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28-Jan-2008

Berkeley scientists bring MRI/NMR to microreactors

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In a significant step towards improving the design of future catalysts and catalytic reactors, especially for microfluidic "lab-on-a-chip" devices, researchers with the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley, have successfully applied magnetic resonance imaging to the study of gas-phase reactions on the microscale.

Journal: Science
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

24-Jan-2008

Stardust comet dust resembles asteroid materials

DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Contrary to expectations for a small icy body, much of the comet dust returned by the Stardust mission formed very close to the young sun and was altered from the solar system's early materials.

Journal: Science

22-Jan-2008

Debut of TEAM 0.5, the world's best microscope

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

TEAM 0.5, the first of two advanced microscopes developed by the Transmission Electron Aberration-Corrected Microscope Project sponsored by the US Department of Energy's Office of Science, has been installed at DOE's National Center for Electron Microscopy at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. TEAM 0.5 is the world's most powerful transmission electron microscope and is capable of producing images with half-angstrom resolution, less than the diameter of a single hydrogen atom.

Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

18-Jan-2008

DOE JGI releases soybean genome assembly to enable worldwide bioenergy research efforts

DOE/Joint Genome Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A preliminary assembly and annotation of the soybean genome, Glycine max, has been made available by the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, to the greater scientific community to enable bioenergy research. The announcement was made by Eddy Rubin, DOE JGI director, during his keynote remarks Jan. 15 at the Plant and Animal Genome XVI Conference in San Diego, Calif. The preliminary data can be accessed at http://www.phytozome.net/soybean.

Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy
Meeting: Plant and Animal Genome XVI Conference

17-Jan-2008

Human activities contribute to California's global warming

DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Over the past 85 years, humans have helped shape California climate during certain seasons.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Funder: California Energy Commission

10-Jan-2008

Feeling the heat

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Energy now lost as heat during the production of electricity could be harnessed through the use of silicon nanowires synthesized via a technique developed by researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley. The far-ranging potential applications of this technology include DOE's hydrogen fuel cell-powered "Freedom CAR," and personal power-jackets that could use heat from the human body to recharge cell-phones and other electronic devices.

Journal: Nature
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

3-Jan-2008

Stardust formed close to sun

DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Samples of the material picked up during the NASA Stardust mission indicate that parts of the comet Wild 2 actually formed in an area close to the sun.

Journal: Science

2-Jan-2008

Smaller is stronger -- now scientists know why

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

As metal structures get smaller -- as their dimensions approach the micrometer scale or less -- they get stronger. Now scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Hysitron Inc. and General Motors Research and Development Center, working at the National Center for Electron Microscopy, have learned how. The researchers observed that compressing nanoscale pillars of nickel drives out dislocations and can produce a perfect crystal -- a process the researchers call "mechanical annealing."

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

27-Dec-2007

How cagey electrons keep hydrated

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Water, despite its essential role in nature, remains a deeply mysterious substance. A long list of water's unusual properties tantalizes researchers even today, and scientists at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory and around the world are using X-rays to help address these questions. Working with SSRL scientist Anders Nilsson, researcher Dennis Nordlund and colleagues are turning up new clues, and their latest results are published in a recent issue of Physical Review Letters.

20-Dec-2007

First look at an enzyme target for antibacterial and cancer drugs

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The veil has finally been lifted on an enzyme that is critical to the process of DNA transcription and replication, and is a prime target of antibacterial and anticancer drugs. Researchers with the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley have produced the first three-dimensional structural images of a DNA-bound Type II topoisomerase (topo II) that is responsible for untangling coiled strands of the chromosome during cell division.

Journal: Nature
Funder: NIH/National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health