Simulations of Magnetically Confined Plasmas Reveal a Self-Regulating Stabilizing Mechanism
A mysterious mechanism that prevents instabilities may be similar to the process that maintains the Earth's magnetic field.
Non-Crystal Clarity: Scientists Find Ordered Magnetic Patterns in Disordered Magnetic Material
A team of scientists working at Berkeley Lab has confirmed a special property known as "chirality" - which potentially could be exploited to transmit and store data in a new way - in nanometers-thick samples of multilayer materials that have a disordered structure.
A boon for physicists: new insights into neutrino interactions from MicroBooNE
Physicists on the MicroBooNE collaboration at the Department of Energy's Fermilab have produced their first collection of science results. The measurements are of three independent quantities that describe neutrino interactions with argon atoms.
Seeing All the Colors of the Plasma Wind
2-D velocity imaging helps fusion researchers understand the role of ion winds (aka flows) in the boundary of tokamak plasmas.
Hidden Magnetism Appears under Hidden Symmetry
Sometimes a good theory just needs the right materials to make it work. That's the case with recent findings by UT's physicists and their colleagues, who designed a two-dimensional magnetic system that points to the possibility of devices with increased security and efficiency, using only a small amount of energy
Theorists Love Giant Formulas (Even More Than Coffee)
SLAC theorist Lance Dixon and collaborators have calculated the formula for the energy-energy correlation (EEC) with more precision than ever before.
New Model Sheds Light on Key Physics of Magnetic Islands That Halt Fusion Reactions
Article describes results of new simulation of magnetic islands.
Renewable Solvents Derived From Lignin Lowers Waste in Biofuel Production
New class of solvents breaks down plant biomass into sugars for biofuels and bioproducts in a closed-loop biorefinery concept.
Scientists Studying Nuclear Spin Make a Surprising Discovery
The size of a nucleus appears to influence the direction of certain particles emitted from collisions with spinning protons.
Blast from the past
Scientists recently reexamined data from the MiniBooNE experiment at Fermilab taken between 2009 and 2011, and they found the first direct evidence of mono-energetic neutrinos, or neutrinos with definite energy, that are energetic enough to produce a muon.
Simulating Turbulent Bubbly Flows in Nuclear Reactors
With a better understanding of bubbly flows, researchers can improve the safety and operation of our nuclear reactors.
Rutgers-led Research Could Lead to More Efficient Electronics
A Rutgers-led team of physicists has demonstrated a way to conduct electricity between transistors without energy loss, opening the door to low-power electronics and, potentially, quantum computing that would be far faster than today's computers. Their findings, which involved using a special mix of materials with magnetic and insulator properties, are published online in Nature Physics.
The Perfect Couple: Higgs and Top Quark Spotted Together
Today two experiments at the Large Hadron Collider announced a discovery that finally links the two heaviest known particles: the top quark and the Higgs boson. The CMS and ATLAS experiments have seen simultaneous production of both particles during a rare subatomic process.
From Leaves to Clouds: Revealing How Trees' Emissions Shape The Air Around Us
Scientists supported by the Department of Energy are studying how biological emissions from trees interact with the atmosphere. These emissions, known as volatile organic compounds (VOCs), react with other gases to become particles. These particles, called secondary organic aerosols, influence cloud formation. The GoAmazon project studies this process in the Amazonian rainforest to provide data that can improve climate models.
NOvA experiment sees strong evidence for antineutrino oscillation
The NOvA collaboration has announced its first results using antineutrinos, and has seen strong evidence of muon antineutrinos oscillating into electron antineutrinos over long distances, a phenomenon that has never been unambiguously observed.
How an Enzyme Repairs DNA via a "Pinch-Push-Pull" Mechanism
In a study published in the May 21, 2018 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of researchers - aided with supercomputing resources from the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) based at UC San Diego - created a dynamic computer simulation to delineate a key biological process that allows the body to repair damaged DNA.
Story Tips from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, June 2018
A direct brain-to-computer interface may be on the horizon. New insights into how quickly microorganisms break down organic matter in warming Arctic soil. Using liquid salt that contains FLiBe to cool molten salt reactors. Compact, powerful solar.
Mississippi State Physicists Net High Impact Experimental Result on the Weak Force
Two Mississippi State physicists are seeing more than a decade of research yield a new high-precision result that will expand scientists' knowledge of the weak force in protons. Published this month in the international journal of science, Nature, the Q-weak project conducted by the Jefferson Lab Q-weak Collaboration sought to precisely measure the proton's weak charge, a quantity that signifies the influence the weak force exerts on protons. MSU Professors James Dunne and Dipangkar Dutta have worked with the consortia since 2004 and 2006, respectively.
X-Ray Laser Scientists Develop a New Way to Watch Bacteria Attack Antibiotics
An international team of researchers has found a new way to investigate how tuberculosis bacteria inactivate an important family of antibiotics: They watched the process in action for the first time using an X-ray free-electron laser, or XFEL.
Nuclear Scientists Calculate Value of Key Property that Drives Neutron Decay
Supercomputer simulations of neutrons' inner turmoil and a new method that filters out "noise" yield the highest-ever precision calculation of nucleon axial coupling, a property crucial to predicting neutron lifetime.
From Face Recognition to Phase Recognition: Neural Network Captures Atomic-Scale Rearrangements
UPTON, NY--If you want to understand how a material changes from one atomic-level configuration to another, it's not enough to capture snapshots of before-and-after structures. It'd be better to track details of the transition as it happens. Same goes for studying catalysts, materials that speed up chemical reactions by bringing key ingredients together; the crucial action is often triggered by subtle atomic-scale shifts at intermediate stages.
Scientists Simulate a Sliver of the Universe to Tackle a Subatomic-Scale Physics Problem
A team led by Berkeley Lab researchers has enlisted powerful supercomputers to calculate a quantity, known as the "nucleon axial coupling" or gA, that is central to our understanding of a neutron's lifetime.
New Machine Learning Approach Could Accelerate Bioengineering
Scientists from the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have developed a way to use machine learning to dramatically accelerate the design of microbes that produce biofuel.
Scientists improve ability to measure electrical properties of plasma
New research indicates a way to more accurately measure the electrical properties of plasma when it meets a solid surface.
Researchers predict materials to stabilize record-high capacity lithium-ion battery
A Northwestern University research team has found ways to stabilize a new battery with a record-high charge capacity. Based on a lithium-manganese-oxide cathode, the breakthrough could enable smart phones and battery-powered automobiles to last more than twice as long between charges.