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Along with vaccines, masks, and testing, indoor air hygiene and building engineering controls will be key to slowing the spread of airborne, highly infectious variants of COVID-19. In a recent review in the journal Indoor Air, researchers at Berkeley Lab presented a thorough review of the state of the science for several key strategies to reduce airborne infection risk using building controls – ventilation, filtration, airflow management and disinfection by germicidal ultraviolet (UV) light.

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A new experimental facility that replicates realistic earthquakes in the laboratory, paired with the world’s fastest supercomputers, will help scientists and engineers build and retrofit shake-resilient buildings and infrastructure across the U.S.

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Berkeley Lab researchers have completed a major expansion of one of the world’s most powerful laser systems, creating new opportunities in accelerator research. The expansion created a second beamline for the petawatt laser at the Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator (BELLA) Center, enabling the development of next-generation particle accelerators for applications in science, medicine, security, and industry.

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The supply of a plant-derived anti-cancer drug can finally meet global demand after a team of scientists from Denmark and the U.S. engineered yeast to produce the precursor molecules. Previously, obtaining one gram of the chemotherapy drug required growing and harvesting 500 kilograms of the native plant's leaves.

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Using a new technique, physicists studying energetic collisions in light nuclei found something surprising: protons collide with their fellow protons and neutrons with their fellow neutrons more often than expected. Understanding these collisions is important for interpreting data in a wide range of physics experiments studying elementary particles.

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A lead-free solar material developed by Berkeley Lab scientists offers a simpler and more sustainable approach to solar cell manufacturing. The advance could also benefit halide perovskites, a promising solar technology that requires much less energy to manufacture than silicon.

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Scientists have developed a fully recyclable and biodegradable printed circuit. The advance could divert wearable devices and other flexible electronics from landfill, and mitigate the health and environmental hazards posed by heavy metal waste.

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A new study on rubisco, a photosynthetic enzyme thought to be the most abundant protein on the planet, shows that proteins can change their structural arrangement with surprising ease. The findings reveal the possibility that many of the proteins we thought we knew actually exist in other, unknown shapes.

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Researchers at Berkeley Lab recently unveiled a new, fast, and readily reproducible way to map and identify defects in two-dimensional materials. The method could dramatically reduce the time required to characterize two-dimensional materials and use them in next-generation quantum and electronic devices.

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Wind energy continues to see strong growth, solid performance, and attractive prices in the U.S., according to a report released by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and prepared by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).

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Berkeley Lab scientists first identified thirdhand smoke as a potential health hazard a decade ago. Their newest study shows that concentrations of toxic chemicals lingering in indoor environments where cigarettes have been smoked can exceed safety guidelines, meaning that non-smokers can be exposed to health risks by living in contaminated spaces.

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Berkeley Lab has initiated a national public-private partnership to update and upgrade the Interruption Cost Estimate (ICE) Calculator – a publicly available, online tool – which estimates the economic consequences of power interruptions.

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Scientists have developed a new machine-learning platform that makes the algorithms that control particle beams and lasers smarter than ever before. Their work could help lead to the development of new and improved particle accelerators that will help scientists unlock the secrets of the subatomic world.

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Using simulations run at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a team of researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has found the origin of cortical surface electrical signals in the brain and discovered why the signals originate where they do.

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Deep below the Black Hills of South Dakota in the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF), an innovative and uniquely sensitive dark matter detector - the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment, led by Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab) - has passed a check-out phase of startup operations and delivered first results.

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Scientists used an oddball molecule made by bacteria to develop a new class of biofuels predicted to have greater energy density than any petroleum product, including the leading aviation and rocket fuels.

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In Science, researchers describe a “’macro’ microbe” – a giant filamentous bacterium composed of a single cell discovered in the mangroves of Guadeloupe. Using various microscopy techniques, the team also observed novel, membrane-bound compartments that contain DNA clusters dubbed “pepins.”

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Scientists at Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley have developed a thin film from a century-old material for next-gen memory and logic devices. The breakthrough advances the pursuit of low-voltage electronics that require less energy to operate than today’s silicon-based electronics.

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Some analysts say that the end of Moore’s Law is near, but Patrick Naulleau, the director of Berkeley Lab’s Center for X-Ray Optics (CXRO), says that it could be decades before the modern chip runs out of room for improvement, thanks to advances in materials and instrumentation enabled by the CXRO.

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To prevent the worst outcomes from climate change, the U.S. will need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50% in the next eight years. Scientists from around the nation have developed a blueprint for success.

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A Berkeley Lab-led research team has demonstrated an ultrathin silicon nanowire that conducts heat 150% more efficiently than conventional materials used in advanced chip technologies. The device could enable smaller, faster, energy-efficient microelectronics.

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A team co-led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has discovered a new ultrathin material with exotic magnetic features called skyrmions. The new material could enable the next generation of tiny, fast, energy-efficient electronic devices.

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The need for negative emissions technologies to address our climate crisis has become increasingly clear. At the rate that our planet is emitting carbon dioxide – adding about 50 gigatons every year – we will have to remove carbon dioxide at the gigaton scale by 2050 in order to achieve “net zero” emissions.

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Scientists at Berkeley Lab are working on new approaches to achieve direct air capture of carbon dioxide. Andrew Haddad, a researcher in Berkeley Lab’s Energy Technologies Area with a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry, talks about how a Nobel Prize-winning chemistry concept from more than a century ago inspired his idea for efficiently capturing CO2.

