Back

Physical and Life Sciences

NIH looks to Lab to help develop chlamydia vaccine

A cooperative research center that aims to develop vaccines for chlamydia has been established by the National Institutes of Health at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). The new center, to be funded under a five-year, $10.1 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), will be a three-way partnership between LLNL and…

Nuclear impulse could deflect massive asteroid

An interagency team of researchers led by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has completed the first ever in-depth investigation into how an asteroid would respond to a nuclear deflection attempt. The research was published online in Acta Astronautica and will appear in print in early 2020. The focus of the investigation was 101955 Bennu, a massive asteroid that…

Summer scholar reels in ‘STRIPED FISH’ for NIF

In high school, Liz Grace thought physics was boring and instead considered studying psychology or music. But then a college professor inspired Grace to see the wonders of physics. Today, as a National Ignition Facility (NIF) & Photon Science Summer Scholar, she’s helping to design and build a diagnostic instrument that could become a revolutionary measurement tool for…

Volcanic ash sparks new discovery

Fort Lauderdale, Fla.— Imagine you’re getting ready to fly to your favorite vacation destination when suddenly a volcano erupts, sending massive amounts of ash into the atmosphere, and forcing the cancellation of your flight. That’s exactly what happened in April 2010 when Eyjafjallajokull, a volcano in Iceland, erupted and disrupted air travel in Europe for six days.…

Unexamined lunar rocks indicate early bombardment

A team of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists has challenged the long-standing theory that the moon experienced a period of intense meteorite bombardment about 3.8 billion years ago, when the first forms of life appeared on Earth. This theory is known as the Late Heavy Bombardment and is thought to have resulted from disturbance of the asteroid belt…

PLS wraps up summer student programs

Approximately 1000 students came to the Laboratory this summer to engage in work-study employment in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and administrative fields. PLS hosted a number of these students through its summer student programs (described below). Nuclear science and security The Glenn T. Seaborg Institute hosted 12 students this summer, including 8…

Application Period Opens for HEDS Postdoctoral Fellowship at LLNL

The HED Science Center is offering a highly competitive, two-year postdoctoral position at LLNL. The fellowship is open to researchers working in all HED-related disciplines. Fellows are free to pursue their own research agenda under the guidance of a senior staff scientist who serves as a mentor.

Six Lawrence Livermore researchers named 2019 fellows of the American Physical Society

Six Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists have been selected as 2019 fellows of the American Physical Society (APS). The new fellows represent a selection of physics expertise, ranging from computational physics and shock compression of condensed matter to instrument and measurement science. APS fellowships are awarded after extensive review and are…

Center Offers Short Course on Laser-Plasma Interactions

The High Energy Density Science (HEDS) will offer a three-week course during November 2019, which will explore the principles of laser-plasma interactions that are relevant to HED physics, with a focus on unmagnetized plasmas. Pierre Michel, an LLNL expert in plasma physics, will teach the course on-site at LLNL, and his recorded lectures will be available through the HEDS…

Lab's space program is on the rise

Nascent security challenges, novel scientific discoveries and new technology development opportunities are all part of outer space and in the focus of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's (LLNL) Space Science and Security Program (SSSP). The national security community now refers to space as a “warfighting domain.” As such, it is both integral to the U.S. defense…

New class of metal materials is its strong suit

In a perfect world, engineers would like metals to be strong and electrically conducive without any defects. But no metal is perfect. It loses strength due to synthetic defects, causing a softening of the material. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists and collaborators have created a new class of metal material that keeps its strength and…

Use of nanopores could lead to cleaner water

Not all nanopores are created equal. For starters, their diameters vary between 1 and 10 nanometers (nm). The smallest of these nanopores, called Single Digit Nanopores (SDNs), have diameters of less than 10 nm and only recently have been used in experiments for precision transport measurements. A team of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists and…

Climate ensembles help to identify detection time of human-caused climate signals

By comparing observations to large ensembles of climate model simulations, scientists can now better isolate when human-caused climate change was first identifiable in observations. Large Initial Condition Ensembles (LEs) are simulations of climate change performed with a single climate model. An LE typically has between 30 and 100 individual “members” in order to probe…

Study on stability of highly energetic materials

Understanding the physical and chemical characteristics of energetic materials under extreme conditions is crucial for their safe and efficient use. High-pressure phase transitions in such materials can cause significant changes in their initiation properties and detonation performance necessitating detailed structural studies. The high-pressure structural evolution of CL…

World's largest optical lens shipped to SLAC

When the world’s newest telescope starts imaging the southern sky in 2023, it will take photos using optical assemblies designed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers and built by Lab industrial partners. A key feature of the camera’s optical assemblies for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), under construction in northern Chile, will be its…

More accurate modeling of precipitation’s diurnal cycle

Precipitation is one of the most challenging aspects of climate to model, so the accuracy with which it is represented is therefore frequently cited as a barometer for the quality of climate forecasting. A shortcoming in current climate models is their inability to accurately predict diurnal precipitation patterns. Over land, the daily precipitation cycle is strong: As the…

The Little Neutrino Experiment That Could

Many experiments conducted by Lawrence Livermore researchers are designed to explore questions of fundamental science. Others are intended to test-drive new mission-critical technologies. Perhaps the most exciting experiments are those that undertake both objectives. PROSPECT, the Precision Oscillation and Spectrum Experiment, is a unique neutrino–antineutrino detection…

Going small can help determine where nuclear material came from and how it was made

Until recently, the analysis and identification of nuclear fuel pellets in nuclear forensics investigations have been mainly focused on macroscopic characteristics, such as fuel pellet dimensions, uranium enrichment and other reactor-specific features. But Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists are going a step further by going down to the microscale to…

Freshening up contaminated water

Nitrate is a troublesome groundwater contaminant that is mainly caused by fertilizer runoff on farmlands. Many wells in agricultural regions exceed the EPA limit for nitrate in drinking water, and without an economical treatment option the water is unfit for potable use. But Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and Stanford University researchers have developed a…

Enhancing fullerene–graphene nanocarbon networks for energy storage and harvesting

Lawrence Livermore researchers and collaborators at the University of Texas at El Paso have developed a concept that allows the integration of the characteristic properties of fullerene in 3D graphene networks. In the study, the team optimized the interaction between 3D graphene networks and fullerenes, specifically in the context of stability and charge transfer in an…