U.S. Department of Energy Research News

Public Release: 27-Sep-2012
Ames Laboratory and IWRC win award for virtual spray paint training software
Spray paint training and designing next-generation power plants don't seem, at first glance, to have much to do with one another. But, the US Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory recently partnered with the Iowa Waste Reduction Center at the University of Northern Iowa to improve spray paint training using a virtual engineering software toolkit. The software enhancements have recently won a regional Federal Laboratory Consortium award for applying federal developed technology to industry needs.

Public Release: 27-Sep-2012

Science
Uranium-contaminated site yields wealth of information on microbes 10 feet under
At sites contaminated with heavy metals, remediation often involves feeding the naturally occurring bacteria in the soil to encourage them to turn soluble metals into solids that won't leech into aquifers and streams. To find out what these microbes are doing, UC Berkeley scientists performed a metagenomic analysis of the underground microbial community at one former uranium mill site in Colorado, assigning more than 150,000 sequenced genes to 80 bacteria and Archaea.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 26-Sep-2012
Sandia experts help when sinkhole opens up in Louisiana
The US Geological Survey turned to Sandia National Laboratories for help when the earth opened up last month near Bayou Corne, La.

Public Release: 26-Sep-2012
Sandia shows why common explosive sometimes fails
The explosive PETN has been around for a century and is used by everyone from miners to the military, but it took new research by Sandia National Laboratories to begin to discover key mechanisms behind what causes it to fail at small scales.

Public Release: 25-Sep-2012
Wayne State University researcher's calculations will help unlock new energy sources
A Wayne State University researcher is part of a national project to find accessible sources of natural gas. Jaewon Jang, Ph.D., assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering in the College of Engineering, recently received a two-year, $178,000 grant from the US Department of Energy to aid in the search for methane hydrates in oceans and permafrost, such as the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska's North Slope.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 24-Sep-2012

Physical Review Letters
A clock that will last forever
Imagine a clock that will keep perfect time forever or a device that opens new dimensions into the study of quantum phenomena such as emergence and entanglement. Berkeley Lab researchers have proposed a space-time crystal based on an electric-field ion trap and the Coulomb repulsion of particles that carry the same electrical charge.

National Science Foundation

Public Release: 24-Sep-2012
Most biofuels are not 'green'
First tops, then flops. That is one way of summing up the history of biofuels so far. A new study led by Empa gives an up-to-date picture of the ecobalance of various biofuels and their production processes. Only a few are overall more environmentally friendly than petrol.

Swiss Federal Authorities, US Department of Energy

Public Release: 20-Sep-2012

Nano Letters
ORNL research uncovers path to defect-free thin films
A team led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Ho Nyung Lee has discovered a strain relaxation phenomenon in cobaltites that has eluded researchers for decades and may lead to advances in fuel cells, magnetic sensors and a host of energy-related materials.

Public Release: 19-Sep-2012

Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres
Climate scientists put predictions to the test
A study has found that climate-prediction models are good at forecasting long-term climate patterns on a global scale but lose their edge when applied to time frames shorter than three decades and on smaller geographic scales. The goal of the research was to bridge the communities of climate scientists and weather forecasters, who sometimes disagree with respect to climate change.

NASA, National Science Foundation, US Department of Energy

Public Release: 19-Sep-2012

Nature
World record holder
Northwestern University scientists have developed a thermoelectric material that is the best in the world at converting waste heat to electricity. This is very good news once you realize nearly two-thirds of energy input is lost as waste heat. The material could signify a paradigm shift. With a very environmentally stable material that is expected to convert 15 to 20 percent of waste heat to useful electricity, thermoelectrics now could see more widespread adoption by industry.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 18-Sep-2012
Sandia shows monitoring brain activity during study can help predict test performance
Research at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., has shown it's possible to predict how well people will remember information by monitoring their brain activity while they study.

Public Release: 18-Sep-2012

Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research
New NIST screening method identifies 1,200 candidate refrigerants to combat global warming
NIST researchers have developed a new computational method for identifying candidate refrigerant fluids with low "global warming potential" as well as other desirable performance and safety features.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 17-Sep-2012
World's most powerful digital camera opens eye, records first images in hunt for dark energy
Scientists in the international Dark Energy Survey collaboration announced this week that the Dark Energy Camera, the world's most powerful digital camera, has achieved first light. The camera is mounted on the Blanco telescope in Chile, and the first pictures of the southern sky were taken by the 570-megapixel camera on Sept. 12.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 17-Sep-2012
Berkeley Lab sensors enable first light for the dark energy camera
Mounted on a telescope high in the Andes, the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) saw first light September 12. DECam's half-billion-pixel focal plane is made of Berkeley Lab CCDs, invented and developed by scientists and engineers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and descended from sensors developed for high-energy physics. Highly sensitive to the near-infrared region of the spectrum, Berkeley Lab CCDs are an essential component of the most powerful dark-energy survey instrument yet made.

