2015 | U.S. DOE Office of Science (SC)

Climate Change, Plant Roots May Accelerate Carbon Loss From Soils, Say OSU Researchers

Soil, long thought to be a semi-permanent storehouse for ancient carbon, may be releasing carbon dioxide to the atmosphere faster than anyone thought, according to Oregon State University soil scientists.

After 85-Year Search, Massless Particle with Promise for Next-Generation Electronics Discovered

An international team led by Princeton University scientists has discovered an elusive massless particle theorized 85 years ago that could give rise to faster and more efficient electronics because of its unusual ability to behave as matter and antimatter inside a crystal, according to new research.

Biology, Not Just Physics, Controls Release of Scent Compounds From Plants

Purdue University research suggests active biological mechanisms transport scent and taste compounds known as volatiles from plant cells to the atmosphere, a finding that could overturn the textbook model of volatile emission as a process that occurs solely by diffusion.

Breeding Higher Yielding Crops by Increasing Sugar Import Into Seeds

A team of scientists led by Carnegie’s Wolf Frommer has now discovered that a sugar-transport protein in maize and rice called SWEET4 is both necessary for successful seed filling and shows genome changes that indicate domestication by humans.

Cultivating Crystals

An international group of researchers that includes the University of Delaware’s Adam Wallace has shown how nature uses a variety of pathways to grow crystals that go beyond the classical, one-atom-at-a-time route.

Study of Cloud Cover in Tropical Pacific Reveals Future Climate Changes

Findings from researchers at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science provide new evidence that climate change in the tropical Pacific will result in changes in rainfall patterns in the region and amplify warming near the equator in the future

Diamonds May Not Be So Rare As Once Thought

Using a chemical model, Johns Hopkins scientists found that diamonds could be born deep in the Earth during a natural chemical reaction that is simpler than the two main processes that up to now have been understood to produce them.

New ‘Geospeedometer’ Confirms Super-Eruptions Have a Short Fuse

A team of geologists from Vanderbilt University have developed a new “geospeedometer” that they argue can help resolve this controversy by providing direct measurements of how long the most explosive types of magma existed as melt-rich bodies of crystal-poor magma before they erupted

Why Scientists are Teaming up to Study the Microbiome: A Q&A with Jack Gilbert

Jack Gilbert, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Ecology & Evolution at the University of Chicago and group leader for microbial ecology at Argonne, is one of the founding members of the Unified Microbiome Initiative (UMI) governing board.

Dartmouth-Led Study Explores Wave-Particle Interaction in Atmosphere

A Dartmouth-led study sheds light on the impact of plasma waves on high-energy electrons streaking into Earth's magnetic field from space.

Ocean Temperatures of the Past May Tell Us About Global Climate Patterns of the Future

In a study published in the journal Nature Geoscience, a Yale-led research team explored differences in ocean temperatures over the last 5 million years.

How Bacteria Vaccinate Themselves Against Viruses

Working off data acquired at the DOE’s Advanced Light Source, researchers have discovered the structural basis by which bacteria are able to capture genetic information from viruses and other foreign invaders for use in their own immunological system.