Filters close
Released: 1-Mar-2018 5:05 PM EST
Assessing the Impact of Hurricanes on Puerto Rico’s Forests
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Building on methods they used to assess the impact of hurricanes such as Katrina, Gustav, and Rita on forests and tree mortality, scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have produced a rapid mapping of the disturbance intensity across Puerto Rico’s forests with the help of Google Earth Engine.

1-Mar-2018 9:05 AM EST
Can Strongly Lensed Type Ia Supernovae Resolve Cosmology’s Biggest Controversy?
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Using NERSC supercomputers, astrophysicists at Berkeley Lab and the University of Portsmouth discovered how to control the effects of "micolensing." Armed with this knowledge they believe they will be able to find 1000 strongly lensed Type Ia supernovae in real-time from LSST data--that's 20 times more than previous expectations.

Released: 28-Feb-2018 5:00 AM EST
Scientists Confirm Century-Old Speculation on the Chemistry of a High-Performance Battery
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Scientists have discovered a novel chemical state, first proposed about 90 years ago, that enables a high-performance, low-cost sodium-ion battery. The battery could quickly and efficiently store and distribute energy produced by solar panels and wind turbines across the electrical grid.

Released: 22-Feb-2018 11:00 AM EST
Imaging Individual Flexible DNA ‘Building Blocks’ in 3-D
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

A team of researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab) and Ohio State University have generated 3-D images from 129 individual molecules of flexible DNA origami particles. Their work provides the first experimental verification of the theoretical model of DNA origami. https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2018/02/22/imaging-individual-flexible-dna-building-blocks-3-d

Released: 21-Feb-2018 12:00 PM EST
Berkeley Lab “Minimalist Machine Learning” Algorithms Analyze Images From Very Little Data
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Berkeley Lab mathematicians have developed a new approach to machine learning aimed at experimental imaging data. Rather than relying on the tens or hundreds of thousands of images used by typical machine learning methods, this new approach “learns” much more quickly and requires far fewer images.

Released: 14-Feb-2018 5:05 PM EST
Physics Data Processing on NERSC Supercomputer Dramatically Cuts Reconstruction Time
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

In a recent demonstration project, physicists from Brookhaven National Laboratory and Berkeley Lab used the Cori supercomputer at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center to reconstruct data collected from a nuclear physics experiment, an advance that could dramatically reduce the time it takes to make detailed data available for scientific discoveries.

Released: 13-Feb-2018 12:30 PM EST
Berkeley Lab Report Calls for Industry Attention to Ensuring Grid Reliability
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

In light of changes in how electricity is being both generated and consumed, the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has written a new report analyzing challenges facing the nation’s electric grid and making recommendations for ensuring continued reliability.

9-Feb-2018 12:00 PM EST
Solving the Dark Energy Mystery: A New Assignment for a 45-Year-Old Telescope
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Today, the dome closes on the previous science chapters of the 4-meter Mayall Telescope in Arizona so that it can prepare for its new role in creating the largest 3-D map of the universe. This map could help to solve the mystery of dark energy, which is driving the accelerating expansion of the universe.

Released: 2-Feb-2018 8:00 AM EST
Scientists Discover ‘Chiral Phonons’ – Atomic Rotations in a 2-D Semiconductor Crystal
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

A research team has found the first evidence that a shaking motion in the structure of an atomically thin material possesses a naturally occurring circular rotation that could become the building block for a new form of information technology and molecular-scale machines.

Released: 1-Feb-2018 10:05 AM EST
Tracking Microbial Diversity Through the Terrestrial Subsurface
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

In Nature Microbiology, DOE Joint Genome Institute researchers partnered with a team led by University of California, Berkeley's Jill Banfield and University of Calgary's Cathy Ryan to investigate samples collected at Utah's Crystal Geyser over one of its complex, five-day eruption cycles.

Released: 31-Jan-2018 5:05 PM EST
Gene Enhancers Are Important Despite Apparent Redundancy
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Scientists answered a long-standing question about the role of enhancers. And by better linking the genomic complement of an organism with its expressed characteristics, their work offers new insights that further the growing field of systems biology, which seeks to gain a predictive understanding of living systems.

Released: 30-Jan-2018 3:00 PM EST
Applying Machine Learning to the Universe’s Mysteries
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Berkeley Lab physicists and their collaborators have demonstrated that computers are ready to tackle the universe’s greatest mysteries – they used neural networks to perform a deep dive into data simulating the subatomic particle soup that may have existed just microseconds after the big bang.

