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Controlling X-rays with ultrashort slices of light is a step toward controlling how matter behaves, shaping X-rays with other X-rays, and eventually directing the paths chemical reactions can take. Working with the femtosecond beamline at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Advanced Light Source, a team of scientists shows how it can be done.

Berkeley Lab researchers at the Molecular Foundry have developed a universal method by which designer nanomaterials can be created on-demand. This scheme can be used to create materials for battery electrodes, photovoltaics and electronic data storage among a great many other possible applications.

Desktop experiments could point the way to dark matter discovery, complementing grand astronomical searches and deep underground observations. According to recent theoretical results, small blocks of matter on a tabletop could reveal elusive properties of the as-yet-unidentified dark matter particles that make up a quarter of the universe. This finding was announced today by theorists from the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Science, a joint institute of SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University.

In an attempt to explain away invisible dark matter and dark energy, some theorists have offered modified theories of gravity that try to improve on Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. A new study based on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and inspired by the work of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory cosmologist Uros Seljak indicates that at least one of these alternate theories is wrong.

Berkeley Lab researchers have shown that the biochemical activity of a key player in cancer metastasis can be altered by the application of a direct physical force. This new way in which cells can sense and respond to physical forces presents a new road for future cancer therapies

Berkeley Lab researchers have found a better way to trap light in photovoltaic cells through the use of vertical arrays of silicon nanowires. This could substantially cut the costs of solar electric power by reducing the quantity and quality of silicon needed for efficient solar panels.

Using entire galaxies as lenses to look at other galaxies, researchers have a newly precise way to measure the size and age of the universe and how rapidly it is expanding. The measurement determines a value for the Hubble constant, which indicates the size of the universe, and confirms the age of the universe as 13.75 billion years old, within 170 million years. The results also confirm the strength of dark energy, responsible for accelerating the expansion of the universe.