Department of Energy Office of Science, National Science Foundation, Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, National Optical Astronomy Observatory

Public Release: 17-Sep-2012

Physical Review Letters
Dry-run experiments verify key aspect of Sandia nuclear fusion concept
Magnetically imploded tubes, intended to help produce controlled nuclear fusion at scientific "break-even" energies or better within the next few years, have functioned successfully in preliminary tests.

Sandia Laboratory-Directed Research and Development Program, National Nuclear Security Administration

Public Release: 14-Sep-2012

eLife
Berkeley Lab scientists create first 3-D model of a protein critical to embryo development
Berkeley Lab researchers have constructed the first detailed and complete picture of a protein complex that is tied to human birth defects as well as the progression of many forms of cancer. Knowing the architecture of this protein, PRC2, should be a boon to its future use in the development of new and improved therapeutic drugs.

National Institutes of General Medical Science

Public Release: 13-Sep-2012
Water-wise biofuel crop study to alter plants metabolic, photosynthesis process
A five-year, multi-institutional $14.3 million United States Department of Energy grant to explore the genetic mechanisms of crassulacean acid metabolism and drought tolerance in desert-adapted plants was awarded to a team of researchers including John Cushman, a biochemistry professor at the University of Nevada, Reno; Xiaohan Yang at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL); James Hartwell at the University of Liverpool, UK; and Anne Borland at Newcastle University, UK and ORNL. They aim to apply this knowledge to biofuel crops.

US Department of Energy, Genome Scineces

Public Release: 13-Sep-2012
Scientists use sound waves to levitate liquids, improve pharmaceuticals
Scientists at the US Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory have been using an "acoustic levitator" to find new ways to achieve containerless drug processing. Please check out the brief and striking video: http://www.anl.gov/videos/acoustic-levitation.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 12-Sep-2012

Nature Materials
Mercury in water, fish detected with nanotechnology
When mercury is dumped into rivers and lakes, the toxic heavy metal can end up in the fish we eat and the water we drink. To help protect consumers from the diseases and conditions associated with mercury, researchers at Northwestern University in collaboration with colleagues at Ecole Polytechnique F�d�rale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, have developed a nanoparticle system that is sensitive enough to detect even the smallest levels of heavy metals in our water and fish.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 12-Sep-2012
Jay Keasling wins Heinz Award
Jay Keasling, Berkeley Lab Associate Director for Biosciences and leading authority on synthetic biology who has engineered microbial "factories" to manufacture a frontline antimalarial drug and biofuel substitutes for gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, has won a 2012 Heinz Award. Presented by the Heinz Family Foundation, the award carries with it a cash prize of $250,000.

Heinz Family Foundation

Public Release: 12-Sep-2012
Sandia, OurEnergyPolicy.org release 'Goals of Energy Policy' poll results
US energy policy should simultaneously pursue security of its energy supply, economic stability and reduced environmental impacts, says a national poll of energy professionals jointly prepared by Sandia National Laboratories and OurEnergyPolicy.org. The findings of the national poll, "The Goals of Energy Policy," show that the vast majority -- more than 85 percent -- of the 884 energy professionals surveyed prefer policy making that pursues all three goals at once.

Public Release: 11-Sep-2012

Journal of Clinical Investigation
Protein linked to therapy resistance in breast cancer
Berkeley Lab researchers have identified the FAM83A protein as a possible new oncogene and linked it to therapy resistance in breast cancer. This discovery helps explain the clinical correlation between a high expression of FAM83A and a poor prognosis for breast cancer patients, and may also provide a new target for future therapies.

US Department of Energy, Office of Science, NIH/National Cancer Institute

Public Release: 11-Sep-2012
University of Tennessee, ORNL lead national team to study nuclear fusion reactors
A team of researchers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in collaboration with seven other institutions, is trying tackle the challenges of bringing fusion energy to the commercial marketplace.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 11-Sep-2012

Data Mining and Knowledge Recovery
Researchers devise more accurate method for predicting hurricane activity
Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new method for forecasting seasonal hurricane activity that is 15 percent more accurate than previous techniques.

National Science Foundation, US Department of Energy

Public Release: 10-Sep-2012
ORNL roof and attic design proves efficient in summer and winter
A new kind of roof-and-attic system field-tested at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory keeps homes cool in summer and prevents heat loss in winter, a multi-seasonal efficiency uncommon in roof and attic design.