Released: 30-Jan-2018 12:00 AM EST
Berkeley Lab Researchers Contribute to Making Blockchains Even More Robust
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

In the last few years, researchers at Berkeley Lab, UC Davis and University of Stavanger in Norway have developed a new protocol, called BChain, which makes private blockchain even more robust. The researchers are also working with colleagues at Berkeley Lab and beyond to adapt this tool to support applications that are of strategic importance to the Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

Released: 29-Jan-2018 6:05 PM EST
Silencing Is Golden: Scientists Image Molecules Vital for Gene Regulation
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Lab scientists use cryo-electron microscopy to gain a deeper understanding of the structure of a regulatory complex. Their research could open up new possibilities for cancer therapies.

   
Released: 29-Jan-2018 2:05 PM EST
Networking, Data Experts Design a Better Portal for Scientific Discovery
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

A team of networking experts from the Department of Energy’s Energy Sciences Network (ESnet), with the Globus team from the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory, have designed a new approach that makes data sharing faster, more reliable and more secure.

Released: 26-Jan-2018 11:00 AM EST
X-Ray Experiments Suggest High Tunability of 2-D Material
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Researchers used MAESTRO, an X-ray platform at Berkeley Lab, to zero in on signatures of exotic electronic behavior in a 2-D material. They found that the material may be highly tunable, with potential applications in spintronics and other emerging fields.

Released: 24-Jan-2018 10:00 AM EST
New Discovery Could Improve Organic Solar Cell Performance
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Scientists who are members of a new energy materials-related science center based at Berkeley Lab have solved a mystery that could lead to gains in efficiency for organic solar cells.

Released: 23-Jan-2018 3:00 AM EST
It All Starts With a ‘Spark’: Berkeley Lab Delivers Injector That Will Drive X-ray Laser Upgrade
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

A team at Berkeley Lab has designed, built, and delivered a unique version of a device, called an injector gun, that can produce a steady stream of these electron bunches. The gun will be used to produce brilliant X-ray laser pulses at a rapid-fire rate of up to 1 million per second.

22-Jan-2018 11:00 AM EST
Scientists Discover Material Ideal for Smart Photovoltaic Windows
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Researchers at Berkeley Lab discovered that a form of perovskite, one of the hottest materials in solar research due to its high conversion efficiency, works surprisingly well as a stable and photoactive semiconductor material that can be reversibly switched between a transparent state and a non-transparent state, without degrading its electronic properties.

Released: 18-Jan-2018 10:00 AM EST
Coupling Experiments to Theory to Build a Better Battery
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

A Berkeley Lab-led team of researchers has reported that a new lithium-sulfur battery component allows a doubling in capacity compared to a conventional lithium-sulfur battery, even after more than 100 charge cycles.

12-Jan-2018 3:00 PM EST
X-Rays Reveal ‘Handedness’ in Swirling Electric Vortices
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Scientists used spiraling X-rays at Berkeley Lab to observe, for the first time, a property that gives left- or right-handedness to swirling electric patterns – dubbed polar vortices – in a layered material called a superlattice.

Released: 11-Jan-2018 4:45 PM EST
All in the Family: Focused Genomic Comparisons
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team led by researchers at the Technical University of Denmark, the DOE Joint Genome Institute and the Joint BioEnergy Institute report the first outcome from the large-scale sequencing of 300+ Aspergillus species.

9-Jan-2018 5:05 PM EST
Ingredients for Life Revealed in Meteorites That Fell to Earth
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

A detailed study of blue salt crystals found in two meteorites that crashed to Earth – which included X-ray experiments at Berkeley Lab – found that they contain both liquid water and a mix of complex organic compounds including hydrocarbons and amino acids.

Released: 4-Jan-2018 3:20 PM EST
Real World Native Biocrusts: Microbial Metabolism
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Specific compounds are transformed by and strongly associated with specific bacteria in native biological soil crust (biocrust) using a suite of tools called “exometabolomics.” Understanding how microbial communities in biocrusts adapt to harsh environments could shed light on the roles of soil microbes in the global carbon cycle.

Released: 20-Dec-2017 12:00 PM EST
When One Reference Genome is Not Enough
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

A pan-genome is a valuable resource for unlocking natural diversity. Having plant pan-genomes for crops important for fuel and food applications would enable breeders to harness natural diversity to improve traits such as yield, disease resistance, and tolerance of marginal growing conditions.

