2017 | U.S. DOE Office of Science (SC)

In a Possible Step Forward for Gene Therapy, Stanford Researchers Made Mice Glow Like Fireflies

A collaboration between chemists and gene therapy experts produced a new way of inserting the code for modified proteins into the cells of mice. If successful in humans, the technique could be useful for vaccines or cancer therapies.

Chemical Engineering and Chemistry Researchers at Pitt and Penn State Develop Controlled Delivery of Particles via Fluid Flow

Capitalizing on previous studies in self-powered chemo-mechanical movement, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering and Penn State University’s Department of Chemistry have developed a novel method of transporting particles that utilizes chemical reactions to drive fluid flow within microfluidic devices.

New Delta Scuti: Rare Pulsating Star 7,000 Light Years Away is 1 of Only 7 in Milky Way

Discovered at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, a star — as big as or bigger than our sun — in the Pegasus constellation is expanding and contracting in three different directions simultaneously on a scale of once every 2.5 hours, the result of heating and cooling of hydrogen fuel burning 28 million degrees Fahrenheit at its core.

Bright Lights, Big Science: Joel Williams Helping Unleash Some of the World’s Brightest X-rays

Thanks to a DOE Office of Science Graduate Student Research award, Joel Williams, a Colorado State University electrical engineering graduate student, is spending the next few months at Los Alamos National Laboratory working on the design of an X-ray free-electron laser.

New Method to Detect Ultrasound with Light

Developed by Northwestern Engineering scientists, a tiny, transparent device that can fit into a contact lens, called the Micro-ring resonator detector, can determine the speed of the blood flow and the oxygen metabolic rate at the back of the eye.

UMD Physicist Improves Method for Designing Fusion Experiments

A University of Maryland physicist has made an important revision to software tools used to design stellarators, which will balance tradeoffs between the ideal magnetic field shape and potential coil shapes, leaving more space between the coils for repair access and sensor placement.

Researchers Develop Best-Yet Cell Culture System for Age-Related Macular Degeneration

An international team from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and University College London and Queens University Belfast in the United Kingdom developed a cell culture model that could help to develop earlier treatment strategies for age-related macular degeneration, the third most prevalent cause of vision loss worldwide.

Rice University Takes Deeper Look at Unconventional Oil and Gas

Rice engineers George Hirasaki and Walter Chapman are leading an effort to better characterize the contents of organic shale by combining standard nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) – the same technology used by hospitals to see inside human bodies – with molecular dynamics simulations.

Penn Researchers Are Among the First to Grow a Versatile Two-dimensional Material

University of Pennsylvania researchers are now among the first to produce a single, three-atom-thick layer of a unique two-dimensional material called tungsten ditelluride. Their findings have been published in 2-D Materials.

Controlled Atomic Disorder Helps Researchers Understand Superconductivity

Ruslan Prozorov, professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Iowa State University and faculty scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Ames Laboratory, and his research group are using disorder in crystal structure to understand the mechanisms of superconductivity — conducting electricity without resistance, in other words, without any loss of energy to heat.

Scientists Discover New Helium Chemistry

An international team of researchers led by Skoltech’s Artem R. Oganov (also a professor at Stony Brook University and head of Computational Materials Discovery laboratory at Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology) has predicted two stable helium compounds—Na₂He and Na₂He O.

Stanford Engineers Create a Low-Cost Battery for Storing Renewable Energy

A battery made with urea, commonly found in fertilizers and mammal urine, could provide a low-cost way of storing energy produced through solar power or other forms of renewable energy for consumption during off hours.