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A robot called WANDA

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Berkeley Lab scientists have established a revolutionary nanocrystal-making robot, capable of producing nanocrystals with staggering precision. This one-of-a-kind robot, named WANDA, provides colloidal nanocrystals with custom-made properties for electronics, biological labeling and luminescent devices. Since this robot is controlled by software protocols, novice users can direct WANDA to perform complex workflows that traditionally require extensive chemistry experience.

Peruvian tectonic plates move by earthquakes and non-seismic slip

DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Just a few years ago, Dan Farber happened to be doing field work in Peru with students when the 8.0 Pisco earthquake struck. As a scientist working in the active tectonics of the Peruvian Andes -- funded through the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Institute for Geophysics and Planetary Physics -- Farber was asked by colleagues if he could participate in a rapid response team to map the damage of the seismic deformation and install a system of geodetic stations.

Journal: Nature

New LLNL detection technology identifies bacteria, viruses, other organisms within 24 hours

DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Law enforcement authorities seeking to detect bioterrorism attacks, doctors diagnosing diseases and regulatory agencies checking product safety may find a new ally in a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory detection technology.

Journal: Journal of Virology

First X-ray laser's early success brings approval for next-phase facility

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Business Announcement

The US Department of Energy has granted approval for SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory -- home of the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), the world's first hard X-ray laser -- to begin planning a second X-ray laser at the laboratory: LCLS-II.

Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

Caution required for Gulf oil spill clean-up

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A Berkeley Lab bioremediation expert says extreme caution must be used in cleaning up the fragile Gulf Coast ecosystem in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Oil is a biological product that can be degraded by microbes, whereas detergents used to clean up oil contaminated sites can make a bad situation even worse.

Berkeley scientists discover inexpensive metal catalyst for generating hydrogen from water

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Berkeley Lab researchers have discovered an inexpensive metal that can generate hydrogen from neutral water, even if it is dirty, and can operate in sea water. Experts agree that hydrogen can play a key role in future renewable energy technologies if a relatively cheap, efficient and carbon-neutral means of producing it can be developed.

Journal: Nature
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy, National Science Foundation

Lensless imaging of whole biological cells with soft X-rays

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A team of scientists working at beamline 9.0.1 of the Advanced Light Source at the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has used X-ray diffraction microscopy to make images of whole yeast cells, achieving the highest resolution -- 11 to 13 nanometers (billionths of a meter) -- ever obtained with this method for biological specimens. Their success indicates that full 3-D tomography of whole cells at equivalent resolution should soon be possible.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy, National Institutes of Health

Fuel cells get up to speed with a new kind of platinum

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new form of platinum that could be used to make cheaper, more efficient fuel cells has been created by researchers at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the University of Houston. The process, described in the April 25 issue of Nature Chemistry, could help enable broader use of the devices, which produce emissions-free energy using hydrogen.

Journal: Nature Chemistry
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

Is there a micro-supercapacitor in your future?

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A Berkeley Lab scientist was a key member of a team that developed a unique new technique for integrating high performance micro-sized supercapacitors into a variety of portable electronic devices through common microfabrication techniques. Featuring high power densities and rapid-fire cycle times, these new supercapacitors have the potential to substantially boost the performance and longevity of portable electric energy storage devices.

Journal: Science
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

Searching for dark energy with the whole world's supernova dataset

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The Supernova Cosmology Project's Union2 compilation and reanalysis of decades of supernova surveys from the world's leading researchers, with the addition of six high-redshift supernovae, puts new bounds on possible values for the nature of dark energy. Einstein's cosmological constant comfortably fits the data, but there's still plenty of room at the top for dynamical theories.