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Four physicists at the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have been awarded US Patent No. 7,432,516 B2 for the design of a "medical synchrotron" capable of delivering precision doses of proton radiation to cancerous tumors with minimal damage to surrounding healthy tissue. The new device would be more precise and less costly than existing proton-therapy systems, potentially increasing the availability and benefits of this treatment for cancer patients worldwide.

When given a choice between viewing pictures of cocaine and a variety of other images, cocaine addicted individuals, as compared to healthy, nonaddicted research subjects, show a clear preference for the drug-related images. Findings from this study, which was conducted at the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, will be presented at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in Washington, D.C., on Sun., Nov. 16, 2008.

A new study at the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory suggests that vigabatrin blocks drug-seeking behavior in animals previously trained to associate methamphetamine with a particular environment. The results will appear in the February 2009 issue of Synapse.

Like astronomers tweaking images to gain a more detailed glimpse of distant stars, physicists at the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have found ways to sharpen images of the energy spectra in high-temperature superconductors -- materials that carry electrical current effortlessly when cooled below a certain temperature. These new imaging methods confirm that the electron pairs needed to carry current emerge above the transition temperature, before superconductivity sets in.

Using positron emission tomography to track tracer doses of methamphetamine in humans' brains, scientists at the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory find that the addictive and long-lasting effects of this increasingly prevalent drug can be explained in part by its pharmacokinetics -- the rate at which it enters and clears the brain, and its distribution. This study in 19 healthy, non-drug-abusing volunteers includes a comparison with cocaine and also looked for differences by race.

Scientists at the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory report that they have successfully produced two-layer thin films where neither layer is superconducting on its own, but which exhibit a nanometer-thick region of superconductivity at their interface. The work is one step on the path toward making useful superconducting devices.

During October and November 2008, some 150 scientists from 40 institutions in eight nations -- including scientists from the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory -- will take part in an international field experiment designed to make observations of critical components of the climate system of the southeastern Pacific.

The world's largest computing grid is ready to tackle mankind's biggest data challenge from the earth's most powerful accelerator. Today, three weeks after the first particle beams were injected into the Large Hadron Collider, the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid combines the power of more than 140 computer centers from 33 countries to analyze and manage more than 15 million gigabytes of LHC data every year.

New structural details of plant viruses responsible for more than half the viral damage to crop plants throughout the world have been revealed by scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory and collaborating institutions. These findings, published in the Oct. 1, 2008, issue of the Journal of Virology, may lead to new ways to protect crop plants, and may also benefit scientists interested in using viruses as agents of biotechnology to coax plants to produce other useful products, such as pharmaceuticals.

Scientists at the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have discovered a fundamental shift in an enzyme's function that could help expand the toolbox for engineering biofuels and other plant-based oil products.