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Latest edition of the 'Particle Physics Bible' now online

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Book Announcement

'The Review of Particle Physics,' a panorama of the world of high-energy and astroparticle physics known as "the PDG" for short, has been compiled and issued every two years since 1957 by the Berkeley Lab-based international Particle Data Group, now almost 200 scientists from 22 countries. The online version of the 2012 PDG has just been posted.

Funder: CERN, DOE/US Department of Energy, MICIN, Monbusho, IHEP, National Science Foundation, INFN, Russian Foundation for Basic Research

BaBar data hint at cracks in the Standard Model

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Recently analyzed data from the BaBar experiment may suggest possible flaws in the Standard Model of particle physics, the reigning description of how the universe works on subatomic scales. The data from BaBar, a high-energy physics experiment based at the US Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, show that a particular type of particle decay called "B to D-star-tau-nu" happens more often than the Standard Model says it should.

Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy
Meeting: Flavor Physics and CP Violation Conference 2012

Berkeley Lab scientists help define the healthy human microbiome

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A National Institutes of Health (NIH)-organized consortium that includes Berkeley Lab scientists has for the first time mapped the normal microbial make-up of humans. Berkeley Lab's role in mapping the human microbiome revolves around big data, both analyzing it and making it available for scientists to use worldwide. The research will help scientists understand how our microbiome keeps us healthy. It'll also shed light on our microbiome's role in many diseases.

Journal: Nature
Funder: National Institutes of Health

NuSTAR opens out-of-this-world view thanks to Livermore Lab technology

DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

NuSTAR will allow researchers to observe a new class of objects in space, called extreme objects, which have never been seen. The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (or NuSTAR), is the first focusing, high energy X-ray NASA satellite that will open the hard X-ray sky for sensitive study for the first time. It is scheduled for launch June 13 from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

Research shows humans are primary cause of global ocean warming over past 50 years

DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

New research by a team of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists and international collaborators shows that the observed ocean warming over the last 50 years is consistent with climate models only if the models include the impacts of observed increases in greenhouse gas during the 20th century.

Journal: Nature Climate Change

A new way of looking at photosystem II

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Using ultrafast, intensely bright pulses of X-rays from the Linac Coherent Light Source, an international team of researchers led by scientists at Berkeley Lab and SLAC obtained the first ever images at room temperature of photosystem II, a protein complex critical for photosynthesis and future artificial photosynthetic systems.

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

Research identifies precise measurement of radiation damage

DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers have for the first time simulated and quantified the early stages of radiation damage that will occur in a given material.

Journal: Physical Review Letters

Aging and breast cancer

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A big step towards understanding the cellular basis for why women over the age of 50 are more vulnerable to breast cancer has been taken by Berkeley Lab researchers. They determined that aging causes an increase in a type of adult stem cell believed to be at the root of many breast cancers, and a decrease in cells believed to serve as tumor suppressors.

Journal: Cancer Research
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

Underground search for neutrino properties unveils first results

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Scientists studying neutrinos have found with the highest degree of sensitivity yet that these mysterious particles behave like other elementary particles at the quantum level. The results shed light on the mass and other properties of the neutrino and prove the effectiveness of a new instrument that will yield even greater discoveries in this area.

Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy
Meeting: Neutrino 2012

A new tool to attack the mysteries of high-temperature superconductivity

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Using ultrafast lasers, scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have tackled the long-standing mystery of how Cooper pairs form in high-temperature superconductors. With pump and probe pulses spaced just trillionths of a second apart, the researchers used photoemission spectroscopy to map rapid changes in electronic states across the superconducting transition, revealing relationships of energy and momentum never seen before in these promising, but stubborn, complex materials.

Journal: Science
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy