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

Perspectives on 10 Years of Discovery With Fermi

Ten years ago, the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope (then called GLAST) was launched into space, beginning its mission to explore the most energetic light in the universe and the powerful cosmic processes that produce it.

There’s a New Microscope in Town: ThemIS, Anyone?

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) now have access to a unique new microscope that combines atomic-scale imaging capabilities with the ability to observe real-world sample properties and behavior in real time.

Robust MOF Material Exhibits Selective, Fully Reversible and Repeatable Capture of Toxic Atmospheric Gas

Led by the University of Manchester, an international team of scientists has developed a metal-organic framework material (MOF) that exhibits a selective, fully reversible and repeatable capability to remove nitrogen dioxide gas from the atmosphere in ambient conditions.

Work Begins on New SLAC Facility for Revolutionary Accelerator Science

The Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has started to assemble a new facility for revolutionary accelerator technologies that could make future accelerators 100 to 1,000 times smaller and boost their capabilities.

Faces of Summit: Succeeding by Leading

OLCF program director and project director for Summit, Buddy Bland has spent countless hours communicating and problem-solving with the system’s various stakeholders, including ORNL, DOE, and technology vendors IBM and NVIDIA, among others.

A Boon for Physicists: New Insights Into Neutrino Interactions

Physicists on the MicroBooNE collaboration at the Department of Energy’s Fermilab have produced their first collection of science results. Roxanne Guenette of Harvard University presented the results on behalf of the collaboration at the international Neutrino 2018 conference in Germany.

New Model Sheds Light on Key Physics of Magnetic Islands that Halt Fusion Reactions

Magnetic islands, bubble-like structures that form in fusion plasmas, can grow and disrupt the plasmas and damage the doughnut-shaped tokamak facilities that house fusion reactions. Recent research at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has used large-scale computer simulations to produce a new model that could be key to understanding how the islands interact with the surrounding plasma as they grow and lead to disruptions.

Big Boost for Fermilab’s Short-Baseline Neutrino Experiments

Data from the MiniBooNE and the Los Alamos Liquid Scintillator Neutrino Detector experiments presented this week at the Neutrino 2018 conference suggest that something unusual is going on when low-energy muon neutrinos travel a short distance, pointing to a possible type of neutrinos or “sterile” neutrinos——with different properties from the three known types.

Exploring Greener Approaches to Nitrogen Fixation

A fundamental understanding of nitrogen chemistry could lead to more sustainable routes for producing nitrogen-containing commodities such as fertilizers and nitric acid.

Faces of Summit: Leading a Systems Expedition

Matt Ezell, one of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility’s high-performance computing systems administrators for Summit, is currently undertaking some of the most important tasks necessary for standing up the machine, the newest supercomputer at the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Celebrating 50 Years of Evaluated Nuclear Data

Using recent experimental data and improvements in theory and simulation, a group of national labs, universities, and companies recently published the eighth major update to a library of nuclear reaction information first published in 1968 that is used in simulations for energy, medicine, national security, and other applications.

Detector Improvements Upgrade Science Capabilities of SNS and HFIR Instruments

Detectors at SNS and HFIR help researchers study scattered neutrons to better understand the nature of materials. An ORNL team designs detectors tailored to meet the specifications of each instrument, such as the WLS detectors installed at the recently upgraded POWGEN, SNS beamline 11A, and the Anger cameras installed at MaNDi, SNS beamline 11B.