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Two isotopes of a new element with atomic number 117 were created by an international collaboration.

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Physicists developed a mathematical technique that accurately orders collections of noisy snapshots of ultrafast phenomena that were recorded with extreme timing uncertainty.

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With an eye to learning from nature’s success, scientists characterized the orange-colored protein that protects cyanobacteria from overexposure to sunlight.

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You may have known lithium from its role in rechargeable batteries, but did you know it may be a vital in fusion reactors? These reactors require walls that don’t sputter out metals or overly cool the plasma at the heart of the reaction. Researchers showed that lithium-coated walls can handle heat.

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By more completely capturing the dynamics of plasma turbulence across an unprecedented range of spatial and temporal scales, researchers have reproduced experimental levels of heat loss observed experimentally where they previously could not.

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Scientists developed and demonstrated a new type of imaging electron detector. It records an image frame in 1/1000 of a second, and can detect from 1 to 1,000,000 electrons per pixel. This is 1000 times the intensity range and 100 times the speed of conventional electron microscope image sensors.

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Scientists discover a new design rule that controls the way in which polymer building blocks adjoin to form the backbones that run the length of tiny biomimetic sheets.

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Scientists found that the electronic arrangement and small molecular separation distances in electrically insulating, hair-like filaments on the surface of Geobacter bacteria give the structures an electrical conductivity comparable to that of copper.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Students from Montgomery Blair High School from Silver Spring, Md. won the 2016 U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Science Bowl® (NSB) today in Washington D.C. This year's championship team in the middle school competition is Joaquin Miller Middle School from San Jose, Calif.

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Researchers built extremely small, thermally stable magnetic particles with magnetic properties comparable to some rare earth magnets, the strongest permanent magnets ever created. These tiny magnets are as small as 5 nanometers, a million times smaller than an ant.

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Catalytic nanocages, which are tiny, open structures with reactive surfaces that could boost key chemical processes, are notoriously difficult to synthesize. Scientists recently succeeded in a new approach.

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Invaluable as markers for monitoring photosynthesis and other energy-related processes in living cells, green fluorescent proteins are vital in high-resolution imaging studies. Scientists found that when water is added to the protein’s chromophore, the fluorescence is more stable.

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Scientists aligned nitrogen molecules with a laser pulse; they obtained atomic-resolution images of the subsequent motion of the molecules using femtosecond electron pulses.

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Too much sunlight can harm plants; with an eye to learning from nature’s success, scientists found that an orange-colored protein that protects cyanobacteria from overexposure to sunlight shifts to a reddish color that helps dissipate excess energy as heat.

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The Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Science has selected 49 scientists from across the nation – including 22 from DOE’s national laboratories and 27 from U.S. universities – to receive significant funding for research as part of DOE’s Early Career Research Program. The effort, now in its seventh year, is designed to bolster the nation’s scientific workforce by providing support to exceptional researchers during the crucial early career years, when many scientists do their most formative work.

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Nuclear scientists at Texas A&M University devised a method that allows scientists to determine key reaction rates at stellar energies using conventional nuclear reactions.

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Mimicking the texture found on the surfaces of the eyes of moths, scientists have produced nanotextured designs across silicon-based solar cells. The texturing significantly enhanced the light-harvesting and, hence, overall performance of the solar cells.

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Silver ants can maintain stable body temperatures even while traversing the searing sands of the Sahara desert. Scientists have discovered how the ants regulate their body temperature. The ants’ mechanism could be used in technologies to cool buildings and vehicles.

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Two new federal interagency websites designed to connect undergraduate and graduate students with education and training opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields have been launched on Science.gov, the portal to U.S. government science information.

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Nanoparticles are known to self-assemble at the air-water interface into large 2D sheets. Researchers discovered that an organic coating on the nanoparticles differs slightly between the two sides of the membrane.

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Researchers demonstrated a new material, made from tiny carbon tubes, that emits the desired single photons (of interest for data encryption) at room temperature.

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Researchers designed solar cells with large crystals of perovskite and a specially tailored material sandwiched between the grains, and the result is a more efficient solar cell.

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Scientists create a molybdenum-based material that could be a low-cost alternative to platinum for splitting water to make hydrogen fuel.

