Latest News

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists have observed a rare new radioactive decay mode for the first time. In this decay mode, oxygen-13 (with eight protons and five neutrons) decays by breaking into three helium nuclei (an atom without the surrounding electrons), a proton, and a positron (the antimatter version of an electron) following beta decay. The findings expand scientific knowledge of decay processes and the properties of the nucleus before the decay.

• share
• favorite_border

Comparing experimental results and theoretical calculations can be difficult for quantum materials. One solution is to use sample materials that isolate and emphasize an atomic line with one dimensional properties. In this study, scientists grew thin films of layered copper-oxygen materials to experimentally test theories of electron interaction in quantum materials. The study indicates that standard theory is not sufficient and requires a new term to fit the experimental data.

• share
• favorite_border

Actinium-targeted alpha radiotherapy is a promising approach for treating metastatic cancers, including prostate cancer. However, therapeutic substances labeled with actinium-225 have limits on how they can be imaged, a step that allows doctors to plan treatments. This study examined the performance of cerium/lanthanum-134 as a surrogate imaging material for Ac-225.

• share
• favorite_border

Tracking how high energy jets of quarks travel through the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) can reveal information about the QGP’s properties. Recent theoretical calculations that include non-local quantum interactions in the QGP predict a super-diffusive process that deflects energetic particles faster than previously assumed. The discovery might help explain why the QGP flows like a nearly perfect liquid.

• share
• favorite_border

Electron and scanning probe microscopes have become critical tools for condensed matter physics, materials science, and chemistry research.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists reported the first observations of how hypernuclei flow from particle collisions. The researchers observed that the hypernuclei flow much the same as ordinary nuclei in a way that scales with their overall nuclear mass.

• share
• favorite_border

Predictions of neutrino-nucleon interaction made using the Lattice Quantum Chromodynamics (LQCD) nuclear theory method predict stronger interaction than predictions determined from older, less precise experimental data.

• share
• favorite_border

The qubits that make up quantum computers have a lesser-known cousin called qudits. Qudits can carry more information and are more resistant to the noise that can cause qubits to lose information. However, qudits have historically been difficult for scientists to measure and modify.

• share
• favorite_border

Scandium radioisotopes are potentially useful for cancer therapy and medical imaging such as positron emission tomography (PET) scans, but the difficulty of producing sufficient amounts and purities of these isotopes limits their use. New research describes ways to make and irradiate accelerator targets for scandium to increase production and purity. The process recycles the calcium target material with more than 95% efficiency.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists recently discovered that neutrinos have mass, counter to long-held understanding. This means that neutrinos can change flavor. Now, advances in theory and experiment are helping scientists to determine whether the neutrinos’ charged counterparts—electrons, muons, and tauons—can also change flavor and how future experiments can look for those changes.

• share
• favorite_border

Plants have a complex layer of regulation that allows beneficial fungi to colonize their roots while protecting them from harmful ones such as pathogens. Researchers recently identified the underlying plant signaling processes within this layer of regulation that permits a specific beneficial bacteria species to colonize the roots of switchgrass.

• share
• favorite_border

As quantum computing advances, scientists want to know how it may be better able to solve complex problems than today’s conventional computers. This research applied quantum computing to determine different energy levels for nuclei of lithium-6. This work shows how to solve a historic nuclear physics research problem on present-day commercially available quantum computer hardware.

• share
• favorite_border

Scandium-44 is a promising medical isotope for positron emission tomography (PET) imaging for identifying cancer, heart disease, and other conditions. Scandium-44 can be produced through the radioactive decay of titanium-44, but the challenge is to reliably separate scandium-44 from titanium-44 at hospitals. A new approach produces an isotope generator that is portable, uses facilities routinely available at hospitals, and works efficiently and reliably. This will enable medical staff to more easily use scandium-44 for PET scans and other applications.

• share
• favorite_border

In chemical reactions, molecules transform from reactants into reaction products through a critical geometry called a transition state that lasts less than one millionth of one millionth of a second. Scientists recently captured a critical geometry using the ultra-high speed “electron camera” at SLAC. The research will help explain why reactions generate only specific reaction products.

