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University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) has joined the Brookhaven National Laboratory-led Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage (C2QA), making the public research university C2QA’s 24th partner institution.

Scientists studying particle collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) have revealed how certain particle-jets lose energy as they traverse the unique form of nuclear matter created in these collisions. The results should help them learn about key “transport properties” of this hot particle soup, known as a quark-gluon plasma (QGP).

Zhiyang Zhai, an associate biologist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, is one of 83 scientists from across the nation selected to receive funding for research as part of the DOE Office of Science’s Early Career Research Program. Zhai will use the funding to explore the role of a key enzyme in regulating plants’ metabolic processes, including the synthesis and accumulation of oil, with the aim of getting plants to produce net-zero carbon fuels.

A team of researchers led by chemists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory has learned that an electrolyte additive allows stable high-voltage cycling of nickel-rich layered cathodes. Their work could lead to improvements in the energy density of lithium batteries that power electric vehicles.

Over nearly nine years, the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment captured an unprecedented five and a half million interactions from subatomic particles called neutrinos. Now, the international team of physicists of the Daya Bay collaboration has reported the first result from the experiment’s full dataset—the most precise measurement yet of theta13, a key parameter for understanding how neutrinos change their “flavor.” The result, announced today at the Neutrino 2022 conference in Seoul, South Korea, will help physicists explore some of the biggest mysteries surrounding the nature of matter and the universe.

Theoretical and experimental physicists from around the world gathered last month at Quark Matter 2022 to discuss new developments in high energy heavy ion physics. Highlights included a series of presentations and discussions about the latest findings from heavy ion research facilities—notably the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory and the Large Hadron Collider at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN)—as well as future research directions for the field.

New research describes a “chaperone” protein that delivers zinc, a trace element essential for survival in all living things, to where it’s needed. The chaperone could be especially important when access to zinc is limited—for example in nutrient deficient diets and for growing crops on depleted soils.

Chemists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed a new machine-learning (ML) framework that can zero in on which steps of a multistep chemical conversion should be tweaked to improve productivity. The approach could help guide the design of catalysts—chemical “dealmakers” that speed up reactions.

In a paper just published in the journal Advanced Materials, a team of scientists from Northwestern University and Brookhaven National Laboratory describe the previously hidden sub-nanoscale origins of exceptional thermoelectric properties in silver gallium telluride. The discovery reveals a quantum mechanical twist on what drives the emergence of these properties—and opens up a completely new direction for searching for new high-performance thermoelectrics.

Imagine a computer that can think as fast as the human brain while using very little energy. That's the goal of scientists seeking to discover or develop "neuromorphic" materials that can send and process signals as easily as the brain's neurons and synapses. In a paper just published scientists describe surprising new details about vanadium dioxide, one of the most promising neuromorphic materials.