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Experiments at the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, shed new light on some materials' ability to dramatically change their electrical resistance in the presence of an external magnetic or electric field. Small changes in resistance underlie many electronic devices, including some computer data storage systems. Understanding and applying dramatic resistance changes, known as colossal magnetoresistance, offers tremendous opportunities for the development of new technologies, including data-storage devices with increased data density and reduced power requirements.

Researchers at the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have generated extremely short pulses of light that are the strongest of their type ever produced and could prove invaluable in probing the ultra-fast motion of atoms and electrons. The scientists also made the first observations of a phenomenon called cross-phase modulation with this high-intensity light -- a characteristic that could be used in numerous new light source technologies.

In groundbreaking research, scientists have demonstrated the ability to strategically attach gold nanoparticles -- particles on the order of billionths of a meter -- to proteins so as to form sheets of protein-gold arrays. The nanoparticles and methods to create nanoparticle-protein complexes can be used to help decipher protein structures, to identify functional parts of proteins, and to "glue" together new protein complexes. Applications envisioned by the researchers include catalysts for converting biomass to energy and precision "vehicles" for targeted drug delivery.

Parents, doctors, and others have wondered whether common treatments for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) inadvertently predispose adolescents to future drug abuse. The answer may depend on the age at which treatment is started and how long it lasts, say the authors of a new brain-imaging and behavioral study conducted in animals at the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory.

An image depicting research findings linking brain chemistry with aggressive personality has been named "2007 Image of the Year" by the Society for Nuclear Medicine. The research, which was performed at the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, showed that healthy men with lower levels of a particular brain enzyme exhibited more aggressive personality traits, as measured by a standard personality questionnaire.

Scientists at the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, with funding from DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration, have devised ways to improve the performance of radiation detectors, such as those used by law enforcement agencies to locate and identify radioactive material.

An interdisciplinary group of scientists at the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory has devised methods to make a new class of electronic devices based on a property of electrons known as "spin," rather than merely their electric charge. This approach, dubbed spintronics, could open the way to increasing dramatically the productivity of electronic devices operating at the nanoscale -- on the order of billionths of a meter.

Using what is thought to be the world's smallest pipette, two researchers at the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have shown that tiny droplets of liquid metal freeze much differently than their larger counterparts. This study, focused on droplets just a billionth of a trillionth of a liter in size, is published in the April 15, 2007, online edition of Nature Materials.

Scientists at the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory and collaborators at Stony Brook University have received US Patent Number 7,179,448 for developing chimeric, or "combination," proteins that may advance the development of vaccines and diagnostic tests for Lyme disease.

X-ray studies at the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory are pointing the way to less costly and more efficient catalysts for improving the performance of fuel cells. The studies, which will be presented by Brookhaven chemist Jose Rodriguez at the 233rd National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, show that copper can be substituted for gold in reactions that keep fuel cells functioning longer while eliminating unwanted byproducts.