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Cold cases heat up through Lawrence Livermore approach to identifying remains

DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In an effort to identify the thousands of John/Jane Doe cold cases in the United States, a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researcher and a team of international collaborators have found a multidisciplinary approach to identifying the remains of missing persons.

Journal: Journal of Forensic Sciences

A welcome predictability

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Berkeley Lab researchers have developed an adapator that makes the genetic engineering of microbial components substantially easier and more predictable.

Journal: Nature Methods
Funder: National Science Foundation

Adaptable button mushroom serves up genes critical to managing the planet's carbon stores

DOE/Joint Genome Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The button mushroom occupies a prominent place in our diet; in nature, Agaricus bisporus decays leaf matter on the forest floor. An international collaboration led by the French institute INRA and the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute has determined the full repertoire of A. bisporus genes. Their report shows the metabolic strategies of Agaricus might not be present in white-rot and brown-rot fungi and suggests implications for forest carbon management.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

Lawrence livermore experiments illuminate how order arises in the cosmos

DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

One of the unsolved mysteries of contemporary science is how highly organized structures can emerge from the random motion of particles. This applies to many situations ranging from astrophysical objects that extend over millions of light years to the birth of life on Earth.

Journal: Nature Physics

A clock that will last forever

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Imagine a clock that will keep perfect time forever or a device that opens new dimensions into the study of quantum phenomena such as emergence and entanglement. Berkeley Lab researchers have proposed a space-time crystal based on an electric-field ion trap and the Coulomb repulsion of particles that carry the same electrical charge.

Journal: Physical Review Letters
Funder: National Science Foundation

Berkeley Lab sensors enable first light for the dark energy camera

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Mounted on a telescope high in the Andes, the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) saw first light September 12. DECam's half-billion-pixel focal plane is made of Berkeley Lab CCDs, invented and developed by scientists and engineers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and descended from sensors developed for high-energy physics. Highly sensitive to the near-infrared region of the spectrum, Berkeley Lab CCDs are an essential component of the most powerful dark-energy survey instrument yet made.

Funder: Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy, National Science Foundation, DOE/US Department of Energy, National Optical Astronomy Observatory

Berkeley Lab scientists create first 3-D model of a protein critical to embryo development

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Berkeley Lab researchers have constructed the first detailed and complete picture of a protein complex that is tied to human birth defects as well as the progression of many forms of cancer. Knowing the architecture of this protein, PRC2, should be a boon to its future use in the development of new and improved therapeutic drugs.

Funder: National Institutes of General Medical Science

Jay Keasling wins Heinz Award

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Grant and Award Announcement

Jay Keasling, Berkeley Lab Associate Director for Biosciences and leading authority on synthetic biology who has engineered microbial "factories" to manufacture a frontline antimalarial drug and biofuel substitutes for gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, has won a 2012 Heinz Award. Presented by the Heinz Family Foundation, the award carries with it a cash prize of $250,000.

Funder: Heinz Family Foundation

Protein linked to therapy resistance in breast cancer

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Berkeley Lab researchers have identified the FAM83A protein as a possible new oncogene and linked it to therapy resistance in breast cancer. This discovery helps explain the clinical correlation between a high expression of FAM83A and a poor prognosis for breast cancer patients, and may also provide a new target for future therapies.

Journal: Journal of Clinical Investigation
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy, NIH/National Cancer Institute, Office of Science

Salt seeds clouds in the Amazon rainforest

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Analysis at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Advanced Light Source was a key contributor to the discovery, by a team led by the Max Planck Institute of Chemistry, that potassium salts emitted into the Amazon rainforest biosphere during the night by plants and fungi are the minuscule particles on which organic compounds condense to form cloud nuclei – the seeds of mist and clouds that each day form anew over the jungle.

Journal: Science
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy, Max Planck Socuiety