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Berkeley Lab participates in new National Microbiome Initiative

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The initiative will advance the understanding of microbiome behavior and enable the protection of healthy microbiomes, which are communities of microorganisms that live on and in people, plants, soil, oceans, and the atmosphere. Microbiomes maintain the healthy function of diverse ecosystems, and they influence human health, climate change, and food security.

Journal: mBio

Berkeley Lab scientists discover surprising new properties in a 2-D semiconductor

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Researchers found how substantial linear defects in a new semiconductor create entirely new properties. Some of these properties indicate the defects might even mediate superconducting states.

Extracting miniature diamonds from crude

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Stanford and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory jointly run the world's leading program for isolating and studying diamondoids -- the tiniest possible specks of diamond. Found naturally in petroleum fluids, these interlocking carbon cages weigh less than a billionth of a billionth of a carat (a carat weighs about the same as 12 grains of rice); the smallest ones contain just 10 atoms.

Scientists take a major leap toward a 'perfect' quantum metamaterial

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Scientists have devised a way to build a 'quantum metamaterial' -- an engineered material with exotic properties not found in nature -- using ultracold atoms trapped in an artificial crystal composed of light. The theoretical work represents a step toward manipulating atoms to transmit information, perform complex simulations or function as powerful sensors.

Berkeley Lab scientists brew jet fuel in 1-pot recipe

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Berkeley Lab researchers at the Joint BioEnergy Institute have engineered a strain of bacteria that enables a 'one-pot' method for producing advanced biofuels from a slurry of pre-treated plant material. The achievement is a critical step in making biofuels a viable competitor to fossil fuels by streamlining the production process.

Journal: Green Chemistry
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

These space rocks could save the planet

DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Business Announcement

The planetary defense team at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory -- part of an international collaboration to detect and deflect the next large Earth-bound object -- is preparing meteorites received from NASA to be vaporized by a high-powered laser. The data they yield will inform asteroid deflection models.

Berkeley Lab scientists part of new particle-hunting season at CERN's LHC

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Business Announcement

Scientists at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) are among the thousands of collaborators worldwide at CERN's Large Hadron Collider who will be sifting through loads of new data expected from this latest experimental run, which could reveal unexpected twists in the makeup of matter and shed more light on the known pantheon of particles including the Higgs boson, discovered in 2012.

SLAC's historic linac turns 50 and gets a makeover

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Since the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory powered up its 'linac' half a century ago, the 2-mile-long particle accelerator has driven a large number of successful research programs in particle physics, accelerator development and X-ray science. Now, the historic particle highway is getting a makeover that will pave the way for more groundbreaking research.

Scientists watch bacterial sensor respond to light in real time

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers have made a giant leap forward in taking snapshots of ultrafast reactions in a bacterial light sensor. Using the world's most powerful X-ray laser at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, they were able to see atomic motions as fast as 100 quadrillionths of a second -- 1,000 times faster than ever before.

Journal: Science
Funder: Academy of Finland, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, European Union, National Science Foundation, Helmholtz Association, National Institutes of Health, German Federal Ministry of Education and Research

Could aluminum nitride be engineered to produce quantum bits?

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

The leading method for creating quantum bits, or qubits, currently involves exploiting the structural defects in diamonds. But using NERSC resources, University of Chicago researchers found that the same defect could be engineered in cheaper aluminum nitride. If confirmed by experiments, this could significantly reduce the cost of manufacturing quantum technologies.