News Archive | U.S. DOE Office of Science (SC)

Conceptual diagram of the seasonal changes at the Riverton floodplain site. (Kristin Boye)

Probing Interactions Among Molecular Mechanisms, Cellular Processes, and Elemental Cycles

Two Department of Energy user facilities, the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) and the Joint Genome Institute (JGI), have selected 12 of the 41 proposals received from a joint call for 2019 research under the Facilities Integrating Collaborations for User Science (FICUS) initiative.

Photosynthesis Like a Moss

Moss evolved after algae but before vascular land plants, such as ferns and trees, making them an interesting target for scientists studying photosynthesis, the process by which plants convert sunlight to fuel. Now researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have made a discovery that could shed light on how plants evolved to move from the ocean to land.

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Nickel ions (blue) and oxygen ions (red) surround a dopant ion of potassium (yellow).

Quantum Predictions

With faster supercomputers and improved algorithms, scientists are studying a broad range of materials to find useful properties.

Scientists Make First Detailed Measurements of Key Factors Related to High-temperature Superconductivity

Two studies led by SLAC and Stanford capture electron 'sound waves' and identify a positive feedback loop that may boost superconducting temperatures.

SLAC Joins New LaserNetUS Network to Boost High-intensity Laser Research

The Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has joined a new research network called LaserNetUS that aims to boost access to high-intensity laser facilities at labs and universities across the country, including the Matter in Extreme Conditions (MEC) laser facility at SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS).

Kohei Fujita (left), Tsuyoshi Ichimura (middle), and Takuma Yamaguchi (right) from the University of Tokyo in Japan simulated a highly complex earthquake wave on Summit, accelerated using AI and transprecision computing. The team achieved a fourfold speedup over its state-of-the-art SC14 Gordon Bell finalist code and have again earned a finalist nomination. Image Credit: Jason Richards, ORNL

Gordon Bell Prize Finalist Code Adops AI to Model Monster Earthquakes

Researchers from the University of Tokyo in Japan simulated a highly complex earthquake wave on Summit, accelerated using AI and transprecision computing. The team achieved a fourfold speedup over its state-of-the-art SC14 Gordon Bell finalist code and have again earned a finalist nomination.

Improving Climate Models to Account for Plant Behavior Yields ‘Goodish’ News

Climate scientists have not been properly accounting for what plants do at night, and that, it turns out, is a mistake. A new study from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has found that plant nutrient uptake in the absence of photosynthesis affects greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere.

Advanced Photon Source (Image by Argonne National Laboratory.)

Argonne's Cat Power

The Collaborative Access Teams at the Advanced Photon Source use hard X-rays to uncover details about materials that are difficult to observe and measure.

A Solar Cell That Does Double Duty for Renewable Energy

Rresearchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis, a DOE Energy Innovation Hub, have come up with a new recipe for renewable fuels that could bypass the limitations in current materials: an artificial photosynthesis device called a “hybrid photoelectrochemical and voltaic cell” that turns sunlight and water into not just one, but two types of energy – hydrogen fuel and electricity.

DOE to Build Next-Generation Supercomputer at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced that Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s National Energy Research Scientific Computing (NERSC) Center has signed a contract with Cray for NERSC’s next-generation supercomputer, a pre-exascale machine slated to be delivered in 2020.

Scientists Find Great Diversity, Novel Molecules in Microbiome of Tree Roots

Researchers with the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have discovered that communities of microbes living in and around poplar tree roots are ten times more diverse than the human microbiome and produce a cornucopia of novel molecules that could be useful as antibiotics, anti-cancer drugs, or for agricultural applications.

CFN User Spotlight: Jennifer Carpena-Núñez Studies the Fundamentals of Carbon Nanotube Growth

Chemical physicist Jennifer Carpena-Núñez—a postdoctoral research associate with a joint appointment in the Interface Science and Catalysis Group at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility at Brookhaven National Laboratory, and at the Materials and Manufacturing Directorate at the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), a Department of Defense research laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio—has been synthesizing and characterizing carbon nanotubes.