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

MSU Engineering Grant Helps Smooth Ride for Atomic Nuclei Through FRIB

MSU engineers will use a $1.1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of High Energy Physics to study the element niobium, which is used to make the tunnels in nuclear accelerators, such as the MSU-based Facility for Rare Isotope Beams.

Clark University Affiliated International Research Project Digs into Shiitake Mushroom's Genetic and Biogeographic History

The researchers won Community Science Program support from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute, which will provide “invaluable” services — DNA and RNA sequencing, bioinformatics and other analytical work to unlock the information encoded in shiitake genomes.

Hydrology Research Finds "Missing Link" in Water Modeling

Groundbreaking research on global water supply co-authored by Colorado School of Mines Hydrology Professor Reed Maxwell and alumna Laura Condon, now assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Syracuse University, appears in the July 22 issue of Science Magazine.

Super-Eruptions May Give Only a Year’s Warning Before They Blow

Researchers from Vanderbilt University and the University of Chicago have analyzed variations in the concentration of titanium in quartz crystals from several devastating volcanic events to determine growth times and growth rates.

Trees’ Surprising Role in the Boreal Water Cycle Quantified

A new study by University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists is the first to show that the uptake of snowmelt water by deciduous trees represents a large and previously overlooked aspect of the water balance in boreal watersheds.

UWM Researchers’ Work in Catalysis Could Aid Drug Development

New research from the Tysoe group at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee uncovered what happens on the surface of a solid chiral catalyst that allows the preferential formation of only one enantiomer of a molecule.

Titanium + Gold = New Gold Standard for Artificial Joints

Titanium is the leading material for artificial knee and hip joints because it’s strong, wear-resistant and nontoxic, but an unexpected discovery by Rice University physicists shows that the gold standard for artificial joints can be improved with the addition of some actual gold.

Chemistry Lessons From Bacteria May Improve Biofuel Production

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison measured the relative abilities of more than 200 types of Streptomyces bacteria to identify the enzymes that efficiently deconstruct cellulose.

Researchers Develop Shape-Changing Smart Material

Washington State University researchers have developed a unique, multifunctional smart material that can change shape from heat or light and assemble and disassemble itself.

Physics Assistant Professor Mentors Three High School Teachers Now Bound for Summer Study

Hawaiʻi QuarkNet mentor Veronica Bindi, an assistant professor in Physics at UH Mānoa, has mentored three local high school teachers selected by the national QuarkNet Project, an education and outreach program that partners high school physics teachers with particle physicists.

Rust Under Pressure Could Explain Deep Earth Anomalies

Using laboratory techniques to mimic the conditions found deep inside the Earth, a team of Carnegie scientists led by Ho-Kwang “Dave” Mao has identified a form of iron oxide that they believe could explain seismic and geothermal signatures in the deep mantle.

Scientists Design Energy-Carrying Particles Called ‘Topological Plexcitons’

Scientists at UC San Diego, MIT and Harvard University have engineered “topological plexcitons,” energy-carrying particles that could help make possible the design of new kinds of solar cells and miniaturized optical circuitry.