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

FRED Database Gathers Root Traits to Advance Understanding of Belowground Plant Ecology

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) scientists have released a new global, centralized database of plant root traits, or identifying characteristics, that can advance our understanding of how the hidden structure of plants belowground may interact with and relate to life aboveground.

Discovery in New Material Raises Questions About Theoretical Models of Superconductivity

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory has successfully created the first pure, single-crystal sample of a new iron arsenide superconductor, CaKFe4As4, and studies of this material have called into question some long-standing theoretical models of superconductivity.

High-Precision Calculations on Supercomputers Help Reveal the Physics of the Universe

On their quest to uncover what the universe is made of, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory are harnessing the power of supercomputers to make predictions about particle interactions that are more precise than ever before.

Study: Soils Could Release Much More Carbon Than Expected as Climate Warms

New research by scientists from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) are based on a field experiment that, for the first time, explored what happens to organic carbon trapped in soil when all soil layers are warmed, which in this case extend to a depth of 100 centimeters.

Small Nanoparticles Have Surprisingly Big Effects on Polymer Nanocomposites

An ORNL-led team of material scientists, chemists, physicists, computational scientists, and theorists conducted experiments and computer simulations to improve the design of new composite polymers, by tuning the mechanical, chemical, electrical, optical and thermal properties of nanoparticles of composite materials for optimal use.

Neutrons Help Reveal a New Filter for Heavy Hydrogen

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have found that deuterium and tritium can be separated from each other relatively easily using a functionalized metal-organic framework compound

Attention Earthlings: Help Wanted in Finding a New Planet

NERSC, the Berkeley Laboratory’s supercomputer center, has contributed data that a new NASA-launched citizen science project will use, as it seeks the public’s help in reviewing more than a million animations to identify moving space objects that could be new discoveries.

ORNL Study Examines Tungsten in Extreme Environments to Improve Fusion Materials

A study led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory subjected tungsten to low energies, akin to normal operations of a fusion reactor and high energies emulating plasma disruptions, providing new knowledge needed to design robust fusion materials.

Argonne Scientists Discover New Class of Colloidal Systems

A team of researchers, led by scientists at the University of Chicago and the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, has identified a new class of colloidal systems involving inorganic solvents, a discovery that could offer new applications for nanotechnology and better functional materials.

Jason Newby: Exploration is Key to Pushing Boundaries of Basic and Applied Research

ORNL physicist Jason Newby works on detector technology capable of imaging the fast neutrons emanating from highly enriched uranium or plutonium, and providing significant insight into the behavior of neutrinos and leading to a better understanding of fundamental science concepts.

Argonne Invents Reusable Sponge that Soaks Up Oil and Could Revolutionize Oil Spill and Diesel Cleanup

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have invented a new foam, called Oleo Sponge, that can pick up oil that has dispersed into the water column, not just a slick sitting on the surface—which no commercially available products can do.

Meet Kétévi Assamagan, Physicist and Explorer

Physicist Kétévi Assamagan explores huge quantities of data from the Large Hadron Collider in search of new physics — potential holes and contradictions in the Standard Model of Particle Physics that describes the universe's most basic building blocks and explains how they interact.