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

Postdoc Alesha Harris: Tackling Chemistry from Nanoparticles to Neutrinos

Although Alesha Harris’ graduate work was in nanoparticles—materials just a billionth of a meter in size—she joined the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory as an postdoc to work on something she had never heard of before: invisible subatomic particles called neutrinos.

Can Paris Pledges Avert Severe Climate Change?

More than 190 countries are meeting in Paris next week to create a durable framework for addressing climate change and to implement a process to reduce greenhouse gases over time.

Identifying New Sources of Turbulence in Spherical Tokamaks

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have for the first time modeled previously unsuspected sources of turbulence in spherical tokamaks, an alternative design for producing fusion energy.

New Supercomputer Simulations Enhance Understanding of Protein Motion and Function

Supercomputing simulations at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory could change how researchers understand the internal motions of proteins that play functional, structural and regulatory roles in all living organisms.

Teaching Reactions How to Navigate

Scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory modeled every elementary step in the complicated mechanism of producing hydrogen, providing a detailed map of the amount of energy used in the different possible routes the reaction could take.

NSLS-II User Profiles: Emmie Campbell & Karen DeRocher

Emmie Campbell and Karen DeRocher, from the Biomineral Engineering group at Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering, studied microstructures that make up spicules or "bones" in larval sea urchins with the Hard X-Ray Nanoprobe at NSLS-II.

Oak Ridge National Lab and Solid Power Sign Exclusive License for Lithium-Sulfur Battery Tech

The company licensed a portfolio of ORNL patents relating to lithium-sulfur compositions that will enable development of more energy-dense batteries. ORNL’s proof-of-concept battery research has demonstrated the technology’s potential to improve power, operating temperature, manufacturability and cost as well.

Novel Intermediate Energy X-Ray Beamline Opening for Researchers

Using relatively low-energy X-rays, the IEX beamline at the APS will help illuminate electronic ordering and emergent phenomena in ordered materials to better understand the origins of distinct electronic properties.

Storm Clouds Take Rain on Rollercoaster Ride

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory researchers explained the complex fluxes in turbulent storm clouds using statistical distributions of the vertical velocity and various kinds of precipitating particles within the clouds.

U.S. Department of Energy Projects Win 33 R&D 100 Awards for 2015

The R&D 100 awards, sometimes called the “Oscars of Innovation,” are given annually in recognition of exceptional new products or processes that were developed and introduced into the marketplace during the previous year.

Supercomputing the Strange Difference Between Matter and Antimatter

An international team of physicists including theorists from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory has published the first calculation of direct "CP" symmetry violation—how the behavior of subatomic particles (in this case, the decay of kaons) differs when matter is swapped out for antimatter.

Q&A: SLAC Theorist Lance Dixon Explains Quantum Gravity

The force of gravity at the subatomic scale does not fit Einstein’s general theory of relativity - gravity on a larger scale. Lance Dixon of Stanford University and the DOE’s SLAC National Accelerator Lab explains one approach to developing an applicable theory, called quantum gravity, to combine Einstein’s theory with quantum mechanics.