U.S. Department of Energy Research News

Showing stories 376-400 out of 466 stories.
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1-Oct-2001
New instrument effective in detecting chemical weapons
Researchers at DOE�s Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory can now detect part-per-million levels of chemical warfare agents chemical warfare agents such as the blister agent HD or the nerve agent VX on soil or plant surfaces within 5 to 10 minutes using a new ion-trap secondary ion mass spectrometer.

1-Oct-2001
Travels of a young physicist
A young physicist recounts his career from the University of California at Berkeley and the laboratories of Alexander Pines, famed pioneer in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy.

1-Oct-2001
Tiny particles cause big stir
Emitted as the result of thermonuclear reactions in the core of the sun and supernovae, the ghostlike elementary particles called "neutrinos" usually travel unnoticed through space, in immense numbers and across vast distances. However, the discovery that these erstwhile phantoms have mass and are polymorphous generated substantial notice from the media on Earth.

1-Oct-2001
Microtools for the nanoworld
Most of what we call nanotechnology involves hundreds or thousands of atoms but in a nanometer there's enough room for three atoms. If we are going to achieve real nanotechnology, we are going to have to learn how to put atoms together one at a time.

1-Oct-2001
Beyond alchemy and the Wright brothers: Nanosecrets of everyday things
t's their nanostructure that makes many crucial materials useful, and chemical processes essential to everyday life routinely do their work on the nanoscale. There's a lot more to nanoscience than building itty-bitty widgets. Catalysts are "helper" substances that promote chemical reactions without themselves being consumed. Nature's catalysts, enzymes, assemble only specific end products. Industrial catalysts are rarely so precise.

1-Oct-2001
Dendrimers: Branching out into realms of molecular architecture
Dendrimers may well become the flagship of nanotechnology's building blocks, a class of polymerized macromolecules that have the potential to provide the most exquisitely tailored forms and functions ever realized outside of nature.

1-Oct-2001
Nanotubes: Superhard, superstrong, super useful
Not only do nanotubes offer a full range of electrical and thermal conductivity properties (they conduct heat better than any other known material), they're also about a hundred times stronger than steel and more durable than diamonds. Their potential for use in electronics is nothing short of mind-boggling: if all the nanotubes that could be packed into a one-half-inch cube were to be laid out end to end, they would stretch some 250,000 miles.

1-Oct-2001
The coming of the nano-age
The emerging field of nanotechnology promises to change the way almost everything�from vaccines to computers�is designed and made.

1-Oct-2001
Nanocrystals: The shape of things to come
Nanocrystals are particularly attractive as building blocks for larger structures because it's possible - even easy - to prepare nanocrystals that are highly perfect.

1-Oct-2001
Award-winning gasoline reformer is a catalyst for change
Instead of spark plugs and cylinders, environmentally friendly fuel cell engines may be under the hoods of the cars of the future. But first, scientists must find a practical and economical way to supply the hydrogen gas needed to power them. Chemical engineers at Argonne have developed and patented a compact fuel processor that �reforms� ordinary gasoline into a hydrogen-rich gas to power fuel cells.

24-Sep-2001
3-D holographic scanner for better airport security
The September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., using hi-jacked commercial airliners has sparked stringent security measures at airports across the nation. Passengers and their luggage are being physically searched before boarding every flight.

14-Sep-2001
Tools for healing
Discoveries in physics have helped forge dramatic advances in cancer treatment for over a century. In 1950-54, according to the National Cancer Institute, the five-year survival rate for all cancers was 35 percent; by 2000 it was 59 percent. With early detection and treatment, the five-year survival rate for screenable cancers is now 80 percent.

14-Sep-2001
Tools for the future
The future of accelerator physics isn't just for physicists. As in the past, tomorrow's discoveries in particle accelerator science may lead to unexpected applications for medical diagnosis, healing and the understanding of human biology.

14-Sep-2001
Tools for biomedical research
At the forefront of biomedical research, medical scientists use particle accelerators to explore the structure of biological molecules. They use the energy that charged particles emit when accelerated to nearly the speed of light to create one of the brightest lights on earth, 30 times more powerful than the sun and focused on a pinpoint.

14-Sep-2001
Tools for diagnosis
Advances in technology for medical diagnosis have created extraordinary new capabilities for imaging the human body. Many of medicine's most powerful diagnostic tools incorporate technology that physicists originally developed to explore the fundamental nature of matter.

14-Sep-2001
Interdependent sciences: Physics and medicine
Many diagnostic and therapeutic techniques that have revolutionized medicine are also symbols of the interdependence of the physical and biomedical sciences. Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Neutron Therapy are just two of the prominent examples of the successful collaboration among innovative medical researchers, physical scientists and engineers.

10-Sep-2001
Nanotemplates for nanostructures
Coffee beans spilled upon a table form no pattern�they're a mess�their distribution dictated by the laws of chance. The same was generally believed true of atoms deposited upon a substrate. The first vision of a peaceable kingdom in which deposited atoms form orderly, controllable 2-D nanopatterns has been observed by researchers at the Sandia National Laboratories.

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-Sep-2001
A new addition for weighty research
The latest addition to the Laboratory's collection of FTICR mass spectrometers is the most powerful available commercially. It measures the mass of peptides �small structural units obtained by cutting proteins into pieces � with such sensitivity and precision that scientists can detect hundreds of thousands of peptide species in a single analysis.

1-Sep-2001
Arming against online attacks
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory researchers specializing in cyber security believe that when it comes to computer hackers, prevention is the best medicine.

1-Sep-2001
Pumping up safety in refining gasoline
Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have developed a new solid acid catalyst that may provide oil producers worldwide with a safer approach for refining unleaded gasoline with reasonably high octane.

1-Sep-2001
Contributing to a nuclear renaissance
The Laboratory is launching an Advanced Nuclear Science and Technology Initiative (ANSTI), under the leadership of senior scientist Leonard Bond. "Nuclear science and technology is a major component of the Laboratory's current activities," Bond said. "ANSTI is building on our existing capabilities to support a national nuclear renaissance."

1-Sep-2001
Regular checkups reduce energy use
A prototype of software developed by researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is providing buildings across the United States with the equivalent of their own full-time doctor.

1-Sep-2001
Taming the power of power
Joe Oliveira, Janet Jones-Oliveira and a team of engineering experts are taking the first steps toward developing a computer model of the way our country's electrical generating and transmission, distribution and end-user systems operate. This is a daunting challenge because the systems have changed radically in recent years.

Showing stories 376-400 out of 466 stories.
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