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X-ray laser acts as tool to track life's chemistry

DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

An international research team that includes researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has captured the highest-resolution protein snapshots ever taken with an X-ray laser, revealing how a key protein in a photosynthetic bacterium changes shape when hit by light.

Journal: Science

X-ray laser reveals how bacterial protein morphs in response to light

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Researchers have captured the highest-resolution snapshots ever taken with an X-ray laser that show changes in a protein's structure over time, revealing how a key protein in a photosynthetic bacterium changes shape when hit by light. They achieved a resolution of 1.6 angstroms, equivalent to the radius of a single tin atom.

Rattled atoms mimic high-temperature superconductivity

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

An experiment at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory provided the first fleeting glimpse of the atomic structure of a material as it entered a state resembling room-temperature superconductivity -- a long-sought phenomenon in which materials might conduct electricity with 100 percent efficiency under everyday conditions.

SLAC, RadiaBeam build new tool to tweak rainbows of X-ray laser light

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

The Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has teamed up with Santa Monica-based RadiaBeam Systems to develop a device known as a dechirper, which will provide a new way of adjusting the range of energies within single pulses from SLAC's X-ray laser.

A better look at the chemistry of interfaces

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

SWAPPS -- Standing Wave Ambient Pressure Photoelectron Spectroscopy -- is a new X-ray technique developed at Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light Source that provides sub-nanometer resolution of every chemical element to be found at heterogeneous interfaces, such as those in batteries, fuel cells and other devices.

Journal: Nature Communications
Funder: US Department of Energy's Office of Science

Optimized algorithms boost combustion research

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Turbulent combustion simulations, used in the design of more fuel-efficient combustion systems, have gotten their own efficiency boost, thanks to researchers from Berkeley Lab's Computational Research Division. They developed new algorithmic features that streamline turbulent flame simulations, which are commonly used in the design of combustion systems such as diesel engines; after testing the enhanced code on NERSC supercomputers, they were able to achieve dramatic improvements in simulation times, which will help reduce the time -- and thus the cost -- of designing new engines.

Sweet smell of success

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

JBEI researchers have engineered E. coli bacteria to convert glucose into significant quantities of methyl ketones, a class of chemical compounds primarily used for fragrances and flavors, but highly promising as clean, green and renewable blending agents for diesel fuel.

Journal: Metabolic Engineering
Funder: US Department of Energy's Office of Science

Copper on the brain at rest

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new study by Berkeley Lab researchers has shown that proper copper levels are essential to the health of the brain at rest.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Funder: National Institutes of Health; the National Science Foundation; the Stanford Systems Biology Center and Simbios Center for Physics-Based Computation at Stanford; the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; the Swiss National Science Foundation; and the Allen Dis

Lawrence Livermore researchers develop efficient method to produce nanoporous metals

DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Nanoporous metals -- foam-like materials that have some degree of air vacuum in their structure -- have a wide range of applications because of their superior qualities.

Journal: Advanced Materials Interfaces

Robotics meet X-ray lasers in cutting-edge biology studies

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Scientists at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory are combining the speed and precision of robots with one of the brightest X-ray lasers on the planet for pioneering studies of proteins important to biology and drug discovery.