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DOE to explore scientific cloud computing at Argonne, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Business Announcement

Scientists will examine cloud computing as a cost-effective and energy-efficient computing paradigm to accelerate discoveries in biology, climate change and physics. A program funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act through the Department of Energy will examine cloud computing as a way to accelerate discoveries in a variety of disciplines.

Silence of the genes

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Berkeley researchers have solved the structure of a protein complex that helps determine the fate of human cells. Called a RISC-loading complex, this structure consists of small RNA molecules that control whether genetic messages are silenced or expressed.

Journal: Nature Structural & Molecular Biology
Funder: Human Frontier Science Program, National Institutes of Health

Hyper-SAGE boosts remote MRI sensitivity

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Hyper-SAGE can increase the strength of a remote MRI or NMR signal 10,000 times, making it possible to detect ultra-low concentrations of clincal and environmental targets. This enhanced sensitivity presents a path to the molecular imaging of clinical targets such as lung and other cancers.

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

Establishing standard definitions for genome sequences

DOE/Joint Genome Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

With conservative estimates of 12,000 draft genomes hitting the public databases by 2012, researchers may be surprised to find that these datasets describe genomes that are not complete. Recognizing the problem, a group of researchers from several sequencing centers, including the DOE Joint Genome Institute has proposed four additional categories between "draft" and "finished" status that expand upon the so-called "Bermuda standard" in the Oct. 9 issue of the journal Science.

Journal: Science

Scientists decipher missing piece of first-responder DNA repair machine

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Scientists from the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Scripps Research Institute have uncovered the role played by the least-understood part of a first-responder molecule that rushes in to bind and repair breaks in DNA strands, a process that helps people avoid cancer.

Journal: Cell
Funder: DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, National Institutes of Health

First light for BOSS -- a new kind of search for dark energy

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

BOSS, the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, is the most ambitious attempt yet to map the expansion history of the Universe using the technique known as baryon acoustic oscillation. Part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III, BOSS achieved "first light" on the night of Sept. 14-15, when it acquired data with its upgraded spectrographic system across the entire focal plane of the Sloan Foundation telescope at Apache Point Observatory.

Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy, SDSS-III Participating Institutions, National Science Foundation, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Superheavy element 114 confirmed by Berkeley Lab nuclear scientists

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Scientists at the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have confirmed the production of the superheavy element 114, ten years after a group at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, first claimed to have made it. The search for 114 has long been a key part of the quest for nuclear science's hoped-for Island of Stability.

Journal: Physical Review Letters
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

University of Incheon/Berkeley Lab joint research on environmental-friendly energy

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Business Announcement

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and representatives of South Korea's University of Incheon have agreed to explore the potential for joint scientific research in energy, biology, accelerators, cosmology and space, in which the university would provide facilities and Berkeley Lab would provide research programs.

Computer code gives astrophysicists first full simulation of star's final hours

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The precise conditions inside a white dwarf star in the hours leading up to its explosive end as a Type Ia supernova are one of the mysteries confronting astrophysicists studying these massive stellar explosions. Now a team of astrophysicists and mathematicians at the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has created the first full-star simulation of the hours preceding the largest thermonuclear explosions in the universe.

Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

LLNL technology cleans up Visalia Superfund 100 years ahead of schedule

DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Business Announcement

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's technology was instrumental in cleaning up Southern California Edison's Visalia Pole Yard, which is scheduled to be taken off the Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund list this week.