University Research | U.S. DOE Office of Science (SC)

Much of the Surface Ocean Will Shift in Color by the End of the 21st Century

Climate change is causing significant changes to phytoplankton in the world’s oceans, and a new MIT study finds that over the coming decades these changes will affect the ocean’s color, intensifying its blue regions and its green ones. Satellites should detect these changes in hue, providing early warning of wide-scale changes to marine ecosystems.

International Team of Physicists Continues Search for New Physics

Dark matter, which is thought to account for nearly a quarter of matter in the universe (but has yet to be observed), has perplexed physicists for decades. They’re constantly looking for something surprising to show up in experiments – results that deviate from the standard model that defines elementary physics.

UD Researchers Synthesize Renewable Oils for Use in Lubricants

Researchers at the University of Delaware-led Catalysis Center for Energy Innovation (CCEI) and investigators from its partner institutions have outlined a strategy to create renewable lubricants from non-food biomass, such as woodchips (above), grass, and other organic waste.

Genes Behind Lager Yeast's Cold-and Sugar-loving Success Revealed

In a pair of new papers, University of Wisconsin–Madison Professor of Genetics Chris Todd Hittinger, his graduate student EmilyClare Baker and others show how modern lager yeast adopted the cold-loving and sugar-hungry traits essential to their success.

Researchers Discover Anti-Laser Masquerading as Perfect Absorber

Researchers at Duke University have discovered that a perfect absorber of electromagnetic waves they described in a 2017 paper can easily be tweaked into a sort of “time-reversed laser” known as a coherent perfect absorber (CPA).

Controlling What Goes on 'Between the Sheets' is Key to Optimizing MXenes' Abilities

Amidst a surge of research over the last two decades focusing on the special properties of structures that are just an atom or two thick, called “two-dimensional” materials, researchers at Drexel University have steadily been uncovering the exceptional properties of one family of these materials, called MXenes.

Penn Engineer’s ‘Metallic Wood’ Has the Strength of Titanium and the Density of Water

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, and the University of Cambridge have built a sheet of nickel with nanoscale pores that make it as strong as titanium but four to five times lighter.

Miscanthus With Improved Winter-hardiness Identified in Illinois Studies Will Benefit Northern Growers

For farmers, Miscanthus represents a big up-front investment. The large perennial grass must be established from vegetative pieces at great cost to farmers, but it promises a decade or more of massive biomass yields, starting in year two or three. If a cold winter happens to strike in the first year, however, all bets are off.

New Quantum System Could Help Design Better Spintronics

Researchers at Purdue University have created a new testing ground for quantum systems in which they can literally turn certain particle interactions on and off, potentially paving the way for advances in spintronics.

Researchers Create Ultra-lightweight Ceramic Material That Can Better Withstand Extreme Temperatures

UCLA researchers and collaborators at eight other research institutions have created an extremely light, very durable ceramic aerogel. The material could be used for applications like insulating spacecraft because it can withstand the intense heat and severe temperature changes that space missions endure.

The Dynamics of Light-Harvesting Chemistry

A new paper provides insights into the chemistry that underlies human-made, light-driven catalytic systems and paves the way to better understand how light-induced reactions can be controlled more effectively.

Summer Adventure: Lasers and Nanotechnology

Junior Karly Casey shares her University of Alabama at Birmingham research journey and her summer at Brookhaven National Lab.