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Physical and Life Sciences
Scholarship awards highlight Livermorium Day
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) handed out the 2017 Edward Teller science scholarship awards to two Livermore high school students last week as the city celebrated the fifth anniversary of Livermorium Day, recognizing the Lab’s contribution to the discovery of superheavy element 116. Local dignitaries, Lab employees and community members gathered for the…
NIF technology could revolutionize 3D printing
A technology originally developed to smooth out and pattern high-powered laser beams for the National Ignition Facility (NIF) can be used to 3D print metal objects faster than ever before, according to a new study by Lawrence Livermore researchers. A team of Lab scientists report the findings in the latest issue of Optics Express, published online on May 15. This new…
Laser tracks therapeutics, nutrients, toxins
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers have developed a laser-based tabletop device to measure carbon-14 (radiocarbon). In biological systems, carbon-14 (14C ) can be used as a biochemical tracer to track micro-doses of nutrients, toxins and therapeutics in humans and animals. For example, the 14C can be tacked on to a vitamin. When a human ingests the…
Lawrence Livermore unveils 'heart-on-a-chip'
Prescription drugs have enabled millions of Americans with chronic medical conditions to live longer and more fulfilling lives, but many promising new drugs never make it to the human trials stage due to the potential for cardiac toxicity. Through "heart-on-a-chip" technology — modeling a human heart on an engineered chip and measuring the effects of compound exposure on…
Lab developed aerodynamic devices improve tractor trailer fuel efficiency
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers, as part of a Navistar SuperTruck I team, helped design a new type of tractor-trailer truck that significantly improves fuel economy. The new SuperTruck vehicle achieved 13 mpg on public roads and a 104 percent freight efficiency improvement. Forty-eight percent of this improvement comes from aerodynamic…
CASTing new limits on the dark matter search
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers, along with international collaborators, are on a mission to find particles contributing to dark matter, which is expected to make up most of the matter in the universe. In a paper published May 2 in Nature Physics, the CERN Axion Solar Telescope (CAST) at CERN presented new results on the properties of axions --…
Lab breakthrough in 3D printing of glass
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists and academic collaborators have demonstrated the synthesis of transparent glass through 3D printing, a development that could ultimately lead to altering the design and structure of lasers and other devices that incorporate optics. A team of LLNL researchers, along with scientists from the University of Minnesota and…
A new way to examine space, bugs and bones
A novel way to harness lasers and plasmas may give researchers new ways to explore outer space and to examine bugs, tumors and bones back on planet Earth. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) physicist Félicie Albert led an international team pursuing this new regime in laser research, which was described in a Physical Review Letters (PRL) paper published online…
Research comes through with flying colors
Like a chameleon changing colors to blend into the environment, Lawrence Livermore researchers have created a technique to change the color of assembled nanoparticles with an electrical stimulant. The team used core/shell nanoparticles to improve color contrast and expand color schemes by using a combination of pigmentary color (from inherent properties) and structural…
Tweaking a molecule's structure can send it down a different path to crystallization
Silky chocolate, a more effective medical drug or solar panels all require the same thing: just the right crystals to make the material. Now scientists trying to understand the paths crystals take as they form have been able to influence that path by modifying the starting ingredient. The insights could lead to better control of drug development, energy technologies and…
Study on impact of climate change on snowpack
An international team of scientists, including one from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), has found that up to 20 percent loss in the annual maximum amount of water contained in the Western United States’ mountain snowpack in the last three decades is due to human influence. Peak runoff in streams and rivers of the Western U.S. is strongly influenced by…
Pulsed ion beams reveal nonlinearity of radiation defect dynamics in silicon carbide
Materials scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) got a step closer to understanding defect interaction dynamics in silicon carbide. When an energetic particle, such as a neutron or an ion, impinges onto a material, the particle penetrates and creates displacements by ballistic processes of knocking off lattice atoms from their equilibrium positions…
Americans used more clean energy in 2016
Americans used more renewable energy in 2016 compared to the previous year, according to the most recent energy flow charts released by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Overall, energy consumption was nearly flat. Each year, the Laboratory releases energy flow charts that illustrate the nation's consumption and use of energy. Americans used 0.1 quads (quadrillion…
Lab scientists develop next-generation NIF optics to boost energy and limit damage
A new anti-reflective coating and a novel chemical process for laser optics, developed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers, represents an important breakthrough in its effort to boost the energy of the National Ignition Facility’s (NIF) 192 giant lasers, and cut the cost of repairing or replacing damaged optics vital to its operation. The coating…
Experiments validate models predicting failure modes in miniaturized lightweight structures
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers have adapted theoretical models to predict the failure behavior of miniaturized 3D lattice structures and have used advanced characterization techniques to demonstrate that these failures exist. Specifically, experiments showed a transition in failure modes for stretch-dominated lattice structures at low relative…
Here comes the sun in first-time images
The first images from the Solar Ultraviolet Imager (SUVI) instrument aboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s GOES-16 satellite capture a large coronal hole on the sun. The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) are part of NOAA’s space weather monitoring fleet. GOES-16 launched late last year. GOES-16 (known as "GOES-R" before its…
The softer side of NIF hohlraums
Considering that nothing precious comes from an online retailer without protective padding, could precision laser targets also benefit from similar high-tech swaddling? So far the answer is yes, for a group of scientists developing new target technologies for NIF that are intended to neutralize what they believe is one of the bigger challenges to achieving ignition. The…
A new toolkit for rapid bacterial detection
Finding the right treatment plan for patients who have antibiotic-resistant infections is a costly and time-consuming effort. For doctors in rural areas or developing countries, there often is no source of electricity nearby or sterile lab conditions with microbiology specialists on hand. The current standard for bacterial identification is to isolate and grow the species…
Weisz selected for Hutcheon Fellowship
A Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) postdoc who was mentored by Lab scientist Ian Hutcheon has been named the first recipient of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) new fellowship that honors Hutcheon. David Weisz, who has worked at the Lab since August as a chemist in the Chemical and Isotopic Signatures Group, has been selected to receive the "Dr. Ian…
Forensic Science Center Earns 7th Consecutive OPCW 'A' Grade
Despite a worldwide ban, chemical weapons pose a legitimate threat to global security. In 2013, rockets deployed the nerve agent sarin over a populated area of Syria, killing hundreds of people and hospitalizing thousands more. In accordance with the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) Treaty, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) leads…
