2016 | U.S. DOE Office of Science (SC)

Plants Have Their Cake and Eat it Too

Scientists have thought for a long time now that plants don’t do a good job growing and defending at the same time. The Howe lab at Michigan State University has created a plant that does both.

Next-Generation Thermoelectrics

Funded by a $900,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, UC Santa Barbara chemical engineering professor Rachel Segalman and materials professor Michael Chabinyc will investigate ways of improving thermoelectric performance in polymeric materials.

Recycling Cancer-Fighting Tools; MU Researchers Working to Produce Vital Radioisotopes at a Cheaper Cost

Nuclear researchers at the University of Missouri are exploring alternate materials that could be used to help recycle the metals used to produce radioisotopes more efficiently and with less waste.

Renewable Energy Leader

Dionisios G. Vlachos has been named the inaugural Allan and Myra Ferguson Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Delaware. He also has been appointed director of the UD Energy Institute.

Physics Professor John Price Receives Fourth DOE Grant to Continue Proton Research

John Price, professor of physics at California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) has received a three-year, $235,000 grant from the Department of Energy (DOE) for his ongoing experimental nuclear physics program in proton research: “Photo- and Electroproduction of Multiply-Strange Hyperons at CLAS.”

Graduate Student to Study Prosthetic Implant Materials Through DOE Grant

Cassie Marker, a materials science and engineering doctoral candidate at Penn State University, received a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to investigate the properties of a variety of titanium alloys used in prosthetic implants.

Researchers Build World’s Largest Database of Crystal Surfaces and Shapes

Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego, in collaboration with the Materials Project at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), have created the world’s largest database of elemental crystal surfaces and shapes to date.

Penn and Michigan Researchers Discover New Rules for Quasicrystals

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan have engineered a quasicrystal that is formed by self-assembling nanoparticles, which are an order of magnitude larger than the atoms that comprise traditional quasicrystals.

'Perfect' Soap Molecule

A team of researchers, led by the University of Minnesota, has invented a new soap molecule made from renewable sources that could dramatically reduce the number of chemicals in cleaning products and their impact on the environment.

Cosmic Connection

Greg Huber, deputy director of UC Santa Barbara's Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, worked with nuclear physicists to confirm a structural similarity found in both human cells and neutron stars.

Sensing the Future of Molecule Detection and Bioproduction

A team of researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and Harvard Medical School (HMS) led by George Church, Ph.D., has developed a new method for engineering a broad range of biosensors to detect and signal virtually any desired molecule using living eukaryotic cells.

‘Spooky’ Sightings in Crystal Point to Extremely Rare Quantum Spin Liquid

Georgia Institute of Technology researchers have observed strong indications of quantum spin liquid inside a new exotic ytterbium crystal, first synthesized one year ago by scientists in China.