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

UCI Engineer Creates New Technique for Testing Nanomaterials

A University of California, Irvine engineer has invented a method for analyzing nanowires at temperatures approaching 800 degrees Fahrenheit in first-ever experiments, showing the valuable role the materials could play in converting excess heat from machines and electronics into useable electricity.

Flipping Crystals Improves Solar-Cell Performance

A new type of two-dimensional-layered perovskite developed by Northwestern University, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Rice University researchers will open up new horizons for next-generation stable solar-cell devices and new opto-electronic devices such as light-emitting diodes, lasers and sensors.

New Technique Provides Detailed Views of Metals’ Crystal Structure

Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have developed a new combination of methods that can provide detailed information about the microstructure of polycrystalline metals.

Lessons of Lager: Yeast Origin Becomes a Complex Tale

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are studying the hybridization of yeasts, ultimately leading to a better understanding of the natural history and genetic diversity of these economically important organisms.

Study Finds Sensing Mechanism in Food Poisoning Bug

UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have uncovered a mechanism that a type of pathogenic bacteria found in shellfish use to sense when they are in the human gut, where they release toxins that cause food poisoning.

Feeding the World by Rewiring Plant “Mouths”

New work from the lab of Dominique Bergmann, honorary adjunct staff member at Carnegie’s Department of Plant Biology and professor at Stanford University, reveals ways that the systems regulating the development of stomata in grasses could be harnessed to improve plant efficiency and agricultural yield.

Solved: First Crystal Structure of a Transcription Terminator Protein

Researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina and elsewhere resolve the first protein structure in a family of proteins called transcription terminators that could provide insight into aging and cancer.

New Material Combines Useful and Typically Incompatible Properties

Most materials, too, are capable of being only one thing at a time, but a team of engineers and physicists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have created an entirely new material in which completely contradictory properties can coexist.

Study Involving CU-Boulder Shows Fertilizer Can Be Made From Sunlight

A group of scientists led by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden and involving the University of Colorado Boulder and Utah State University has developed a new, eco-friendly method to produce ammonia, the main ingredient of fertilizer, using light.

Theorists Smooth the Way to Solving One of Quantum Mechanics Oldest Problems

Theoretical chemists at Princeton University have pioneered a strategy for modeling quantum friction, or how a particle’s environment drags on it, a vexing problem in quantum mechanics since the birth of the field.

Printing Metal in Midair

Increasing demand for flexible, wearable electronics, sensors, antennas and biomedical devices has led a team at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) to innovate an eye-popping new way of printing complex metallic architectures – as though they are seemingly suspended in midair.

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Researchers Find Unexpected Magnetic Effect

A new and unexpected magnetic effect in a topological insulator made of Bi2SE3 layers with a EuS layer has taken MIT researchers by surprise and could open up a new pathway to advanced electronic devices and even robust quantum computer architecture.