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Scientists demonstrated that a positively charged protactinium dioxide ion may not exist in aqueous solution like other highly charged actinides, such as uranium and plutonium.

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Using the Molecular Foundry’s imaging capabilities, scientists developed a technique, called “CLAIRE,” that allows the incredible resolution of electron microscopy to be used for non-invasive imaging of biomolecules and other soft matter.

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Researchers found a simple solution to the limited durability in aluminum-ion batteries – an electrode composed of graphite. In this work, the internal gaps in the foam allowed faster motion of the ions inside the negative electrode that enhance the rate of charging.

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An in-depth look at the origins of matter and the environmental conditions that helped shape the universe today.

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Researchers designed a way to radiochemically harvest long-lived radioisotopes at the future Facility for Rare Isotope Beams.

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Scientists created three-dimensional structures that resemble match heads. The structures enhance light absorption and photovoltaic efficiency.

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A detailed assessment called into question the previous identification of ferroelectric materials based solely on scanning probe microscopy

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Inspired by healing wounds in skin, a new approach protects and heals surfaces using a fluid secretion process.

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For the first time, researchers tailored the electronic properties of nanoribbons using a new “bottom-up” method that precisely controls and modulates the atomic-scale width within a single nanoribbon.

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Thanks to a new experimental technique, scientists have now measured a crucial fusion reaction, involving hydrogen and a rare isotope of oxygen, that occurs inside stars.

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The Project 8 collaboration constructed a prototype instrument to demonstrate a new electron spectroscopy technique that could be used for a next-generation tritium endpoint experiment.

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Physicists measured how often an electron exchanges two virtual photons as compared to one virtual photon.

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New research suggests that the hot, dense “soup” of particles that existed in the early universe was “stirred” by a magnetic wave that pushed around the positively and negative charged particles, according to scientists in the STAR collaboration at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider.

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Researchers combine high-resolution microscopy with new electron image analysis to measure atomic positions with an unprecedented precision of less than half the radius of a hydrogen atom.

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Science and Technology Highlights from the DOE National Laboratories

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The ARM West Antarctic Radiation Experiment (AWARE) is a long-overdue effort to collect fundamental data in a challenging and remote region where changes in climate have worldwide implications. AWARE principal investigators from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and Brookhaven National Laboratory, and the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility technical director, will discuss the field campaign, which launched in November, at a special workshop at the AGU Fall Meeting: 5 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 16 at the Fall Meeting Press Conference Room (Room 3000, Moscone West).

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Scientists uncover secrets behind hurricanes, monsoons, and polar vortexes.

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Science and Technology Highlights from the DOE National Laboratories

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Researchers designed a new technique to create single-molecule diodes that perform 50 times better than all previous designs.

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For the first time, biomolecular machines have been exploited to perform mechanical work to deform and dynamically assemble complex, far-from-equilibrium polymer networks. This development could lead to new pathways to make complex, robust polymer structures using biological molecules.

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More efficient computers and other devices often begin with new materials. One promising option is vanadium dioxide, which rapidly transforms from an insulator to a conductor in femtoseconds. Scientists found that the dioxide responds non-uniformly on the nanoscale, contrary to prior assumptions.

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By carefully tuning the chemical composition of a particular compound, researchers have created a topological crystalline insulator, whose bulk acts as an insulator but whose surface conducts electrical currents.

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Living cells respond to threats in their environment. What if materials could do the same? Using a similar pressure-regulating mechanism to that found in cells, scientists created an artificial cell that responds to a sudden and possibly catastrophic change in its surroundings.

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Crystal growth on a nano/microscale level produces “match-head”-like, three-dimensional structures that enhance light absorption and photovoltaic efficiency. This is the first large structure grown on a nanowire tip and it creates a completely new architecture for harnessing energy.

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New charge breeding techniques produce beams of radioactive ions that can be accelerated to induce nuclear reactions, providing the opportunity to explore aspects of the nuclear force and to study in the laboratory some of the processes creating the elements in stellar environments.

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For the first time, scientists demonstrated controlled generation of magnetic islands known as skyrmions—the magnetic version of a new class of exotic particles at room temperature.

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The 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics was shared by Arthur B. McDonald, from the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, and Takaaki Kajita, from the Super-Kamiokande collaboration, for discovering neutrino oscillations that show that neutrinos have mass.