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

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.

ORNL Microscopy Captures Real-Time View of Evolving Fuel Cell Catalysts

Atomic-level imaging of catalysts by scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory could help manufacturers lower the cost and improve the performance of emission-free fuel cell technologies.

A History of Phage-Host Interactions With Help From CRISPRs

Using metagenomic datasets produced from the Iron Mountain site in Northern California and customized tools, researchers used bacterial spacer sequences commonly called CRISPRs to link phage and hosts in ecological studies.

Hints About How Viruses Commandeer Human Proteins

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University and the University of Michigan have produced the first image of an important human protein as it binds with ribonucleic acid (RNA), a discovery that could offer clues to how some viruses, including HIV, control expression of their genetic material.

Quantum Spin Could Create Unstoppable, One-Dimensional Electron Waves

A pair of scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory and Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich have proposed the first solution to such subatomic stoppage: a novel way to create a more robust electron wave by binding together the electron's direction of movement and its spin.

Using Powerful Computers, Physicists Uncover Mechanism That Stabilizes Plasma Within Tokamaks

A team of physicists led by Stephen Jardin of the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has discovered a mechanism that prevents the electrical current flowing through fusion plasma from repeatedly peaking and crashing.

Tackling a Trillion

To study topics that take a huge amount of data, like the development of the universe or plasma physics, a team of scientists has developed a program to run trillion-particle problems from start to finish on the most powerful supercomputers in the United States.