• share
• favorite_border

One approach to the question of why matter is more abundant than antimatter in our observable universe is observing an extremely rare nuclear process called neutrinoless double-beta decay. The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR experiment was designed to detect this decay. Although it did not observe the decay, it achieved world-leading energy resolutions and showed the feasibility of using a larger detector to search for the hypothesized decay.

• share
• favorite_border

Individual features in a community, like microbes or types of chemicals, affect the overall community’s development and help determine the similarity of different communities over time and space. Scientists developed a novel ecological metric, called βNTIfeat, that helps to investigate the roles of different features in community development. The resulting information can inform models of how ecosystems respond to disturbances such as climate change.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers have modified the surface of nickel-platinum nanoparticles to improve their ability to act as catalysts to make reactive oxygen ions. Using a specialized X-ray scattering imaging technique, the researchers examined the modified nanoparticles and discovered a platinum-rich outer layer.

• share
• favorite_border

Genetic engineers use synthetic biology to provide novel functions in microbes by introducing new genes. A new method called Serine recombinase-Assisted Genome Engineering (SAGE) borrows components from bacterial viruses to aid the stable insertion of genes into bacterial chromosomes. This new tool has the potential to work well in many species of bacteria, including newly discovered bacteria that must grow outside controlled laboratory conditions. These features will help accelerate synthetic biology research for bioenergy.

• share
• favorite_border

Microbes have enormous potential to produce metabolites with potential industrial applications. To do so, microbes use groups of genes called biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) that code for the sets of necessary enzymes. Scientists have computationally predicted the products of hundreds of thousands of BGCs, but have experimentally confirmed fewer than 2,000 of them. Researchers have now developed a computational and experimental strategy to redesign BGCs and determine the natural chemical products they create.

• share
• favorite_border

Although electrons usually move in three dimensions, scientists can force electrons to move in two dimensions (2D) by creating ultra-thin materials. In this new work, however, researchers found that by adding superconductivity to 3D electrons in a bulk material, the superconducting electrons form 2D superconducting “puddles.” These puddles of electrons may be a way for some superconductors to reorganize themselves before undergoing an abrupt phase transition into an insulating state.

• share
• favorite_border

Coastal forests are increasingly exposed to the effects of climate change and sea level rise. New experimental research examined how soils change when transplanted between parts of a tidal creek that differed in salinity. Scientists found that soils with a history of salinity and inundation by seawater were more resistant to changes in water conditions, suggesting that soils learn from their history of inundation.

• share
• favorite_border

Halide perovskites have applications in solar energy, radiation detection, and potentially in thermal harvesting. Cesium lead bromide is among the simplest of lead halide perovskite materials (LHPs). New research examined structural instabilities and large atomic fluctuations that may affect LHPs’ optical and thermal properties. It found that the atomic vibrations (phonons) of bromine octahedrons have large amplitudes but cannot oscillate for long amounts of time. Instead, the vibrations are strongly damped.

• share
• favorite_border

University of Washington professor Xiaodong Xu studies the properties of single atomic layer semiconductors, looking for new materials and new ways to control electrical conductivity.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study that aims to resolve uncertainty in projections of future changes in the U.S. Midwest rainy season projects that while future seasonal mean precipitation will not change significantly, late spring precipitation will increase and late summer rainfall will decrease. The study indicates these changes will be driven by the poleward shift in the North American westerly jet due to climate change. The results may mean an increased risk of late-spring deluges and late-summer droughts for the Midwest.

• share
• favorite_border

Recent research sheds light on the mechanism behind how quantum materials change from an electrical conductor to an electric insulator. Below a critical temperature, strontium doped lanthanum strontium nickel oxide is an insulator due the separation of introduced holes from the magnetic regions, forming “stripes.” These stripes fluctuate and melt at 240K, at which temperature the material should become a conducting metal. Instead, it remains an insulator. This is because of certain atomic vibrations that trap electrons and impede electrical conduction.

• share
• favorite_border

The ARM Data Center collects and manages global observational and experimental data amassed by the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement user facility. The ARM Data Center gathers and curates some 50 terabytes of data per month from more than 460 instruments located in climate-critical locations worldwide. The data center processes and packages the information from these instruments into over 11,000 distinct data products. For the past 30 years, ARM has been making this data accessible to scientists around the world.