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

Scientists Detect Most Common Way that Higgs Bosons Decay

The new discovery is a big step forward in the quest to understand how the Higgs enables fundamental particles to acquire mass.

3 Colorado School of Mines Graduate Students to Conduct Research at DOE Labs

Natalie Seitzman, Nathan Patrick Bessen and Randy Lemons were among 47 graduate students at 36 universities nationwide selected for the Office of Science Graduate Student Research Program.

Fluorescence Activating Protein Made from Scratch

For the first time, scientists have created, entirely from scratch, a protein capable of binding to a small target molecule. Researchers from the University of Washington School of Medicine report the advance in the Sept. 12 issue of the journal Nature.

Designer Enzyme Conquers Sulfite Reduction, a Bottleneck in Environmental Cleanup

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have cleared one hurdle toward environmental cleanup of certain contaminants with a newly designed synthetic enzyme that reduces the compound sulfite to sulfide – a notoriously complex multistep chemical reaction that has eluded chemists for years.

Long-sought Carbon Structure Joins Graphene, Fullerene Family

UC Berkeley chemists have proved that three carbon structures recently created by scientists in South Korea and Japan are in fact the long-sought schwarzites, which researchers predict will have unique electrical and storage properties like those now being discovered in buckminsterfullerenes (buckyballs or fullerenes for short), nanotubes and graphene.

In Neutron Stars, Protons May Do the Heavy Lifting

A new study in Nature, co-led by MIT researchers, suggests that some properties of neutron stars may be influenced not only by their multitude of densely packed neutrons, but also by a substantially smaller fraction of protons — positively charged particles that make up just 5 percent of a neutron star.

Small Scale, Huge Impact

UC Santa Barbara mechanical engineering assistant professor Bolin Liao receives an early career award from the Department of Energy to further investigate the phase coherence of tiny energy carriers such as electrons, phonons and photons, as well as their collective excitations.

Read more about Small Scale, Huge Impact

UW’s Liu Receives DOE Grant to Improve Predictability of Interactions Between Mixed-Phase Clouds, Aerosols

Xiaohong Liu, a UW professor in the Department of Atmospheric Science and the Wyoming Excellence Chair in Climate Science, will receive a $588,118 DOE grant for his project, titled “Improving GCM Predictability of Mixed-Phase Clouds and Aerosol Interactions at High Latitudes with ARM Observations.”

FRIB Accelerates First Beams in Three of Forty-six Superconducting Cryomodules

On 11-12 July, the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams achieved a major project milestone by accelerating its first beams in three of forty-six superconducting cryomodules. This demonstrates for the first time that the major systems (front end, liquid helium plant, superconducting cryomodules) which were commissioned individually, work well together and can successfully accelerate beams of atomic particles.

Nanotube ‘Rebar’ Makes Graphene Twice as Tough

In a new study in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano, Rice materials scientist Jun Lou, graduate student and lead author Emily Hacopian and collaborators, including Rice chemist James Tour, stress-tested rebar graphene and found that nanotube rebar diverted and bridged cracks that would otherwise propagate in unreinforced graphene.

UW, PNNL to Host Energy Research Center Focusing on Bio-inspired Design and Assembly

The United States Department of Energy has awarded an expected $10.75 million, four-year grant to the University of Washington, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and other partner institutions for a new interdisciplinary research center to define the enigmatic rules that govern how molecular-scale building blocks assemble into ordered structures — and give rise to complex hierarchical materials.

Studying Universe Requires 'Archaeology on the Grand Scale,' Physicist Says

As director of the Dark Energy Survey, an international collaboration to map several hundred million galaxies using one of the world’s most powerful digital cameras, Fermilab scientist and University of Chicago professor Josh Frieman, PhD’89, leads more than 400 scientists from over 25 institutions across the world in the quest to unravel mysteries of the universe.