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Physical and Life Sciences
Lab researchers, NASA find space station’s surface microbial profile resembles skin of its crew members
A study conducted by a team of national laboratory and NASA researchers has found that the environment of the International Space Station is affected by the microbial composition of the astronauts themselves. The five-year research effort represents the first study to compare the space station's environmental microbial profile (or microbiome) to an astronaut’s microbiome…
LLNL researchers salvage broken arrow samples
It was a cool spring day in May 2019. LLNL researchers Mark Hart, Matt Lyman and Salustra Urbin were combing through rusted propellers and a split Mk4 bomb case in the foothills of Manzano Mountain, just a few miles east of Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico. The LLNL team was exploring three different plane crashes that had occurred on the mountain, but it was the…
Controlling ion transport for energy, environment
Understanding and controlling ion transport in porous materials and at hydrophobic interfaces is critical to a wide variety of energy and environmental technologies, ranging from ion selective membranes, drug delivery and biosensing to ion batteries and supercapacitors. However, a detailed understanding of nanoscale transport is still in its infancy. For instance,…
LLNL climate scientist Karl Taylor honored with California Air Resources Board award
Longtime Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) climate scientist Karl Taylor has received the California Air Resources Board (CARB) Haagen-Smit Clean Air Award for 2019, also known as the "Nobel Prize" of air pollution and climate science achievements. Taylor, who is among seven winners, was cited with a commendation that his "contributions — both in building…
Lab physicist named astronomical society fellow
The American Astronomical Society (AAS) has selected Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientist Peter Beiersdorfer as a fellow in its inaugural class of this accolade. The AAS fellows program was established in 2019 to confer recognition to AAS members for achievement and extraordinary service to the field of astronomy and the American Astronomical Society…
Technique harvests waste heat from untapped sources
Thermoelectric materials convert heat to electricity or vice versa. However, their application to harvest waste heat is limited by challenges in fabrication and materials. Finding cost-effective ways to cover large and potentially complex surfaces has remained an issue but is crucial to take advantage of waste heat sources. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)…
Americans used less energy in 2019
Turning those lights off when you leave has a benefit. In 2019, Americans used less energy than in 2018, according to the most recent energy flow charts released by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). Each year, LLNL releases flow charts that illustrate the nation's consumption and use of energy. Americans used 100.2 quads (quadrillion BTU) of energy, which is 1…
Lab antibody, anti-viral research aids COVID-19 response
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists are contributing to the global fight against COVID-19 by combining artificial intelligence/machine learning, bioinformatics and supercomputing to help discover candidates for new antibodies and pharmaceutical drugs to combat the disease. See the visualization Backed by five high performance computing (HPC) clusters…
ARC results provide a ‘pleasant surprise’
When scientists saw the results from the first-ever Discovery Science experiment on the National Ignition Facility’s (NIF) Advanced Radiographic Capability (ARC) laser, they were genuinely surprised: The experiment produced much higher energy electrons than predicted based on the laser energy and power used on these shots. Those results, which were not typical of new…
Scientists look to wildfires in hopes of finding missing source of carbonyl sulfide, link to plants’ CO2 uptake
Carbonyl sulfide is a naturally occurring gas that can help scientists understand how much carbon dioxide plants take out of the atmosphere for photosynthesis. In a new study in Geophysical Research Letters, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists and collaborators looked at how much carbonyl sulfide (OCS) comes from forest fires and other burning biomass,…
Planetary defenders validate asteroid deflection code
Planetary defense researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) continue to validate their ability to accurately simulate how they might deflect an Earth-bound asteroid in a study that will be published in the April issue of the American Geophysical Union journal Earth and Space Science. The study, led by LLNL physicist Tané Remington, also identified…
Antibiotics can limit body’s ability to uptake analgesics
LLNL biologists have found manipulating the gut microbiome with antibiotics alters the uptake and effectiveness of acetaminophen. The effectiveness of drug treatments can vary widely between individuals, which can lead to decreased efficacy or increased adverse reactions. Much of the variation can be contributed to genetics, but environmental factors such as nutritional…
Seeing metal interfaces as they transform
The regions separating individual crystals in a material are notorious defects, spoiling the simple arrangement of atoms within the crystals. To improve the understanding of how those defects, called grain boundaries, create stronger and more durable materials, a team of scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and Max-Planck-Institut für…
Laboratory researchers describe how antineutrino detectors could aid in nuclear nonproliferation efforts
A tiny, invisible particle could offer help for a big problem — the threat of nuclear proliferation. For more than six decades, scientists have been developing instruments for fundamental physics that can detect antineutrinos, particles that have no electric charge, almost no mass and easily pass through matter. Antineutrinos are emitted in vast quantities by nuclear…
NIF-JLF User Group 2020 Meeting
At the recent 2020 NIF and Jupiter Laser Facility (JLF) User Group meeting, we ask attendees to tell us why the annual conference is important for their work and for the exciting future of high energy density science.
Computers, physics, math shape groundbreaking career
Growing up in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientist Joe Morris spent much of his time conducting home experiments with chemicals, test tubes and pipettes before moving on to electronics and computer programming. “My parents taught me to be curious, seek answers and be a free thinker,” Morris said of his mother and…
Machine learning accelerates high-performance materials development and deployment
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and its partners rely on timely development and deployment of diverse materials to support a variety of national security missions. However, materials development and deployment can take many years from initial discovery of a new material to deployment at scale. An interdisciplinary team of LLNL researchers from the Physical…
Flash droughts present challenge for warning system
Flash droughts are a type of extreme event distinguished by rapid intensification of drought conditions with severe impacts. They unfold on subseasonal to seasonal timescales (weeks to months), presenting a new challenge for improving predictions of when flash droughts occur. In new research published in the March 2 edition of Nature Climate Change, a multi-institutional…
Lab physicist awarded 2020 dissertation prize
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) physicist Natalie Hell has been awarded the 2020 Dissertation Prize from the Laboratory Astrophysics Division (LAD) of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). Hell received the prize for her outstanding experimental doctoral dissertation in laboratory astrophysics. Her thesis, “Benchmarking Transition Energies and Emission…
Injury-induced joint degeneration accelerated in older animals
Aging and injury are two major risk factors for osteoarthritis (OA), yet very little is known about how aging and injury interact and contribute to OA disease development. In a new study, researchers from LLNL, UC Merced, and UC Davis Medical Center examined age- and injury-related molecular changes in mouse knee joints that could contribute to OA. Using RNA sequencing,…
