News By Location

In finally answering an elusive scientific question, researchers with the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have shown that the selective placement of strain can alter the electronic phase and its spatial arrangement in correlated electron materials. This unique class of materials is commanding much attention now because they can display properties such as colossal magnetoresistance and high-temperature superconductivity, which are highly coveted by the high-tech industry.

Using light, scientists traced a fish's swimming response to the neurons that control it. Their technique could become a powerful way to learn how biological systems work.

In a development that holds much promise for the future of solar electricity and fuel, Berkeley Lab researchers used gold tips grown in solution to increase the electrical conductivity of cadmium-selenide nanorod crystals by 100,000 times.

Through a novel genomic approach detailed in the Sept. 7 online edition and on the cover Sept. 14 of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an international team of scientists led by the University of New South Wales and the DOE JGI demonstrates how the microbial diversity of the oceans can be analyzed without necessarily cultivating samples in the laboratory.

In a PNAS paper released online this week, an international team of researchers provides the first genome-wide look at the mutations in strains of the fungus Trichoderma reesei in order to understand just how the production of enzymes that break down cellulose production was first improved, and how it can be boosted even further for industrial applications such as biofuel production.

Water is familiar to everyone -- it shapes our bodies and our planet. But despite this abundance, the molecular structure of water has remained a mystery, with the substance exhibiting many strange properties that are still poorly understood. Recent work at the US Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and several universities in Sweden and Japan, however, is shedding new light on water's molecular idiosyncrasies, offering insight into its strange bulk properties.