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The third and final installment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s) Sixth Assessment Report calls for aggressive and comprehensive actions if we are to achieve net zero emissions by mid-century. It finds we still need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions drastically, beyond what governments have pledged, and that this emissions gap is exacerbated by implementation gaps despite the mitigation efforts underway.

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Unconventional superconductors carry electrical current with zero resistance in ways that defy our previous understanding of physics. A recent study led by Berkeley Lab could help researchers advance future applications in next-gen energy storage, supercomputing, and magnetic levitating trains.

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A new research venture pairs cutting-edge particle accelerator science and radiation therapy using laser-generated proton beams.

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In this Q&A, ALS senior staff scientist David Shapiro and Stanford materials science professor William Chueh share how their pioneering X-ray techniques can help researchers understand how battery materials work in real time at the atomic scale.

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Soft X-ray tomography – a way to take gorgeously high-resolution, 3D images of cells – can help us study infections without risk of contamination. And now, the whole process takes just a fraction of the time and preparation required by other imaging methods.

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A collaboration between Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Physics Division and Applied Mathematics and Computational Research Division has yielded a new approach to quantum error mitigation - "noise estimation circuits" - that could help make quantum computing’s theoretical potential a reality.

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The Salton Sea geothermal field in California potentially holds enough lithium to meet all of America’s domestic battery needs, with even enough left over to export some of it. But how much of that lithium can be extracted in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way? And how long will the resource last? These are just a few of the questions that researchers hope to answer in a new project sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy.

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Berkeley Lab joins in broad federal effort to develop pathways for Puerto Rico to achieve 100% renewable energy by 2050, microorganism discovered in spacecraft assembly facility named for Berkeley Lab microbiologist, discovering the "secret sauce" behind the exotic properties of a new quantum material

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A research team led by Berkeley Lab has demonstrated an optical material that self-assembles from tiny concentric nanocircles. Their work could enable the large-scale manufacturing of nanocomposites for fiberoptic telecommunications systems as well as for buildings, automobiles, and aerospace.

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As the name implies, crystallography requires crystals – specifically, purified samples of the molecule of interest, coaxed into a crystal form. But most molecules form powders composed of jumbled granules, not picture-ready crystals. A new computer algorithm, combined with a state-of-the-art laser, can adapt X-ray crystallography for the many not-so-neat-and-tidy compounds that scientists seek to study.

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Geoscientists from Berkeley Lab and two other U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratories, Sandia and Los Alamos, are collaborating on the HotBENT project. This international field experiment is evaluating how well the natural, clay-based material (bentonite) placed around canisters of buried, high-level nuclear waste retains its safety functions when exposed to simulated long-term heating.

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Advancing Equity in Utility Regulation, a new report published by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), makes a unifying case that utilities, regulators, and stakeholders need to prioritize energy equity in the deployment of clean energy technologies and resources.

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Researchers at Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley have discovered how to directly measure the unique magnetic properties of superthin graphene nanoribbons. The breakthrough could lead to high-speed, low-power nanoscale data storage technologies.

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A mélange of mini science stories from Berkeley Lab, December 2021.

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A research team has developed a new artificial photosynthesis device with remarkable stability and longevity as it converts sunlight and carbon dioxide into two promising sources of renewable fuels – ethylene and hydrogen.

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Scientists have developed an all-season smart-roof coating that keeps homes warm during the winter and cool during the summer – without consuming natural gas or electricity. Research findings point to a groundbreaking technology that outperforms commercial cool-roof systems in energy savings.

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Using state-of-the-art computer models and simulations, researchers examined a least-cost investment pathway to reliably meet India’s electricity demand through the year 2030 in the publication, “Least Cost Pathway for India’s Power System Investments.” The study demonstrates that if India achieves its target of installing 500 GW of non-fossil electricity capacity by 2030, it could reduce electricity costs by 8 to 10%, provided the renewable energy and battery storage prices continue to decline. From 2020 levels, the carbon emissions intensity of its electricity supply would reduce by 43 to 50% by 2030.

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Scientists at Berkeley Lab have demonstrated the first self-powered, aqueous robot that runs continuously without electricity. The technology has potential as an automated chemical synthesis or drug delivery system for pharmaceuticals.

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In Nature Methods, DOE Joint Genome Institute researchers developed two approaches that build upon DNA affinity purification sequencing (DAP-seq) technology, a tools researchers can apply to study the transcription factors that control how genes are turned.

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Berkeley Lab scientists Maurice Garcia-Sciveres and Ramamoorthy Ramesh discuss how future microchips could perform better – and require less energy – than silicon.

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Researchers at Berkeley Lab have demonstrated how coating copper catalysts with thin films can improve a standard technique for converting carbon dioxide emissions into useful chemicals and liquid fuels.

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Berkeley Lab Science Snapshots for Nov. 2021 on EV battery research, technology to see crop roots, improved earth system model, low-cost building retrofits

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A new Berkeley Lab analysis finds that if greenhouse gas emissions continue along the high-emissions scenario, low-to-no-snow winters will become a regular occurrence in the western U.S. in 35 to 60 years.

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New Berkeley Lab breakthroughs: engineering chemical-producing microbes; watching enzyme reactions in real time; capturing the first image of ‘electron ice’; revealing how skyrmions really move

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After the Caldor Fire erupted in August 2021, scientists from Berkeley Lab launched a research project to study how the fire would affect the mountain ecosystem, including factors such as streamflow, groundwater levels, water quality, and possible soil erosion leading to floods and debris flow. They mobilized to burn areas to collect samples of water, sediment, and ash.

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Scientists at Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley have developed a cheap and efficient way to produce pure titanium metal. Their approach is scalable for commercial production, and produces an easily recycled product.