NEWS RELEASES

DOE Funded News

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 1-May-2025 11:08 ET (1-May-2025 15:08 GMT/UTC)

New DESI data shed light on gravity’s pull in the universe

University of Texas at Dallas
Reports and Proceedings

University of Texas at Dallas physicist Dr. Mustapha Ishak-Boushaki and his international colleagues in the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) collaboration have found in a new analysis that the way in which galaxies cluster is consistent with the standard model of gravity: Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy, U.S. National Science Foundation

Frontier supercomputer hits new highs in third year of exascale

DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory

The HPE Cray EX supercomputing system reported new highs for problem-solving speeds this week, updated for the TOP500 announcement at the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis, or SC24, in Atlanta. The score earned Frontier the No. 2 spot on the November 2024 TOP500 list, which ranks the fastest supercomputers in the world.

Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

Enormous cache of rare Earth elements hidden inside coal ash waste

University of Texas at Austin
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Coal ash — the chalky remnants of coal that has been burned for fuel — has been piling up across the United States for decades. But new research led by The University of Texas at Austin has found that the national coal ash supply contains enough rare earth elements to significantly bolster the national supply without any new mining.

Journal: International Journal of Coal Science & Technology
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

AI and human writers share stylistic fingerprints

Johns Hopkins University

People write with personal style and individual flourishes that set them apart from other writers. So does AI, including top programs like Chat GPT, new Johns Hopkins University-led research finds.

Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity
Meeting: International Conference on Learning Representations

Swanson School of Engineering selected to receive $3.3 million to develop new electricity transmission technology

University of Pittsburgh
Grant and Award Announcement

Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering will lead a $3.3 million university/industry partnership using artificial intelligence to optimize an HVDC converter design for increased power density and decreased cost.

Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

Revolutionizing tech to produce sustainable fuel

University of Houston
Grant and Award Announcement

University of Houston, in collaboration with SRI, has been awarded $3.6 million by the U.S. Department of Energy to develop PRIME-Fuel, a microreactor that converts carbon dioxide into methanol using renewable energy, supporting a sustainable fuel alternative.

Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

FRIB research team identifies flaw in physics models of massive stars and supernovae

Michigan State University Facility for Rare Isotope Beams
Peer-Reviewed Publication

An international team of researchers led by scientists from the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at Michigan State University (MSU) uncovered evidence that astrophysics models of massive stars and supernovae are inconsistent with observational gamma-ray astronomy. The discovery came after the team used an innovative new experimental method to investigate uncertain nuclear properties of an unstable isotope.

Journal: Nature Communications
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy, U.S. National Science Foundation

How ‘clean’ does a quantum computing test facility need to be? PNNL scientists show the way

DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

How to keep stray radiation from “shorting” superconducting qubits; a pair of studies shows where ionizing radiation is lurking and how to banish it.

Journal: PRX Quantum
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

13
14
15
16