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With today’s fast and automated analysis tools, the field of biology is bursting at the seams with datasets about gene sequences and expression in the microbiomes around us – and inside us.

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A research team led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has developed a high-performance coating material that self-assembles from 2D nanosheets, and which could significantly extend the shelf life of electronics, energy storage devices, health & safety products, and more. The researchers are the first to successfully scale up nanomaterial synthesis into useful materials for manufacturing and commercial applications.

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The Quantum Systems Accelerator's summer camp (QCaMP) for high school students in New Mexico and California continues to evolve and grow. Under the 2023 Reaching a New Energy Sciences Workforce (RENEW) Pathway Summer School initiative, the DOE Office of Science awarded new funding to expand QCaMP's curricula and host students on-site at Berkeley Lab and Sandia Labs in 2024.

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The National Science Foundation has awarded up to $21.4 million for the design of telescopes for CMB-S4, an international experiment that will study the cosmic microwave background and help us understand the beginning, history, and makeup of the universe. Berkeley Lab leads the project for DOE and also plays a lead role in technology development.

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The Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) is proud to announce that it has supercharged the current and future bandwidth for four of the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) national laboratories and user facilities, unleashing 400 Gigabit per second (400G) capability for Argonne National Laboratory, National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. With this boost in capacity, scientists can process, analyze, visualize, share, and store the enormous quantities of research data at speeds up to four times faster than previously possible.

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The Quantum System Accelerator (QSA) researchers at Berkeley Lab conducted a series of experiments with a new type of layered 2D metal (TMD), finding connections in electronic behavior such as itinerant magnetism and superconductivity, which might potentially help fabricate complex superconducting quantum processors.

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Astronomers have created a detailed atlas of almost 400,000 galaxies in our cosmic neighborhood. The Siena Galaxy Atlas was primarily built from data gathered in preparation for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) experiment and will be an invaluable tool for research into gravitational waves, dark matter, the structure of our universe, and how galaxies evolve.

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Scientists at Berkeley Lab have created multi-sensor systems that can map nuclear radiation in 3D in real-time. Researchers are now testing how to integrate their system with robots that can autonomously investigate radiation areas.

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Through a novel approach detailed in Nature, a massive computational analysis of microbiome datasets more than doubled the number of known protein families. This is the first time protein structures have been used to help characterize the vast array of microbial “dark matter.”

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Berkeley Lab will lead centers for the Hydrogen and Carbon Negative Energy Earthshots, initiatives to accelerate technological breakthroughs for clean energy and solutions to the climate crisis. The Center for Ionomer-based Water Electrolysis (CIWE) will investigate methods to improve the efficiency and durability of clean-hydrogen production, while RESTOR-C will develop better ways for plants and microbes to pull carbon from the atmosphere and lock it away in the soil.

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Scientists have demonstrated “multielement ink” – the first “high-entropy” semiconductor that can be processed at low-temperature or room temperature. The new material could enable cost-effective and energy-efficient semiconductor manufacturing.

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Researchers can use the radio-quiet far side of the moon to listen for a never-before-heard signal from the “Dark Ages” of the universe. The LuSEE-Night experiment will act as a pathfinder for future experiments, testing equipment and techniques in the harsh lunar environment.

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Berkeley Lab scientists are accelerating and streamlining the process of engineering microbes to produce important compounds with commercial-ready efficiency.

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Researchers developed a new battery material called disordered rock salt (DRX) that could pave the way for replacing gasoline vehicles with electric vehicles at a faster rate. DRX cathodes could be ready to commercialize in just a few years.

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Experts at Berkeley Lab finished winding more than 2000 kilometers of superconducting wire into cables for new magnets that will help upgrade the Large Hadron Collider and the search for new physics.

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Researchers from Berkeley Lab are co-leading a project to explore the creation of a direct air capture facility that uses cutting-edge technologies to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in California’s Southern San Joaquin Valley.

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A team of Berkeley Lab researchers has recently demonstrated a more effective technique for creating quantum emitters using pulsed ion beams, which could lead to their use in a quantum internet and for sensing radiation.

