University Research | U.S. DOE Office of Science (SC)

Super-Eruptions May Give Only a Year’s Warning Before They Blow

Researchers from Vanderbilt University and the University of Chicago have analyzed variations in the concentration of titanium in quartz crystals from several devastating volcanic events to determine growth times and growth rates.

Hydrology Research Finds "Missing Link" in Water Modeling

Groundbreaking research on global water supply co-authored by Colorado School of Mines Hydrology Professor Reed Maxwell and alumna Laura Condon, now assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Syracuse University, appears in the July 22 issue of Science Magazine.

Trees’ Surprising Role in the Boreal Water Cycle Quantified

A new study by University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists is the first to show that the uptake of snowmelt water by deciduous trees represents a large and previously overlooked aspect of the water balance in boreal watersheds.

Titanium + Gold = New Gold Standard for Artificial Joints

Titanium is the leading material for artificial knee and hip joints because it’s strong, wear-resistant and nontoxic, but an unexpected discovery by Rice University physicists shows that the gold standard for artificial joints can be improved with the addition of some actual gold.

Vortex Laser Offers Hope for Moore’s Law

The optics advancement led by engineers at the University at Buffalo may solve an approaching data bottleneck by helping to boost computing power and information transfer rates tenfold.

UWM Researchers’ Work in Catalysis Could Aid Drug Development

New research from the Tysoe group at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee uncovered what happens on the surface of a solid chiral catalyst that allows the preferential formation of only one enantiomer of a molecule.

Researchers Develop Shape-Changing Smart Material

Washington State University researchers have developed a unique, multifunctional smart material that can change shape from heat or light and assemble and disassemble itself.

Anne White: A Passion for Plasma

Researcher Anne White develops systems to carry out measurements at MIT’s tokamak Alcator C-Mod and other research reactors, winnowing down the most promising fusion reactor system designs.

Chemistry Lessons From Bacteria May Improve Biofuel Production

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison measured the relative abilities of more than 200 types of Streptomyces bacteria to identify the enzymes that efficiently deconstruct cellulose.

Scientists Design Energy-Carrying Particles Called ‘Topological Plexcitons’

Scientists at UC San Diego, MIT and Harvard University have engineered “topological plexcitons,” energy-carrying particles that could help make possible the design of new kinds of solar cells and miniaturized optical circuitry.

Physics Assistant Professor Mentors Three High School Teachers Now Bound for Summer Study

Hawaiʻi QuarkNet mentor Veronica Bindi, an assistant professor in Physics at UH Mānoa, has mentored three local high school teachers selected by the national QuarkNet Project, an education and outreach program that partners high school physics teachers with particle physicists.

Tiny Diamonds Could Enable Huge Advances in Nanotechnology

University of Maryland researchers developed a method to build diamond-based hybrid nanoparticles in large quantities from the ground up, thereby circumventing many of the problems with current methods.