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Crop yield gets big boost with modified genes in photosynthesis

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Berkeley and Illinois researchers have bumped up crop productivity by as much as 20 percent by increasing the expression of genes that result in more efficient use of light in photosynthesis. Their work could potentially be used to help address the world's future food needs.

Journal: Science
Funder: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Engineering a more efficient system for harnessing carbon dioxide

DOE/Joint Genome Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A team from the Max-Planck-Institute (MPI) for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg, Germany, by tapping the DNA synthesis expertise of the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI), has reverse engineered a biosynthetic pathway for more effective carbon fixation. This novel pathway is based on a new CO2-fixing enzyme that is nearly 20 times faster than the most prevalent enzyme in nature responsible for capturing CO2 in plants by using sunlight as energy.

Journal: Science
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy, Swiss National Science Foundation, Max-Planck-Society, ETH Zurich, European Research Council

A new way to image solar cells in 3-D

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Berkeley Lab scientists have developed a way to use optical microscopy to map thin-film solar cells in 3-D as they absorb photons.

Journal: Advanced Materials

X-ray laser gets first real-time snapshots of a chemical flipping a biological switch

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Scientists have used the powerful X-ray laser at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to make the first snapshots of a chemical interaction between two biomolecules -- one that flips an RNA 'switch' that regulates production of proteins, the workhorse molecules of life.

Journal: Nature

Simulations show swirling rings, whirlpool-like structure in subatomic 'soup'

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Powerful supercomputer simulations of high-energy collisions of atomic cores provide new insights about the complex structure of a superhot fluid called the quark-gluon plasma.

Journal: Physical Review Letters

Scientists, interns bring structural biology's 'magic bullet' technique to X-ray lasers

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

To understand the 3-D shape of a protein, scientists often rely on information from similar molecules. But sometimes, the protein is so unique that it's not possible to find a close relative.

Solar cells get boost with integration of water-splitting catalyst onto semiconductor

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Scientists at Berkeley Lab have found a way to engineer the atomic-scale chemical properties of a water-splitting catalyst for integration with a solar cell, and the result is a big boost to the stability and efficiency of artificial photosynthesis.

Journal: Nature Materials
Funder: Department of Energy

Study: Carbon-hungry plants impede growth rate of atmospheric CO2

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

New findings suggest the rate at which CO2 is accumulating in the atmosphere has plateaued in recent years because Earth's vegetation is grabbing more carbon from the air than in previous decades. The findings are based on extensive ground and atmospheric observations of CO2, satellite measurements of vegetation, and computer modeling.

Journal: Nature Communications

We gather here today to join lasers and anti-lasers

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Berkeley Lab scientists have, for the first time, achieved both lasing and anti-lasing in a single device. Their findings lay the groundwork for developing a new type of integrated device with the flexibility to operate as a laser, an amplifier, a modulator, and a detector.

Journal: Nature Photonics
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

SLAC, Berkeley Lab researchers prepare for scientific computing on the exascale

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Researchers at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory are playing key roles in two recently funded computing projects with the goal of developing cutting-edge scientific applications for future exascale supercomputers that can perform at least a billion billion computing operations per second -- 50 to 100 times more than the most powerful supercomputers in the world today.