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

Prototype Shows How Tiny Photodetectors Can Double Their Efficiency

Physicists at the University of California, Riverside have developed a photodetector – a device that senses light – by combining two distinct inorganic materials and producing quantum mechanical processes that could revolutionize the way solar energy is collected.

Stanford Researchers Find Soil Holds Potential to Slow Global Warming

If you want to do something about global warming, look under your feet. Managed well, soil’s ability to trap carbon dioxide is potentially much greater than previously estimated, according to Stanford researchers who claim the resource could “significantly” offset increasing global emissions.

Deer Prefer Native Plants Leaving Lasting Damage on Forests

When rampant white-tailed deer graze in forests, they prefer to eat native plants over certain unpalatable invasive plants, such as garlic mustard and Japanese stiltgrass. These eating habits lower native plant diversity and abundance, while increasing the proportion of plant communities made up of non-native species, according to a new study.

U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science Awards Multi-Institution Grants for Nuclear Physics Computing

Three nuclear physics research projects involving Michigan State University researchers have won grants from the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC).

Pop Lends Expertise to International Competition for Metagenomics Software

Mihai Pop, a professor of computer science with a joint appointment in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies, recently helped judge an international challenge called the Critical Assessment of Metagenome Interpretation (CAMI), which benchmarked metagenomics software.

UW Awarded $12.5 Million to Study Astrophysical Plasma Here on Earth

The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded $12.5 million to the University of Wisconsin–Madison to develop an integrated facility that will expand the frontier of astrophysical plasma research.

Primordial Cosmic Soup Easier to Create than Previously Thought

In a series of experiments at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory, physicists have found the signature of this primordial liquid, called the quark gluon plasma (QGP), in subatomic collisions at much lower energies and in much smaller volumes than those at which it has previously been detected.

Sunlight and the Right Microbes Convert Arctic Carbon into Carbon Dioxide

A new study published this week in Nature Communications outlines the mechanisms and points to the importance of both sunlight and the right microbial community as keys to converting permafrost carbon to CO2.

An NJIT Device Aimed at Early Detection of Deadly Diseases Wins NJ Health Foundation Backing

New Jersey Health Foundation (NJHF) has awarded NJIT engineer Eon Soo Lee a $50,000 Innovation Grant to develop a nanotechnology-enhanced biochip that would give doctors and patients in a range of healthcare settings the ability to detect deadly diseases such as ovarian cancer and pneumonia early in their progression.

Identifying a New Family of Light-Responsive Proteins

The new family of proteins protects cyanobacteria from sunlight damage, and they are interesting for use in synthetic medical or renewable energy applications.

Fast-Moving Magnetic Particles Could Enable New Form of Data Storage

New research has shown that an exotic kind of magnetic behavior discovered just a few years ago holds great promise as a way of storing data — one that could overcome fundamental limits that might otherwise be signaling the end of “Moore’s Law,” which describes the ongoing improvements in computation and data storage over recent decades.

Studies of ‘Amorphous Ice’ Reveal Hidden Order in Glass

Researchers at Princeton University and the City University of New York used computer simulations to show that the water molecules in amorphous ice are arranged in a previously undetected order, which the original liquid did not contain.