News By Location

The first genetic instruction manual of a diatom, from a family of microscopic ocean algae that are among the Earth's most prolific carbon dioxide assimilators, has yielded important insights on how the creature uses nitrogen, fats, and silica to thrive.

Researchers at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have taken a giant step toward realizing the promise of laser wakefield acceleration, by guiding and controlling extremely intense laser beams over greater distances than ever before to produce high-quality, energetic electron beams. Laser wakefield technology offers the possibility of a compact, high-energy accelerator for probing the subatomic world, for studying new materials and new technologies, and for medical applications.

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation of San Francisco has awarded $2,377,000 to the University of California at Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory, in support of the Nearby Supernova Factory (SNfactory). Co-principal investigators Saul Perlmutter and Michael Levi are with UC and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The grant is intended to further dark energy research through the study and understanding of nearby Type Ia supernovae, a special class of very bright exploding stars.

An international consortium including the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Genome Canada, and the Umeå Plant Science Centre in Sweden, has released the first complete DNA sequence of a tree, Populus trichocarpa, the Black Cottonwood or poplar, one member of the most ecologically and commercially valuable group of trees in North America. The sequencing was completed at the DOE Joint Genome Institute Production Genomics Facility.

Probing attack on the water treatment plant! The mayor and other emergency responders evacuate schools, respond to medical emergencies, and pursue the perpetrators. Fortunately for the town of Opelika, Alabama, the attack was purely hypothetical.

Lawrence Livermore research efforts and inventions quietly advance many fields. In one instance, however, a Livermore invention that stemmed from laser research has spawned a variety of new commercial products, including some that support national and homeland security.

Thermal oxide is the real on-off switch for your computer. The nanometers-thick film on the surface of silicon transistors helps turn on and off the flow of electricity through the transistor, providing the 0 and 1 binary signals modern electronics run on. There are several million transistors on each computer chip.

Four years after publicly revealing the official draft human genetic sequence, researchers have reached the halfway point in dotting the i's and crossing the t's of the genetic sentences describing how to build a human. The newly finalized chromosome 5 is the 12th chromosome polished off, with 12 more to go. As the new sequence reveals, this chromosome is a genetic behemoth containing key disease genes and a wealth of information about how humans evolved.

Untapped reserves of methane, the main component in natural gas, may be found deep in Earth's crust, according to a recently released report* in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS). These reserves could be a virtually inexhaustible source of energy for future generations.

Margaret Torn, a soil scientist in the Earth Sciences Division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, has received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers for the year 2003. The awards were presented by John Marburger, director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, at a White House Executive Office Building ceremony on Thursday, 9 September 2004. Torn is a geochemist who heads the Carbon Project of DOE's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement program.