News By Location

News from WA

Select a state to view local articles and features

Dancing 'adatoms' help chemists understand how water molecules split

DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Single oxygen atoms dancing on metal oxide have helped chemists better understand how water splits into oxygen and hydrogen. In the process, the scientists have visualized a chemical reaction that had previously only been talked about. The scientists made the discovery while studying the basics of how titanium dioxide -- a compound sometimes found in sunscreen -- breaks down water, reactions that are central to processes such as hydrogen production, decomposing pollutants and solar energy.

Journal: Physical Review Letters
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

Nanoparticle toxicity doesn't get wacky at the smallest sizes

DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The smallest nano-sized silica particles used in biomedicine and engineering likely won't cause unexpected biological responses due to their size, according to work presented today. The result should allay fears that cells and tissues will react unpredictably when exposed to the finest silica nanomaterials in industrial or commercial applications. The researchers concluded this by using total surface area as a measure of dose, rather than particle mass or number of particles.

Meeting: 2009 AAAS Annual Meeting

Biofuels, like politics, are local

DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Field work and computer simulations in Michigan and Wisconsin are helping biofuels researchers understand the basics of getting home-grown energy from the field to consumers. Preliminary results presented today from the US Department of Energy's Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center suggest that incorporating native, perennial plants during biofuels production reduces emissions of greenhouse gases, improves water quality and enhances biodiversity. The results are part of an experimental effort to make biofuels economically and environmentally sustainable.

Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy
Meeting: 2009 AAAS Annual Meeting

Seeing the forest and the trees helps cut atmospheric carbon dioxide

DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Putting a price tag on carbon dioxide emitted by different land use practices could dramatically change the way that land is used, according to research presented today at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting. When all carbon emissions -- fossil fuel, industrial and land-use change emissions -- are included in a global management plan, deforestation slows and could reverse, managers place limits on the expansion of biofuels production, and emission control becomes cheaper.

Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy
Meeting: 2009 AAAS Annual Meeting

Discovery fleshes out metabolism of key environmental and energy bacteria

DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers have discovered a new enzyme in a species of bacteria with potential environmental cleanup and energy roles. This is the first multi-protein enzyme of its kind, a lactate dehydrogenase. Although many microbes use a single-protein version, the results suggest that dozens of bacteria use only the multi-protein one instead to consume L-lactate. This advance in understanding the microbe's metabolism will help researchers use the bugs to clean up toxic or radioactive pollutants.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

PNNL helps protect first responders

DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Business Announcement

Emergency responders put their lives on the line every day to protect and serve. When they respond to a potential terrorist event, they need to know that the tools they purchased to detect radiation will work -- and will work well. Scientists at the US Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will now help ensure those instruments work properly. The Department of Homeland Security has accepted PNNL to test and evaluate commercially available radiation detectors.

Funder: US Department of Homeland Security
Meeting: Health Physics Society Mid-Year Meeting

Dirty snow causes early runoff in Cascades, Rockies

DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Soot from pollution causes winter snowpacks to warm, shrink and warm some more. This continuous cycle sends snowmelt streaming down mountains as much as a month early, a new study finds, which could exacerbate winter flooding and summer droughts. How pollution affects a mountain range's natural water reservoirs is important for water resource managers in the western United States and Canada who plan for hydroelectricity generation, fisheries and farming.

Funder: Department of Energy

Timetable for Puget Sound restoration suffers setback

DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The slow natural restoration of hazardous sediments mired beneath the Puget Sound is progressing, but researchers at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory warn that this recovery process may take 10 to 30 years longer than first predicted, because of increased urban growth and its associated untreated runoff.

Journal: Environmental Science & Technology
Funder: US Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Coastal Hypoxia Research Program

PNNL researchers earn top honors at Supercomputing conference

DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Grant and Award Announcement

The amount of DNA sequence data to be analyzed is piling up. Now, genome sequence analysis can be made interactive and intuitive, helping researchers find hidden relationships in massive amounts of data. This award-winning program combined multiple databases, analysis software and a "visualization technology" that presents data in unique visual patterns and allows users to interactively explore them. It won "Best Overall" at the recent Supercomputing '08 High Performance Computing Analytics Challenge in Austin, Texas.

Funder: Department of Energy, National Science Foundation
Meeting: SC08

PNNL developing blueprint for code enforcement in China

DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Business Announcement

The Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will develop an action plan for building energy code enforcement that can be deployed in small and medium-sized cities across China, where half of the world's new construction will occur in the next 10 years.

73
74
75
76
77