor — the National Spherical Torus Experiment-Upgrade (NSTX-U) is ready to play a critical role in the quest to develop fusion energy as a clean, safe and virtually limitless fuel for generating electricity.

Citizen Scientists Published for Potential Discovery of New Gravitational Lenses

Space Warps, a citizen-science project led by Phil Marshall, principle investigator for the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, is enabling amateur astronomers to make lasting discoveries.

ORNL Demonstrates Road to Supercapacitors for Scrap Tires

Some of the 300 million tires discarded each year in the United States alone could be used in supercapacitors for vehicles and the electric grid using a technology developed at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Drexel University.

Organics Energize Solar Cell Research

Scientists from Tulane University are using Mira to advance next-generation solar energy technologies by probing the functional interfaces found in organic and hybrid solar cells. ALCF staff helped accelerate their research by enhancing the team’s code so simulations run up to 30 percent faster on the supercomputer.

Muon G-2 Magnet Successfully Cooled Down and Powered Up

It survived a month-long journey over 3200 miles, and now the delicate and complex electromagnet is well on its way to exploring the unknown.

NSLS-II Scientists Find Flexible Boundary Between Phases of Matter Within Supercritical Fluids

Physicists at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II)—a Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility at Brookhaven National Laboratory—led a study to better understand the nature of the boundary between phases and the behavior of supercritical fluids, using high-energy x-rays to examine the atomic structures of supercritical fluids at different temperatures and pressures.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory to Co-Lead DOE’s New HPC for Manufacturing Program

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is collaborating with Lawrence Livermore and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories (LLNL and LBNL) to lead a new US Department of Energy (DOE) program designed to fund and foster public-private R&D projects that enhance US competitiveness in clean energy manufacturing.

Argonne Microbial Ecologist Jack Gilbert Named One of Popular Science’s "Brilliant 10"

Jack Gilbert, a microbial ecologist and group leader in Argonne National Laboratory's Biosciences division, has been named one of Popular Science's "Brilliant 10" for his environmental and biomedical-focused research as part of the magazine's 14th annual awards list.

Dirty, Crusty Meals Fit for (Long-Dormant) Microbes

Scientists at Berkeley Lab and the Joint Genome Institute have revealed that even dusty, harsh desert environments contain a variety of microbes, which, when awoken, consume a virtual smorgasbord of metabolites; each type of microbe consuming a small range of metabolites, thereby avoiding pure competition and likely increasing species diversity.

New Support for CAMERA to Develop Computational Mathematics for Experimental Facilities Research

Department of Energy has announced approval of a joint ASCR-BES-supported grant of $10.5 million over three years to expand the Center for Advanced Mathematics for Energy Research Applications (CAMERA).

Do Protons Decay?

Scientists are studying if it is possible for protons, the fundamental building blocks of atoms, to have finite lifetimes, and if so, what that means for the stability of atoms.

The Rise of X-Ray Beam Chemistry

A team of physicists and geochemists at Argonne and Oak Ridge National Laboratory have shown that instead of just passively observing surface reactions of minerals, they can use X-rays to create the conditions by which reactions happen while simultaneously observing them.