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In a new Q&A, microelectronics expert and CHiPPS Director Ricardo Ruiz shares his perspective on keeping pace with Moore’s Law in the decades to come through a revolutionary technique called extreme ultraviolet lithography.

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The Advanced Quantum Testbed (AQT) at Berkeley Lab celebrated the first five years of operations and its renewal with a two-day hybrid summit in May 2023, bringing together staff, alums, testbed users, and colleagues.

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Ever since gene editing became feasible, researchers and health officials have sought tools that can quickly and reliably distinguish genetically modified organisms from those that are naturally occurring. Now, such tools exist.

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In rooms where smoking has taken place regularly, tobacco's imprint lingers on indoor surfaces, even long after regular smoking has stopped. The leftover residues, known as thirdhand smoke, can be a long-term source of indoor pollutants. New research from a team led by the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) zeroes in on carpets as an especially potent – and difficult to clean – reservoir of tobacco contaminants.

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In a study published today, researchers successfully engineered microbes to make biological alternatives for the starting ingredients in an infinitely recyclable plastic known as poly(diketoenamine), or PDK.

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Berkeley Lab and Genentech are collaborating to make the next generation of lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) for drug delivery. Combining structural biology with cutting edge pharmaceutical science, the team is designing LNPs that can precisely deliver vaccines and therapeutics to target tissues while improving the product’s shelf life and duration of action.

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Quantum information processors that operate with ternary logic (qutrits) offer significant potential advantages in quantum simulation and error correction, as well as the ability to improve specific quantum algorithms and applications. Building on previous R&D with qutrits at the Advanced Quantum Testbed (AQT), the paper's experimental team, led by a promising UC Berkeley graduate student, successfully entangled two transmon qutrits with gate fidelities significantly higher than in previously reported works.

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A new study by Lab scientists finds that as rising global temperatures shift snow to rain, mountains across the Northern Hemisphere will be hotspots for extreme rainfall events that could trigger floods and landslides – potentially impacting a quarter of the world’s population.

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For the first time, researchers have developed a genome-scale way to map the regulatory role of transcription factors, proteins that play a key role in gene expression and determining a plant’s physiological traits. Their work reveals unprecedented insights into gene regulatory networks and identifies a new library of DNA parts that can be used to optimize plants for bioenergy and agriculture.

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An international team led by research scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has found that clean energy microgrids offer a better and cheaper solution for protecting California communities from wildfire-related outages, compared to conventional microgrids.

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An innovative, decade-long experiment in the foothills of California’s Sierra Nevada mountains shows carbon stocks buried deep underground are vulnerable to climate change. The findings have implications for mitigating global warming through the natural carbon sinks provided by soil and forests which capture 25% of all carbon emissions.

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The universe is big, and it’s getting bigger. To study dark energy, the mysterious force behind the accelerating expansion of our universe, scientists are using the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) to map more than 40 million galaxies, quasars, and stars. Today, the collaboration publicly released its first batch of data, with nearly 2 million objects for researchers to explore.

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New research points to a flexible, cost-effective option for backup power when trouble strikes: batteries aboard trains. A study from Berkeley Lab finds that rail-based mobile energy storage is a feasible way to ensure reliability during exceptional events.

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In this Q&A, Berkeley Lab's Yuxin Wu discusses how scientists are developing sensing technologies that could be installed on floating offshore structures. This would allow the structures to self-monitor damaging conditions that could lead to costly repairs, and could also gauge impacts to marine mammals.

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Berkeley Lab scientists have visualized the distortions of chemical bonds in a methane molecule after it absorbs light, loses an electron, and then relaxes. Their study provides insights into how molecules react to light, which can help develop new methods to control chemical reactions.

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Fusion energy could address pollution, climate change, and high energy prices. Berkeley Lab’s Cameron Geddes and Reed Teyber explain how researchers are trying to make it a reality.

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A research team led by Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley has engineered bacteria to produce new-to-nature carbon products that could provide a powerful route to sustainable biochemicals. The advance could reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the manufacturing of fuels, drugs, and chemicals.

