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Strange science has taken a great leap forward at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory. There, physicists have produced a significant number of "doubly strange nuclei," or nuclei containing two strange quarks.

In the July 27, 2001, issue of Science magazine, the scientists describe findings that offer the first clues to explain the material's newly discovered, unusual electrical properties. This work may lead to applications using the material to store electrical charge in high-performance capacitors, and offer insight into how charges behave on the nanoscale-on the order of billionths of a meter.

Strange science has taken a great leap forward at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory. There, physicists have produced a significant number of "doubly strange nuclei," or nuclei containing two strange quarks. Studies of these nuclei will help scientists explore the forces between nuclear particles, particularly within so-called strange matter, and may contribute to a better understanding of neutron stars, the super dense remains of burnt-out stars, which are thought to contain large quantities of strange quarks.

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory are studying a mysterious material that may lead to significant advances in the miniaturization of electronics. In the July 27, 2001 issue of Science magazine, the scientists describe findings that offer the first clues to explain the material's newly discovered, unusual electrical properties. This work may lead to applications using the material to store electrical charge in high-performance capacitors, and offer insight into how charges behave on the nanoscale -- on the order of billionths of a meter.

The U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, in collaboration with Caithness Operating Company of Reno, Nevada, won a 2001 R&D 100 Award for developing a technology to recover commercial-quality silica from geothermal brine, a byproduct of geothermal energy production. Retrieving this valuable product from brine, which is generally disposed of as waste, results in cheaper energy production.

If you're tired of cell phones and laptops that quickly lose their charge -- or worse, their ability to be recharged -- help may be on the way from the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory. There, scientists have developed a new metal alloy that could greatly improve the performance of rechargeable batteries for portable electronic devices and electric and hybrid electric cars. The Brookhaven team was recently awarded U.S. Patent No. 6,238,823 for its work on the alloy.

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have taken their search for an elusive form of matter to a new level by bringing the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) up to full collision energy. All four detectors at the 2.4-mile-circumference, two-ringed particle accelerator are now recording these full-energy collisions, which are expected to produce 100 times more data than collisions during RHIC's first run last year. The result will be a clearer picture of what happens when gold ions slam together at nearly the speed of light.

The US Department of Energy has approved funding for two major nanoscience research initiatives at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Nanoscience is the study of structures and interactions that occur on the scale of billionths of a meter, in the region between the atomic and the bulk scales. Working with structures and processes at the nanoscale permits precision control never before possible in many areas of chemistry, electronics, and materials science.

The Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory has tested an experimental microbeam radiation therapy on duck embryos that may offer clues about how to treat brain tumors in infants and young children.

An experimental form of radiation therapy, known as microbeam radiation therapy (MRT), now under development at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, appears to be less damaging to healthy brain tissue than traditional radiation therapy. A recent study shows that the brains of embryonic ducks, studied as a model for human infants, have a remarkably higher tolerance to microbeam x- rays than to broad x-ray beams used in conventional radiation therapy.