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

How Plants Protect Photosynthesis From Oxygen

New work from a team at Carnegie Science identified a protein needed for assembling the photosynthetic apparatus that may help us understand the history of photosynthesis back in the early days of life on Earth, a time when oxygen was not abundant in the atmosphere.

Collaborative Study of Tundra Soil Demonstrates Vulnerability of Ecosystem to Climate Warming

Findings from one of the first comprehensive field studies by a collaborative team of researchers demonstrate the active layer microbiome of tundra soil was significantly altered after only 1.5 years of experimental warming—a rapid response demonstrating high sensitivity of this ecosystem to warming.

Best for Biofuels

New research at the University of Illinois has identified regions in the United States where bioenergy crops would grow best while minimizing effects on water quantity and quality.

Chemists Combine Biology and Nanotechnology to Create Alternate Energy Source

Chemists in the Syracuse College of Arts and Sciences have made a transformational advance in an alternate lighting source—one that doesn’t require a battery or a plug.

Making Sense of Metallic Glass

A team including Carnegie’s Qiaoshi “Charles” Zeng and Ho-kwang “Dave” Mao, among others, is trying to figure out the rules that govern metallic glass’s creation by looking at metallic glasses under extreme pressures.

UW Scientists Create Ultrathin Semiconductor Heterostructures For New Technological Applications

University of Washington scientists have successfully combined two different ultrathin semiconductors — each just one layer of atoms thick and roughly 100,000 times thinner than a human hair — to make a new two-dimensional heterostructure with potential uses in clean energy and optically-active electronics.

Researchers Develop Way to Better Predict Disease-Causing Mutations in Human Genes

Two University of Tennessee researchers have developed a method that could help clinicians and scientists better predict which mutations in people’s genes could cause a disease and which would remain dormant.

The Iron Stepping Stones to Better Wearable Tech Without Semiconductors

Iron-dotted boron nitride nanotubes, made by physicists at Michigan Tech, could make for better wearable tech because of their flexibility and electronic behaviors.

Scientists Say Many Plants Don't Respond to Warming as Thought

Researchers have completed the most comprehensive global study of its kind, finding that increases in plant respiration may not be as big as previously estimated.

Chemistry Researchers Unveil New, Detailed Images of Initial Stages of DNA Transcription

An unprecedented molecular view of the critical early events in gene expression, a process essential for all life, has been provided by researchers at Georgia State University, the University of California at Berkeley and Northwestern University.

A Radar Gun For Unruly Atoms

A team of scientists at the University of Vermont have discovered a new use for X-rays at the atomic scale: using them like a radar gun to measure the motion and velocity of complex and messy groups of atoms.

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MIT Scientists Find Weird Quantum Effects, Even Over Hundreds of Miles

MIT physicists have found that subatomic particles called neutrinos can be in superposition, without individual identities, when traveling hundreds of miles, and not just at quantum, subatomic scales.