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

Nickel for Thought: Compound Shows Potential for High-Temperature Superconductivity

A team of researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory has identified a nickel oxide compound as an unconventional but promising candidate material for high-temperature superconductivity.

Oxygen: The Jekyll and Hyde of Biofuels

Scientists are devising ways to protect plants, biofuels and, ultimately, the atmosphere itself from damage caused by an element that sustains life on earth.

How to Build Software for a Computer 50 Times Faster than Anything in the World

Researchers at six Department of Energy national laboratories - Lawrence Berkeley, Lawrence Livermore, Sandia, Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, and Argonne - in addition to other labs and universities are developing tools and technologies that support and connect hardware and applications critical to making the next-generation systems - exascale supercomputers - a reality.

Synthetic Development of Low-Dimensional Nanomaterials Could Revolutionize Future Technologies

Javier Vela, a scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory, believes improvements in computer processors, TV displays and solar cells will come from scientific advancements in the synthesis of low-dimensional nanomaterials.

Department of Energy Awards Six Research Contracts Totaling $258 Million to Accelerate U.S. Supercomputing Technology

Today U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry announced that six leading U.S. technology companies will receive funding from the Department of Energy’s Exascale Computing Project (ECP) as part of its new PathForward program, accelerating the research necessary to deploy the nation’s first exascale supercomputers.

With ARM Instruments Watching, an Extensive Summer Melt in West Antarctica

An array of ARM instruments were deployed at the WAIS Divide ice camp in West Antarctica, where scientists unexpectedly witnessed first hand the effects of an extensive summer surface melt event.

New Research Finds a Missing Piece to High-Temperature Superconductor Mystery

An international team led by scientists from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University has detected new features in the electronic behavior of a copper oxide material that may help explain why it becomes a perfect electrical conductor – a superconductor – at relatively high temperatures.

U.S.-China Collaboration Makes Excellent Start in Optimizing Lithium to Control Fusion Plasmas

A collaboration of researchers have recently shown lithium, a soft, silver-white metal, to be effective in both respects during path-setting U.S.-Chinese experiments on the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) in Hefei, China.

Researchers Find a Surprise Just Beneath the Surface in Carbon Dioxide Experiment

An X-ray technique at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), coupled with theoretical work by a team at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena (Caltech), revealed how oxygen atoms embedded very near the surface of a copper sample had a more dramatic effect on the early stages of the reaction with carbon dioxide than earlier theories could account for.

Defrosting the World’s Freezer: Thawing Permafrost

To enhance Earth system models, researchers are examining how and why permafrost thaws and melts.

Uncovered: 1000 New Microbial Genomes

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI), a DOE Office of Science User Facility, have reported the release of 1,003 phylogenetically diverse bacterial and archaeal reference genomes—the single largest release to date.

Tackling infectious disease — one protein at a time

A team of researchers, including a Pacific Northwest National Laboratory scientist, used the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory to help solve 1,000 protein structures.