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First black holes born starving

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The first black holes in the universe had dramatic effects on their surroundings, according to recent simulations carried out at the SLAC/Stanford Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology. Several popular theories posit that the first black holes gorged themselves on gas clouds and dust, growing into the supersized black holes that lurk in the centers of galaxies today. However, the new results point to a much more complex role for the first black holes.

Journal: The Astrophysical Journal Letters
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy, NASA, National Science Foundation

Growth spurts

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Berkeley Lab experts in nanocrystal growth and electron microscopy combined their skills to record the first ever direct observations in real-time of the growth of single nanocrystals in solution. Their findings revealed that there are two distinct trajectories by which nanocrystals can grow but in the end the crystals come out roughly the same size and shape.

Journal: Science
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

SLAC to receive additional $21.8M in recovery act funding for new research instruments

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory will receive $21.8 million in new funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The funding will catalyze instrumentation construction and improvements at the laboratory's two light source research facilities, the Linac Coherent Light Source and the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource.

Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

Dark energy from the ground up: Make way for BigBOSS

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

To measure the expansion history of the universe, the design chosen for the Joint Dark Energy mission will use three techniques -- supernovae, weak lensing, and baryon acoustic oscillation -- but it will emphasize baryon acoustic oscillation. Good science, but many scientists think it can be done better, cheaper, and more dependably from the ground -- by BigBOSS.

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

Jet-propelled imaging for an ultrafast light source

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A particle gun tested at Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light Source and soon to be installed at SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source fires liquid droplets less than a millionth of a meter in diameter, hundreds of thousands of times a second or faster. The sample jet sends the droplets across a tightly focused X-ray beam in single file, each droplet so small it contains only a single protein or virus.

Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy, Arizona State University

Ytterbium's broken symmetry

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The weak interaction has the shortest range of the fundamental forces and does some of the most peculiar things, like changing the flavor of quarks, governing the interactions of neutrinos, and violating parity -- nature's mirror symmetry. In ytterbium, researchers in Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Nuclear Science Division and the University of California at Berkeley have measured the largest parity violations ever observed in an atom.

Journal: Physical Review Letters
Funder: National Science Foundation

A new method to cleaner and more efficient CO2 capture

DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researcher has developed a screening method that would use ionic liquids -- a special type of molten salt that becomes liquid under the boiling point of water (100 degrees Celsius) -- to separate carbon dioxide from its source, making it a cleaner, more viable and stable method than what is currently available.

Journal: ChemSusChem

More than meets the eye: New blue light nanocrystals

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Berkeley Lab researchers have produced nontoxic nanocrystals that efficiently emit blue light and could also play a role in long-term storage of carbon dioxide.

Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

Testing relativity in the laboratory

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Xiang Zhang, a faculty scientist with the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and professor at the University of California Berkeley, lead a study in which it was determined that the interactions of light and matter with spacetime, as predicted by general relativity, can be studied using the new breed of artificial optical materials that feature extraordinary abilities to bend light and other forms of electromagnetic radiation.

Journal: Nature Physics
Funder: US Army, National Science Foundation

Protein structures revealed at record pace

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The structure of a protein in days -- not months or years -- ushers in a new era in genomics research. Scientists have developed a high-throughput protein pipeline that could expedite the development of biofuels, and elucidate how proteins carry out life's vital functions.

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