Released: 19-Dec-2017 12:05 PM EST
A Functional Genomics Database for Plant Microbiome Studies
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

In Nature Genetics, a team led by JGI researchers assembled a catalog of bacterial genomes to identify and characterize candidate genes that aid bacteria in adapting to plant environments, specifically genes involved in bacterial root colonization.

Released: 18-Dec-2017 2:35 PM EST
Star Mergers: A New Test of Gravity, Dark Energy Theories
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Observations and measurements of a neutron star merger have largely ruled out some theories relating to gravity and dark energy, and challenged a large class of cosmological theories.

13-Dec-2017 3:00 PM EST
Creating a World of Make-Believe to Better Understand the Real Universe
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Scientists are creating simulated universes – complete with dark matter mock-ups, computer-generated galaxies, quasi quasars, and pseudo supernovae – to better understand real-world observations.

Released: 12-Dec-2017 12:00 PM EST
Beta of Neurodata Without Borders Software Now Available
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Neuroscientists can now explore a beta version of the new Neurodata Without Borders: Neurophysiology (NWB:N 2.0) software and offer input to developers before it is fully released next year.

Released: 11-Dec-2017 12:00 PM EST
ESnet’s Petascale DTN Project Speeds up Data Transfers between Leading HPC Centers
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

A new Petascale Data Transfer Node project aims to to achieve regular disk-to-disk, end-to-end transfer rates of one petabyte per week between major supercomputing facilities, which translates to achievable throughput rates of about 15 Gbps on real world science data sets.

Released: 6-Dec-2017 12:05 PM EST
Heavy Metal: How First Supernovae Altered Early Star Formation
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

An international team of researchers ran multi-scale, multi-physics 2D and 3D simulations at NERSC to illustrate how heavy metals expelled from exploding supernovae held the first stars in the universe regulate subsequent star formation and influence the appearance of galaxies in the process.

Released: 5-Dec-2017 10:00 AM EST
Dark Fiber: Using Sensors Beneath Our Feet to Tell Us About Earthquakes, Water, and Other Geophysical Phenomenon
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have shown for the first time that dark fiber – the vast network of unused fiber-optic cables installed throughout the country and the world – can be used as sensors for detecting earthquakes, the presence of groundwater, changes in permafrost conditions, and a variety of other subsurface activity.

Released: 29-Nov-2017 11:10 AM EST
Watching a Quantum Material Lose Its Stripes
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

In quantum materials, periodic stripe patterns can be formed by electrons coupled with lattice distortions. To capture the extremely fast dynamics of how such atomic-scale stripes melt and form, Berkeley Lab scientists used femtosecond-scale laser pulses at terahertz frequencies. Along the way, they found some unexpected behavior.

27-Nov-2017 3:05 PM EST
“Holy Grail” for Batteries: Solid-State Magnesium Battery a Big Step Closer
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

A team of Department of Energy (DOE) scientists at the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR) has discovered the fastest magnesium-ion solid-state conductor, a major step towards making solid-state magnesium-ion batteries that are both energy dense and safe.

20-Nov-2017 3:55 PM EST
How the Earth Stops High-Energy Neutrinos in Their Tracks
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

A research collaboration including scientists from Berkeley Lab has demonstrated that the Earth stops high-energy neutrinos – particles that only very rarely interact with matter.

Released: 20-Nov-2017 2:05 PM EST
GraphBLAS: Building Blocks For High Performance Graph Analytics
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

After nearly five years of collaboration between researchers in academia, industry and national research laboratories—including Berkeley Lab's Aydın Buluç—GraphBLAS, a collection of standardized building blocks for graph algorithms in the language of linear algebra, is publicly available.

Released: 20-Nov-2017 10:00 AM EST
Research Becomes Reality in Study of Fire Impact on Sonoma Water Resources
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Catastrophic fires in Northern California burned more than 110,000 acres in Sonoma and Napa counties last month – including 8 percent of the Russian River watershed. Now with the rainy season underway Berkeley Lab’s research – which seeks to understand how the hydrology and microbiology of the surface and groundwater system respond to extreme events – has become even more critical.

Released: 16-Nov-2017 4:30 PM EST
Detailed View of Immune Proteins Could Lead to New Pathogen-Defense Strategies
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Biologists at Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley used cryo-EM to resolve the structure of a ring of proteins used by the immune system to summon support when under attack, providing new insight into potential strategies for protection from pathogens. The researchers captured the high-resolution image of a protein ring, called an inflammasome, as it was bound to flagellin, a protein from the whiplike tail used by bacteria to propel themselves forward.

