U.S. Department of Energy Research News

1-Nov-2001
Project to help combat bioterrorism
Thanks to scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory, the nation's veterinarians will soon have access to Web-based information that will help them diagnose animal disease outbreaks.

1-Nov-2001
Magnetic refrigerator successfully tested
Using materials developed at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory, researchers have successfully demonstrated the world's first room-temperature, permanent-magnet, magnetic refrigerator.

1-Oct-2001
Yeung's new technology is Editors' Choice
The award-winning technology, Absorption Detection System in Multiple Capillaries, developed by Ed Yeung, program director of Chemical and Biological Sciences and an ISU Distinguished Professor, has been named the Most Promising New Technology by the editors of R&D Magazine.

1-Oct-2001
A giant among us
Klaus Ruedenberg, an Ames Laboratory senior associate and an Iowa State University Distinguished Professor Emeritus, has been chosen to receive the prestigious American Chemical Society Award in Theoretical Chemistry.

1-Oct-2001
Doing what comes naturally
Edward S. Yeung, director of Ames Laboratory's Chemical and Biological Sciences Program and an ISU Distinguished Professor, has been selected for the prestigious American Chemical Society Award in Chromatography.

1-Sep-2001
Insuring safety in future nuclear power systems
A research project to help ensure the safety of future nuclear power systems is being awarded $940,000 funding for a three-phase project under the Department of Energy's Nuclear Energy Research Initiative.

1-Sep-2001
Lab receives three-year funding for computing research
Ames Lab will be able to scale up its efforts to develop advanced scientific computing codes that can take advantage of today's extraordinary progress in computing technology thanks to the Department of Energy's Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing initiative.

1-Aug-2001
R & D 100 Award is fourth for Ed Yeung and 15th for Ames Lab
Ed Yeung, program director of Chemical and Biological Sciences, has won a 2001 R&D 100 Award for a remarkable advance in chemical separation technology called multiplexed capillary electrophoresis using absorption detection.

31-Jul-2001
Building the buckyball -- A bowl at a time
Showing a new, naturally occurring compound to a research chemist is, in a way, like throwing down a gauntlet. The unspoken challenge being issued � create this in the lab. For Peter Rabideau, that gauntlet has been the buckyball. Rabideau, an Ames Laboratory senior chemist, has moved a step closer to meeting that challenge by developing a practical means of producing bowl-shaped segments � buckybowls � that could eventually be pieced together to form the complete ball.

1-Jul-2001
New life for old scrap
Scott Chumbley and Alan Russell, two Ames Laboratory researchers have refined a process that makes it commercially viable to recover the neodymium from tons of stockpiled magnetic scrap.

1-May-2001
MIC researchers escape gravity
Three researchers from IPRT's Microanalytical Instrumentation Center recently flew on NASA's KC-135 reduced-gravity aircraft to test a new system for determining levels of treatment chemicals in water. It's part of an effort to develop novel instrumentation for monitoring the quality of spacecraft drinking water.

1-Apr-2001
Lab-built components bound for outerspace
Jerry Hand and Jim Safly, two Ames Laboratory machinists , have been busy fabricating components for equipment designed to test and monitor the quality of spacecraft drinking water.

1-Feb-2001
Separation technology unites lab, new company
One of Ed Yeung's latest developments � multiplexed capillary electrophoresis using absorption detection � is an innovation that marks the first time that Yeung has been directly involved in launching a new company based on his technology.

1-Feb-2001
Ames Lab scientists win Energy 100 Awards
Ames Laboratory research was recognized on the Energy 100 Awards list. Number 24 on the top-100 list was photonic bandgap structures, which was one of only three discoveries and innovations recognized in 1990. Lead-free solder was 36th on the list; one of only two research projects recognized in 1994. Magnetic refrigeration made the 59th spot on the list and was one of 10 discoveries and innovations recognized in 1997.

31-Dec-2000
Random acts of brightness
Costas Soukoulis, an Ames Laboratory senior physicis and former Iowa State University graduate student Xunya Jiang, now working at DiCon Fiberoptics, Inc., near Berkeley, Calif., have developed a theoretical model that simulates the phenomenon of random lasing, in which photons that follow random paths create a multiple-light-scattering laser.

31-Dec-1999
Polymers plus quasicrystals � A puzzling interaction
Sometimes trying something that really shouldn't work can lead to an amazing discovery. That's what happened to Valerie Sheares, an Ames Laboratory associate and Iowa State University assistant professor of chemistry. The discovery, a polymer-quasicrystal composite, has the best characteristics of each of the constituent parts. It's opened the door for a variety of innovative uses. Why it works, however, remains a puzzle�one that Sheares is eager to solve.