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

Cloudy Problems: Today's Clouds Might Not Be the Same as Pre-Industrial Ones

Scientists at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are improving the models used to calculate the properties of clouds and the airborne particles known as “aerosols” that impact the way clouds form and change.

Pushing Boundaries

At EMSL, studies of critical reactions at interfaces between solids and liquids provide insights into systems spanning all four of EMSL’s Science Themes – Atmospheric Aerosol Systems, Biosystem Dynamics and Design, Energy Materials and Processes, and Terrestrial and Subsurface Ecosystems.

New Material Increases the Lifetime of Solar-Powered Electrons

By carefully combining two oxide materials on the atomic scale, scientists created a designer interface that separates electrons and holes; this research matters because those electrons could go on to drive reactions that yield hydrogen fuel, essentially converting intermittent solar power into durable fuels.

(Rain)Cloud Computing: Researchers Work to Improve How We Predict Climate Change

At the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Argonne National Laboratory, two scientists ran the highest-resolution climate forecast ever done for North America to project what the climate will look like 100 years from now.

The World's Newest Atom-Smasher Achieves its 'First Turns'

One of the world's top particle accelerators has reached a milestone, achieving its "first turns" — circulating beams of particles for the first time — and opening a new window into the universe, a view that will give physicists access to a record rate of particle collisions in a tiny volume in space.

ORNL Researchers Stack the Odds for Novel Optoelectronic 2D Materials

A team of researchers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory used the vibrations between two layers of nanometer-thin semiconducting materials to decipher their stacking patterns in a new approach to designing the next generation of energy-efficient transistors and solar cells.

First Magnet Girder for Prototype Cancer Therapy Accelerator Arrives for Testing

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have begun testing a magnet assembly for a new kind of particle accelerator for cancer therapy.

Tracking Clouds Down Under

Researchers from ARM (the U.S. Department of Energy’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Climate Research Facility) are installing a suite of instruments on Macquarie Island to gather data on clouds and aerosols. The experiment will help to increase scientists’ understanding of the physical processes through which clouds and aerosols are interacting in order to represent these processes more accurately in climate models.

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New Form of Electron-Beam Imaging Can See Elements that are ‘Invisible’ to Common Methods

Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have developed a new imaging technique, tested on samples of nanoscale gold and carbon, that greatly improves images of light elements using fewer electrons.

Non-Coding RNA: Antibiotic Tricks a Switch

Industry researchers using the beamline at the Argonne Advanced Photon Source user facility have uncovered an antibiotic lead that shuts off pathogen growth by targeting a molecular switch in a regulatory RNA structure.

Chromium Study at APS Creates a Map of Cell’s Chemical Elements

Researchers from The University of Sydney treated cells with chromium (III) before using an intense synchrotron x-ray beam at the Advanced Photon Source to identify, classify, and map chromium spots throughout the cell.

Synchronized Leaf Aging in the Amazon Responsible for Seasonal Increases in Photosynthesis

High-tech photography in the Amazon reveals that young leaves grow in at the same times as older ones perish, in strong contrast to temperate forests in North America or Europe, resulting in seasonal increases in photosynthesis that must be taken into account to build more accurate climate models.