News By Location

Researchers seek to harness and improve upon Eucalyptus' potential for enhancing sustainable biofuels and biomaterials production. It can be harvested from tropical and temperate zones and has over 700 species that are rich in genetic variation. In the June 12, 2014, edition of the journal Nature, the international effort to sequence and analyze the genome of Eucalyptus grandis engaged more than 80 researchers from 30 institutions, representing 18 countries.

Berkeley Lab researchers have devised a technique whereby self-assembling nanoparticle arrays can form a highly ordered thin film over macroscopic distances in one minute.

Citrus is the world's most widely cultivated fruit crop but it is now under attack from citrus greening, an insidious emerging infectious disease destroying entire orchards. Researchers worldwide are mobilizing to apply genomic tools and approaches to understand how citrus varieties arose and how they respond to disease and other stresses. In the June 2014 issue of Nature Biotechnology, an international consortium of researchers analyzed and compared the genome sequences of ten diverse citrus varieties.

The US Department of Energy Office of Science has targeted research into the common bean because of its importance in enhancing nitrogen use efficiency for bioenergy crops sustainability, and for increasing plant resilience and productivity in the face of the changing climate and environment. To this end, a team of researchers sequenced and analyzed the genome of the common bean, Phaseolus vulgaris. The work was published online June 8, 2014, in the journal Nature Genetics.

Atomic-scale snapshots of a bimetallic nanoparticle catalyst in action have provided insights that could help improve the industrial process by which fuels and chemicals are synthesized from natural gas, coal or plant biomass.

A new study of supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies has found magnetic fields play an impressive role in the systems' dynamics. In fact, in dozens of black holes surveyed, the magnetic field strength matched the force produced by the black holes' powerful gravitational pull.

Berkeley Lab researchers have unveiled the world's first fully two-dimensional field-effect transistor, using new device architecture that provides high electron mobility even under high voltages and scaled to a monolayer in thickness.

Berkeley Lab researchers have found unexpected traces of water in semiconducting nanocrystals that helps answer long-standing questions about their surface chemistry.