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Science Academies explain global warming in 'plain English'

DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Book Announcement

If emissions of greenhouse gases continue in a business-as-usual manner, future changes in climate will substantially exceed those that have occurred so far, with a warming of the Earth in the range of roughly five to nine degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century.

On the road to Mottronics

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

At Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light Source, researchers controlled the conducting/insulating phases of ultra-thin films of Mott materials by applying an epitaxial strain to the crystal lattice. This is an important step on the road to Mottronics.

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

Volcanoes contribute to recent warming 'hiatus'

DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Volcanic eruptions in the early part of the 21st century have cooled the planet, according to a study led by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. This cooling partly offset the warming produced by greenhouse gases.

Journal: Nature Geoscience

Tracking catalytic reactions in microreactors

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Berkeley Lab researchers have demonstrated a technique that for the first time allows the catalytic reactivity inside a microreactor to be mapped in high resolution from start to finish. This technique opens a more effective and efficient synthesis of pharmaceutical drugs and other flow reactor chemical products.

Journal: Journal of the American Chemical Society
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

Current ice melt rate in Pine Island Glacier may go on for decades

DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The Pine Island Glacier, a major outlet of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, has been undergoing rapid melting and retreating for the past two decades. But new research by an international team including researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory shows that this same glacier also experienced rapid thinning about 8,000 years ago.

Journal: Science

NuSTAR helps untangle how stars explode

DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

For the first time, an international team of astrophysicists, including Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists, have unraveled how stars blow up in supernova explosions.

Journal: Nature

Pond-dwelling powerhouse's genome points to its biofuel potential

DOE/Joint Genome Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Duckweed is a tiny floating plant that's been known to drive people daffy. It's one of the smallest and fastest-growing flowering plants that often becomes a hard-to-control weed in ponds and small lakes. But it's also been exploited to clean contaminated water and as a source to produce pharmaceuticals. Now, the genome of Greater Duckweed (Spirodela polyrhiza) has given this miniscule plant's potential as a biofuel source a big boost.

Journal: Nature Communications
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy, Selman A. Waksman Chair in Molecular Genetics at Rutgers

New 'pomegranate-inspired' design solves problems for lithium-ion batteries

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A novel battery electrode features silicon nanoparticles clustered like pomegranate seeds in a tough carbon rind. The Stanford/SLAC design could enable smaller, lighter rechargeable batteries for electric cars, cell phones and other devices.

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

Berkeley Lab researchers at AAAS 2014

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Can more accurate climate models help us understand extreme weather events? Can we use synthetic biology to create better biofuels? These questions, and the ongoing search for Dark Matter and better photovoltaic materials, are just some of the presentations by Lawrence Berkeley National Lab researchers at this year's AAAS meeting.

Meeting: 2014 AAAS Annual Meeting

NIF experiments show initial gain in fusion fuel

DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Ignition – the process of releasing fusion energy equal to or greater than the amount of energy used to confine the fuel – has long been considered the "holy grail" of inertial confinement fusion science. A key step along the path to ignition is to have "fuel gains" greater than unity, where the energy generated through fusion reactions exceeds the amount of energy deposited into the fusion fuel.

Journal: Nature