   
13-Nov-2017 4:05 PM EST
X-Rays Reveal the Biting Truth About Parrotfish Teeth
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

A new study has revealed a chain mail-like woven microstructure that gives parrotfish teeth their remarkable ability to chomp on coral all day long – the structure could serve as a blueprint for designing ultra-durable synthetic materials.

Released: 14-Nov-2017 6:00 AM EST
To Find New Biofuel Enzymes, It Can Take a Microbial Village
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

In search of new plant enzymes? Try looking in compost. Researchers at JBEI have demonstrated the importance of microbial communities as a source of stable enzymes that could be used to convert plants to biofuels. This approach yields robust enzymes that researchers can’t easily obtain from isolates.

10-Nov-2017 2:10 PM EST
Fuel Cell X-Ray Study Details Effects of Temperature and Moisture on Performance
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

To find the right balance of moisture and temperature in a specialized type of hydrogen fuel cell, Berkeley Lab scientists have used X-rays to explore the inner workings of its components at tiny scales.

Released: 8-Nov-2017 9:00 AM EST
New Study: Scientists Narrow Down the Search for Dark Photons Using Decade-Old Particle Collider Data
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

A fresh analysis of particle-collider data, co-led by Berkeley Lab physicists, limits some of the hiding places for one type of theorized particle – the dark photon, also known as the heavy photon – that was proposed to help explain the mystery of dark matter.

Released: 1-Nov-2017 3:05 PM EDT
Berkeley Lab-led ECP Pagoda Project Rolls Out First Software Libraries
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Just one year after the Department of Energy's Exascale Computing Program began funding projects to prepare scientific applications for exascale supercomputers, the Pagoda Project - led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory - has successfully reached a major milestone: making its open source software libraries publicly available as of September 30, 2017.

Released: 27-Oct-2017 3:30 PM EDT
New Studies on Disordered Cathodes May Provide Much-Needed Jolt to Lithium Batteries
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

In a pair of papers published this month in Nature Communications and Physical Review Letters, a team of scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has come up with a set of rules for making new disordered materials, a process that had previously been driven by trial-and-error. They also found a way to incorporate fluorine, which makes the material both more stable and have higher capacity.

Released: 23-Oct-2017 12:05 PM EDT
Berkeley Lab and Hydro-Québec Announce Partnership for Transportation Electrification and Energy Storage
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Hydro-Québec and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have agreed to explore collaborations toward the research and development of manufacturing and scale-up technology to advance transportation electrification and energy storage.

Released: 23-Oct-2017 11:00 AM EDT
Experiment Provides Deeper Look into the Nature of Neutrinos
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

The first glimpse of data from the full array of a deeply chilled particle detector operating beneath a mountain in Italy sets the most precise limits yet on where scientists might find a theorized process to help explain why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe.

18-Oct-2017 6:05 PM EDT
Cool Roofs Have Water Saving Benefits Too
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

The energy and climate benefits of cool roofs have been well established: By reflecting rather than absorbing the sun’s energy, light-colored roofs keep buildings, cities, and even the entire planet cooler. Now a new study by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has found that cool roofs can also save water by reducing how much is needed for urban irrigation.

18-Oct-2017 4:00 PM EDT
Scientists Solve a Magnesium Mystery in Rechargeable Battery Performance
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

A Berkeley Lab-led research team has discovered a surprising set of chemical reactions involving magnesium that degrade battery performance even before the battery can be charged up. The findings could steer the design of next-gen batteries.

Released: 17-Oct-2017 5:05 PM EDT
Screening for Disease or Toxins in a Drop of Blood
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Imagine being able to quickly and accurately screen for diseases or chemical contaminants in a tiny drop of blood. Berkeley Lab scientist Daojing Wang and others have developed a multinozzle emitter array (MEA), a silicon chip that can dramatically shorten the time it takes to identify proteins, peptides, and other molecular components within small volumes of biological samples. This patented technology is now being commercialized by Newomics Inc., a company Wang launched to further develop the product and build a platform for personalized health care.

Released: 17-Oct-2017 11:05 AM EDT
The Puzzle to Plugging the Worst Natural Gas Release in History
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

By the time Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) scientists Barry Freifeld and Curt Oldenburg visited the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility in December 2015, the SS-25 well blowout had been leaking natural gas into the air for more than six weeks. The notoriously strong winds at Aliso Canyon carried the natural gas and its added odorant to the nearby Porter Ranch neighborhood, leading to thousands of families evacuating their homes.



close
0.68891