News By Location

The theory has been around for more than 40 years, but only now has it been confirmed through direct and unambiguous experimental results. Working at the Advanced Light Source (ALS) of the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a team of researchers has observed the theoretical prediction of electron "spin-charge separation" in a one-dimensional solid.

Bioenergy crop plants switchgrass and cassava, other important agricultural commodities such as cotton, and microbes geared to break down plant material to render biofuels, round out the roster of more than 40 projects to be tackled by the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) over the next year.

Four of R&D Magazine's R&D 100 Awards for 2006 have gone to the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Carbon Explorers remotely measure carbon biomass in the ocean; a High-Efficiency Multiband Semiconductor Material for Solar Cells converts almost the full spectrum of sunlight to electrical current; Laser Ultrasonic Sensors ensures optimum quality and efficiency of paper manufacture; and High-Output Coaxial-Target Neutron Generators can emit quadrillions of neutrons per second in the laboratory.

Version 1.5 of the Integrated Microbial Genomes (IMG) data management system of the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) has been released to the public. IMG 1.5 now contains a total of 741 genomes (435 bacterial, 32 archaeal, 15 eukaryotic genomes and 259 bacterial phages) of which 602 are finished and 139 are draft genomes.

Astrophysicist Saul Perlmutter, leader of the international Supernova Cosmology Project, has won the Shaw Prize in Astronomy for the discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. He shares the $1 million prize with Brian Schmidt of Australia's Mt. Stromlo Observatory and Adam Riess of the Space Telescope Science Institute.

Some aspects of evolution are like the real estate business in that it's all about location, location, location! Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the DOE Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) have shown that when it comes to comparing evolutionarily conserved DNA sequences that regulate the expression of genes, more closely related species are best.

New research indicates that the genetic quality of sperm worsens as men get older, increasing a man's risk of being infertile, fathering unsuccessful pregnancies and passing along dwarfism and possibly other genetic diseases to his children.

Scientists have solved a question about the nature of plutonium that has remained a mystery since the Manhattan Project.