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Physical and Life Sciences
Mapping ‘fossil water’ helps achieve sustainable groundwater management in California
Identifying the areas where paleowater or “fossil water” — water that recharged before the Holocene started 12,000 years ago — is pumped for drinking water supply helps managers decide whether groundwater can sustainably meet future demands. This type of groundwater recharged during rainy periods under cooler and wetter conditions that ended about 10,000 years ago. Since…
Lab researchers win R&D 100 award
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers are among the developers of the top 100 industrial inventions worldwide, winning an R&D 100 award at this year’s annual event. The trade journal R&D World Magazine announced the winners of the awards, often called the “Oscars of invention,” during a virtual event and on the magazine’s website. With this year…
Four LLNL scientists honored as APS fellows
Four Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists have been selected as 2020 fellows of the American Physical Society (APS). The new fellows represent a selection of physics expertise, ranging from laser plasma physics to magnetic fusion plasmas, to theoretical and computational understanding of plasma interactions and soft X-ray and free electron laser…
Lab has ties to Nobel Prize winner Andrea Ghez
The 2020 Nobel Prize in physics has been awarded to Andrea Ghez of the University of California, Los Angeles, and Reinhard Genzel of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, for their discovery of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. They share the award with Roger Penrose of Oxford University for his mathematical proof that black holes are…
Corona supercomputer gets funding for COVID-19 work
With funding from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), chipmaker AMD and information technology company Supermicro have upgraded the supercomputing cluster Corona, providing additional resources to scientists for COVID-19 drug discovery and vaccine research. The recent addition of nearly 1,000 AMD…
Santer honored with geophysical union award
Renowned Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) atmospheric scientist Ben Santer has been honored with the American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) 2020 Bert Bolin Award. The Bolin award is presented annually and recognizes groundbreaking research or leadership in global environmental change through cross-disciplinary, interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary research in…
LLNL team solves 100-year-old metallurgy puzzle
To solve a 100-year puzzle in metallurgy about why single crystals show staged hardening while others don’t, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists took it down to the atomistic level. The research appears in the Oct. 5 edition of Nature Materials. For millennia, humans have exploited the natural property of metals to become stronger or harden when…
Measuring electrical properties of methane hydrates leads to better understanding of gases in seafloors
Methane hydrate is a crystalline solid formed from methane gas and water that occurs naturally in the seafloor of the continental shelves worldwide. Hydrate is considered a source of natural gas, a natural hazard or a potential contributor to ocean acidification and climate change. Its presence lowers the electrical conductivity of the seafloor in comparison to hydrate…
LLNL researchers named to planetary science panels
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) geologist Lars Borg and physicist Megan Bruck Syal were named by the National Academies of Science to a pair of Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey committees last week, Borg as a member of the survey’s steering committee and Syal as a member of the Small Solar System Bodies panel. Over the coming year, the two…
Going with the flow for water purification
Membrane separations have become critical to human existence, with no better example than water purification. As water scarcity becomes more common and communities start running out of cheap available water, they need to supplement their supplies with desalinated water from seawater and brackish water sources. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers have…
Antibiotic pre-treatment reduces joint inflammation
Tearing an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) can be an excruciatingly painful injury. Nearly 50 percent of these patients will develop a secondary form of osteoarthritis, deemed post-traumatic osteoarthritis (PTOA). Researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and the UC Davis Medical Center have found that treatment with antibiotics prior to the injury…
A simple explanation to paradox of a spiraling football
The hallmark of a perfectly thrown football is a tight spiraling of the tip around the trajectory of the parabolic path of flight. Why the tip follows the trajectory has presented a paradox for some time. A team of researchers, including Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) physicist Willy Moss, provided a simple resolution to this paradox in a paper published as…
Inspiring future physicist while exploring dark energy
Doctoral student Victor Baules is spending his summer exploring the connection between dark energy and the expansion of our universe, but due to the pandemic, his research fellowship is more down-to-earth, taking place from his home in Alabama. Baules’ research trajectory in high-energy theory aligns with astrophysics research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory …
ICF implosions have significant 3D asymmetries
Data correlating two factors that lead to implosion asymmetries have brought Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists a step closer to understanding the gap between simulations and performance of inertial confinement fusion (ICF) experiments at the National Ignition Facility (NIF). These experiments aim to ignite a propagating fusion burn wave in deuterium…
Looking skin deep at the growth of neutron stars
In atomic nuclei, protons and neutrons share energy and momentum in tight quarters. But exactly how they share the energy that keeps them bound within the nucleus — and even where they are within the nucleus — remain key puzzles for nuclear physicists. A new study by researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and Washington University in St. Louis tackled…
LLNL team wins FLC national award
A shape memory foam material developed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers is the foundation of a lifesaving medical device that has won a national technology transfer award. Researchers from LLNL, Santa Clara-based Shape Memory Medical Inc. and Texas A&M University incorporated the foam technology into the IMPEDE® Embolization Plug that…
Lab earns 'A' grade in OPCW test
In another month-and-a-half, a score of chemists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Forensic Science Center (FSC) will start two weeks of long days to undertake the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) environmental proficiency test. Livermore chemists have been taking the proficiency tests each October since 2001, with LLNL serving as one…
LLNL an OPCW-designated lab for biomedical samples
In addition to maintaining its Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) laboratory designation for analyzing suspect environmental samples, LLNL also is an OPCW-designated laboratory for the analysis of biomedical samples. (See "Lab earns 'A' in OPCW test) In this instance, OPCW inspectors have the ability to collect biomedical samples for cases of…
Addressing electrolyte composition effects in CO2 electroreduction
The electrochemical conversion of CO2 into chemical fuels and other commodity products is an attractive strategy for mitigating carbon emissions while offsetting the use of fossil resources. Nevertheless, the adoption of such approaches in industrial settings has been limited by the poor efficiency and selectivity of the electrochemical cells that are used to drive CO2…
Formation of high-purity uranium via laser-induced thermal decomposition
Producing gram quantities of uranium metal in a controlled manner by traditional methods is challenging due to the complex chemistry of precursor material and extreme thermal requirements. In a recent study, LLNL researchers demonstrated a novel approach that combines modeling and an advanced experimental technique for extracting uranium from a uranium-containing compound…
