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

Sugar Mimics Guide Stem Cells Toward Neural Fate

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego have created synthetic molecules that can stand in for natural sugars, but can be more easily manipulated.

Nanostructured Metal-Oxide Catalyst Efficiently Converts CO₂ to Methanol

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have discovered a new catalytic system for converting carbon dioxide (CO₂) to methanol – a key commodity used to create a wide range of industrial chemicals and fuels.

New Type of Energy Storage Device Opens Possible Solutions to Energy Challenges

Scientists at the The University of Texas at Austin and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, have developed the first of a new class of pseudocapacitor that may eventually lead to devices that can store electricity more densely and charge/discharge more quickly than current pseudocapacitors.

Social Network Research May Boost Prairie Dog Conservation Efforts

Researchers at North Carolina State University using statistical tools to map social connections in prairie dogs have uncovered relationships that escaped traditional observational techniques, shedding light on prairie dog communities that may help limit the spread of bubonic plague and guide future conservation efforts.

Physicists Unlock Nature of High-temperature Superconductivity

Physicists at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Cornell University, and Brookhaven Lab have identified the “quantum glue” that underlies a promising type of superconductivity — a crucial step towards the creation of energy superhighways that conduct electricity without current loss.

DOE Office of Science Statement on Digital Data Management

The Office of Science Statement on Digital Data Management has been developed with input from a variety of stakeholders in this mission. The focus of this statement is sharing and preservation of digital research data.

UC Riverside at the Large Hadron Collider

A video of UC Riverside graduate students sharing what it is like to build one of the world's largest and most complicated machines.

New Approach to Form Non-Equilibrium Structures

By injecting energy through oscillations, researchers at the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University can force particles to self assemble under non-equilibrium conditions.

UT Students Experience Supercomputing on Titan

A group of graduate students from the University of Tennessee has the unique opportunity to perform research on Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s (ORNL) Titan.

Spinach Could Lead to Alternative Energy More Powerful than Popeye

Purdue University physicists are part of an international group using spinach to study the proteins involved in photosynthesis, the process by which plants convert the sun’s energy into carbohydrates used to power cellular processes.

A Tree May Have the Answers to Renewable Energy

Xudong Wang, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at UW-Madison, recently collaborated with researcher, Dr. Zhiyong Cai, in the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory in Madison on research to use cellulose nanofibers (CNFs) for water splitting, a process that converts solar energy to hydrogen fuel.

Bringing High-energy X-rays into Better Focus

Scientists at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have invented a customizable chemical etching process that can be used to manufacture high-performance focusing devices for the brightest X-ray sources on the planet, as well as to make other nanoscale structures such as biosensors and battery electrodes.