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Researchers are helping women entrepreneurs in Uganda grow small businesses by investing in energy-efficient technology. Helping the women invest in energy-efficient equipment and appliances could benefit them and their communities as well as reduce their business’s carbon footprint.

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To accelerate development of useful new materials, researchers at Berkeley Lab are building a new kind of automated lab that uses robots guided by artificial intelligence. A-Lab will rapidly test whether materials that have been computationally predicted can be made in reality. The lab’s vision is to use AI to discover materials of the future, starting with a focus on materials for batteries and energy storage.

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A new look at climate data shows that, by the end of the century, the heaviest days of rain and snowfall across much of North America will likely release 20 to 30 percent more moisture than they do now. Much of the increased precipitation will occur in winter, potentially exacerbating flooding in regions such as the upper Midwest and the west coast. Researchers also found that heavy precipitation days historically experienced once in a century will become more frequent – as often as once every 30 or 40 years in the Pacific Northwest and southeastern United States.

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A team at the Advanced Quantum Testbed at Berkeley Lab (in collaboration with UC Berkeley and Yale) developed an architectural blueprint for a novel quantum processor based on fluxonium qubits, which outperform the most widely used superconducting qubits. Furthermore, they simulated two types of logic gates to validate the performance of the proposed fluxonium blueprint.

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The Quantum Systems Accelerator has issued an impact report that details progress made since the center launched in 2020. Highlights include a record-setting quantum sensor that could be used to hunt dark matter, a machine learning algorithm to correct qubit errors in real time, and the first observation of several exotic states of matter using a 256-atom quantum device.

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About 12% of the total global energy demand comes from heating and cooling homes and businesses. A new study suggests that using underground water to maintain comfortable temperatures could reduce consumption of natural gas and electricity in this sector by 40% in the U.S. The approach, called aquifer thermal energy storage (ATES), could also help prevent blackouts caused by high power demand during extreme weather events.

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Seven Berkeley Lab scientists contributed to research behind a new United Nations report that says limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels requires cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 – and that we have the tools to make a difference now.

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A whole new world of antibiotics is waiting inside the viruses that infect bacteria. Our scientists are making it easier to study them.

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Scientists at Berkeley Lab have developed a polymer coating that could enable longer lasting, more powerful lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles. The advance opens up a new approach to developing EV batteries that are more affordable and yet easy to manufacture.

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A team from Berkeley Lab and Florida State University has designed a new blueprint for solid-state batteries that are less dependent on specific chemical elements. Their work could advance efficient, affordable solid-state batteries for electric cars.

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Since the 1970s, scientists have known that copper has a special ability to transform carbon dioxide into valuable chemicals and fuels. But for many years, scientists have struggled to understand how this common metal works as an electrocatalyst, a mechanism that uses energy from electrons to chemically transform molecules into different products.

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Society’s growing demand for high-voltage electrical technologies—including pulsed power systems, cars and electrified aircraft, and renewable energy applications—requires a new generation of capacitors that store and deliver large amounts of energy under intense thermal and electrical conditions. Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Scripps Research have now developed a new polymer-based device that efficiently handles record amounts of energy while withstanding extreme temperatures and electric fields.

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A recent study by climate scientists from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory aims to inform the discussion around how protecting additional land to meet conservation goals may impact land use (such as agricultural) and land cover (such as grass, water, or vegetation). The research is among the first to explore how potential pathways to achieve these bold targets affect agricultural expansion, and its findings suggest that meeting the 30% protection targets could lead to substantial regional shifts in land use and in some cases still fail to protect the world’s most biodiverse hotspots.

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Modeling the effects of earthquakes on homes, businesses, and infrastructure is about to get a lot easier, thanks to advanced simulations performed on the world's fastest supercomputers.

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Excitons are drawing attention as possible quantum bits (qubits) in tomorrow’s quantum computers and are central to optoelectronics and energy-harvesting processes. However, these charge-neutral quasiparticles, which exist in semiconductors and other materials, are notoriously difficult to confine and manipulate. Now, for the first time, Berkeley Lab researchers have created and directly observed highly localized excitons confined in simple stacks of atomically thin materials. The work confirms theoretical predictions and opens new avenues for controlling excitons with custom-built materials.